iphone
© Kelvinsong / Wikimedia Commons
Last Wednesday, Apple rejected the FBI's 'request' to build a back door to the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters. The iPhone apparently has an auto-erase function which destroys all of its encrypted data if it detects a hacker. Now, the DOJ has asked a federal judge to compel Apple to comply, adding, "Rather than assist the effort to fully investigate a deadly terrorist attack by obeying this court's [previous order], Apple has responded by publicly repudiating that order." The outrage! So according to the DOJ, Apple is essentially siding with the terrorists. Spoken like true authoritarian fascists. "Either give up all your freedoms, or you're with the terr'ists! who want to take away your freedoms!"

Now, in a new development, Apple is saying that the phone in question had its password changed within 24 hours of being in government custody. They say that this prevents them from getting backup information.

RT reports:
Exactly who or how the Apple ID password was changed is unconfirmed, but in court filings, the US Department of Justice alleged that the San Bernardino Health Department, "in an attempt to gain access to some information in the hours after the attack, was able to reset the password remotely, but that had the effect of eliminating the possibility of an auto-backup."

However, Apple executives only learned about the change after proposing four solutions for recovering the encrypted data, all without having to compromise security for millions of customers with a so-called "backdoor" that authorities are pressuring the company to make.

One idea involved connecting the iPhone to a known Wi-Fi network in order to prompt an iCloud backup, but Apple engineers failed in their attempts to do so, and that's when they realized the password change.
Does anyone else detect a slight hint of fish? Forgive me for being a tad conspiracy-minded, but the SB shootings already stink to high heaven. To me at least, it looks at least possible that the FBI already got access to the phone, filled it with planted 'evidence', possibly added the encryption themselves, changed the password, and is now faking an inability to access that data. So they are compelling Apple to create a backdoor that would further compromise the security of every iPhone on the planet. Two birds - another successful false flag, another freedom down the toilet - one stone! Impossible to say for sure, but I wouldn't put it past the FBI. They are, after all, the ones responsible for practically all 'terror incidents' on U.S. soil!
Also on Friday, Apple recommended Congress resolve the escalating legal fight over a federal judge's order compelling the company to assist the FBI in breaking through the encryption of the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorist mass shooters. Apple insists that would require creating a whole new operating system that would also serve as a key to unlock all encrypted protection on iPhones sold worldwide.

Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook severely criticized the court order, writing in an open letter that the demand "has implications far beyond the legal case at hand."
Not that Apple doesn't already 'cooperate' with snoops in all sorts of other ways... But you can really get the measure of a person by their response to this news. Just look at all the people on Twitter criticizing Cook's decision. Apparently these people really believe their freedom will be protected by giving up their freedoms.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai also chimed in, after Snowden questioned whether Google had already chosen the side of the snoops.


Security expert John McAfee recently made the U.S. government an offer they can't reasonably refuse:
"I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet," McAfee wrote in an op-ed on Business Insider. "I will, free of charge, decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone, with my team. ... This is a black day and the beginning of the end of the US as a world power," McAfee wrote in his piece, which reads like a kudos to Apple's Tim Cook, who refused to assist the feds.
...
"After years of arguments by virtually every industry specialist that back doors will be a bigger boon to hackers and to our nation's enemies than publishing our nuclear codes and giving the keys to all of our military weapons to the Russians and the Chinese, our government has chosen, once again, not to listen to the minds that have created the glue that holds this world together," McAfee wrote.

However, McAfee says he has a solution - his team of talented prodigies, which the FBI, unlike the Russians or Chinese, would never hire just because of their lifestyle and "24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, and a tattooed face."
...
"I would eat my shoe on the Neil Cavuto show if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino phone. This is a pure and simple fact," he wrote.

Wrapping up his piece, McAfee wrote: "If you accept my offer, then you will not need to ask Apple to place a back door in its product, which will be the beginning of the end of America."
So what do you think the chances are that the authorities will accept McAfee's offer? I know, rhetorical question...

Finally, there's this quote from Snowden that pretty much sums it up: