[Update 3/3/16]John McAfee Reveals To FBI, On National TV, How To Crack The iPhone (RT Interview)

[Silverfields]

1 minute ago, Arty said:

That is very true. 

But we need more Snowdens, to expose the government. 

I really wanna know how much of 9/11 was forged.

No more Top 10 Conspiracy Youtube channels for you lol

But yeah, we do need more Snowdens. We just need for them to NOT get caught.

[Arty]

Just now, NLR said:

No more Top 10 Conspiracy Youtube channels for you lol

But yeah, we do need more Snowdens. We just need for them to NOT get caught.

If you believe 9/11 had no  US gov involvement, don't turn a blind eye :).

and yea not get caught thats goood too. 

[Silverfields]

Just now, Arty said:

If you believe 9/11 had no  US gov involvement, don't turn a blind eye :).

and yea not get caught thats goood too. 

I've seen the various theory's on 9/11, and there are some fishy things that occurred.

That's a topic for another thread though

[mrkillius24]

On 3/1/2016 at 2:07 PM, Daring said:

Pretty much. No operating system would store passwords in plaintext. Unless the developer is that stupid, but if they're not, passwords will be hashed and salted.

He's not talking about going through the encryption.

He's talking about bypassing the encryption altogether.

Or also the fact that the fbi could already have a backdoor and could do this, without getting the right to a backdoor

 

Also for anyone that missed the youtube comment where he goes in more detail

 

"

I hope everyone knows that the Apple explanation was VASTLY dumbed down for the press. I know the A7 system chip well, including its secure enclave with separate coprocessor that stores the encrypted fingerprint, the ephemeral key generated by the co-processor that even Apple doesn't know, the secure enclave memory isolated from the rest of the processes on the chip, etc. Doesn't matter. The main ARM processor has its own memory and that's what I'm interested in. I will simply sidestep calling the secure enclave and pretend it doesn't exist. I'm not trying to get encrypted data, merely trying to force a complete boot of IOS. Trivial, given the fact that the entire A7 system chip has been expanded into a board with separate components for every subfunction of the chip. on the board, the secure enclave processor and it's memory are fully accessible, even though we won't need it. made in China.

""

[dalekphalm]

12 minutes ago, NLR said:

Not that we have much of a choice. I doubt a second revolutionary war would go well for us at this stage.

Frankly, the only way that the US will change is with progressive politics leading the way. People who want change, voting for people who are willing to bring that change. It's going to take a long time, and it will be hard.

 

But a successful revolution, frankly, is pretty well nigh impossible. Someone always uses the argument that "Well some of the military will side with the people!"

 

Yeah. True. That's probably likely. But some won't. Most probably won't. It will be a literal massacre, if it turns into open revolution. On both sides. You think Syria is bad? Now imagine that with 400+ Million people, thousands of tanks, helicopters, jets, APC's, etc.

 

A second revolution/civil war in the US would likely destroy it. Whatever remains were left would likely be picked over by the rest of the world. Hell, a US Civil War could easily trigger a third world war, given how some third parties might see it as an opportunity.

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, mrkillius24 said:

Also for anyone that missed the youtube comment where he goes in more detail

 

"

I hope everyone knows that the Apple explanation was VASTLY dumbed down for the press. I know the A7 system chip well, including its secure enclave with separate coprocessor that stores the encrypted fingerprint, the ephemeral key generated by the co-processor that even Apple doesn't know, the secure enclave memory isolated from the rest of the processes on the chip, etc. Doesn't matter. The main ARM processor has its own memory and that's what I'm interested in. I will simply sidestep calling the secure enclave and pretend it doesn't exist. I'm not trying to get encrypted data, merely trying to force a complete boot of IOS. Trivial, given the fact that the entire A7 system chip has been expanded into a board with separate components for every subfunction of the chip. on the board, the secure enclave processor and it's memory are fully accessible, even though we won't need it. made in China.

""

That's still just a load of bollocks though. Let's assume that it did work, you would still not be able to access any of the files in the user partition. In fact, you would not have to do any of what he described to do a "complete boot of iOS" since the phone will boot into that without a password (the OS partition is not encrypted). It's when you try to access anything in the user partition that it will ask for a password, and that's where all the sensitive data is stored.

 

Not only that, but even IF the OS was designed the way he says, and even IF his approached made any sense (it doesn't), you would still just end up with a bunch of encrypted data, since you don't have the key to decrypt it. You need the key. End of story.

 

McAfee is just talking out of his ass to get attention.

[mrkillius24]

Just now, LAwLz said:

That's still just a load of bollocks though. Let's assume that it did work, you would still not be able to access any of the files in the user partition. In fact, you would not have to do any of what he described to do a "complete boot of iOS" since the phone will boot into that without a password (the OS partition is not encrypted). It's when you try to access anything in the user partition that it will ask for a password, and that's where all the sensitive data is stored.

 

Not only that, but even IF the OS was designed the way he says, and even IF his approached made any sense (it doesn't), you would still just end up with a bunch of encrypted data, since you don't have the key to decrypt it. You need the key. End of story.

 

McAfee is just talking out of his ass to get attention.

No, as I said, He's just saying it's not completely impossible, that the fbi,cia,nsa,css probably have done it previously but want a backdoor at a major scale to spy on everyone.

 

Now what I think they could still do is once they have it in an emulator, they could bruteforce it until they get closer and closer.

 

And it's more of a precedent and politics than actual security.

In truth the spying agencies are full of shit, and just need more data to add to their mass collection

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

31 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Frankly, the only way that the US will change is with progressive politics leading the way. People who want change, voting for people who are willing to bring that change. It's going to take a long time, and it will be hard.

 

But a successful revolution, frankly, is pretty well nigh impossible. Someone always uses the argument that "Well some of the military will side with the people!"

 

Yeah. True. That's probably likely. But some won't. Most probably won't. It will be a literal massacre, if it turns into open revolution. On both sides. You think Syria is bad? Now imagine that with 400+ Million people, thousands of tanks, helicopters, jets, APC's, etc.

 

A second revolution/civil war in the US would likely destroy it. Whatever remains were left would likely be picked over by the rest of the world. Hell, a US Civil War could easily trigger a third world war, given how some third parties might see it as an opportunity.

Not only is a successful revolution impossible, but it has never happened to begin with. Correct me if I am wrong, but every revolution and quasi-revolution in history (that I can remember at least), has ultimately backfired and left the country in question in an even more miserable state in the long term.

 

As to that IMO silly argument, those that shout it to others are blissfully unaware of the volume of resources that the Governments have in their hands. Long story short, if the American citizens revolt, even assuming that ALL of the forces will side with them, they would be wiped out in no time at all. As you said, an absolute massacre on both sides. To say that the "government is afraid of them" in this context is little more than wishful thinking and false/blind optimism.

[Bensemus]

3 hours ago, NLR said:

This is about the FBI getting access to a phone that belonged to a terrorist, and could potentially save lives with the information it provides.

Pure red herring. They want a precedent so they can get back doors. When the case was filed there was one phone that needed to be unlocked. That number has climbed drastically. There are now hundreds of iPhones that police and the FBI want unlocked if they win this case. The government has tonnes of surveillance yet have nothing to show for it. Cracking iPhones will just cause criminals to use a different method of communication (like unencrypted sms) while all the law abiding citizens now have to deal with their phones now being much more susceptible to hackers.

[FPSwithaWacomTablet]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Because it sets a precedence, that's why Apple is refusing.

 

If they do this now, this one time, it will mean that in the future, the government can bully Apple into making changes or rewrites to their operating system at all. The government should not have that kind of control over a company - especially one that operates internationally.

 

Because if Apple does it for the US, then the UK, China, etc, are all gonna come crawling asking for the same treatment.

But Apple already has to give the source code to China, why is this even a thing?

[Bensemus]

40 minutes ago, Arty said:

I really wanna know how much of 9/11 was forged.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ae911truth. Can't say how much if it is true but they do seem to have valid concerns with the official story backed up by experiments and experience.  

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, mrkillius24 said:

No, as I said, He's just saying it's not completely impossible, that the fbi,cia,nsa,css probably have done it previously but want a backdoor at a major scale to spy on everyone.

 

Now what I think they could still do is once they have it in an emulator, they could bruteforce it until they get closer and closer.

 

And it's more of a precedent and politics than actual security.

In truth the spying agencies are full of shit, and just need more data to add to their mass collection

I agree that the FBI just wants a backdoor for iOS, but McAfee is talking nonsense.

If his goal is to bypass the security enclave then someone should tell him that the iPhone 5C does not even have one to begin with...

 

But the thing is that you can't bypass the security enclave, because it is the security enclave that accepts the PIN, and outputs a way more complex password which is the actual key for the encrypted partition. If you want to brute force the PIN then you need to security enclave (on phones that actually has it, the iPhone 5C does not). If you want to brute force without the security enclave then instead of a 4 digit code you might need a 64 character long password... for each separate file. Brute forcing a 4 digit PIN is really easy. Brute forcing a 64 character long password is anything but.

[Arty]

3 minutes ago, Bensemus said:

Can't say how much if it is true (but they do seem to have valid concerns with the official story backed up by experiments and experience.  )

That's the problem

[Bensemus]

17 minutes ago, FPSwithaWacomTablet said:

But Apple already has to give the source code to China, why is this even a thing?

That's not ideal but it's not the same as a back door. China isn't getting Apples private keys and while they will know intimately how iOS works they still have to come up with their own ways past the same defences that are currently stumping the FBI.

[Bensemus]

3 minutes ago, Arty said:

That's the problem

I know but that group does have a peer reviewed paper out. I'd watch it before dismissing it

[Arty]

Just now, Bensemus said:

I know but that group does have a peer reviewed paper out. I'd watch it before dismissing it

that's not the problem, the problems we can probably never will know the total truth. 

[Bensemus]

1 minute ago, Arty said:

that's not the problem, the problems we can probably never will know the total truth.

Sad but true

[Sauron]

5 hours ago, No Nrg said:

Also, had no idea this guy was running for president in the fringes of the political spectrum. Does he seriously think anyone would elect him?

McAfee is a professional troll.

[ChineseChef]

14 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

But a successful revolution, frankly, is pretty well nigh impossible. Someone always uses the argument that "Well some of the military will side with the people!"

 

Yeah. True. That's probably likely. But some won't. Most probably won't. It will be a literal massacre, if it turns into open revolution. On both sides. You think Syria is bad? Now imagine that with 400+ Million people, thousands of tanks, helicopters, jets, APC's, etc.

Having been in and/or working with the US military every day for the last 13, I can say that the majority of the military would not go full massacre against the American people.  While there are some young guys that would more than love to go full machine guns on a  large crowd of people, the guys in charge would not likely give those orders on a mass scale.  If you are talking about putting down a single large scale riot in one city, maybe.  But the US military is not going to turn all guns against the American people.

 

Shooting up some (insert derogatory racial term here) over in foreign country unknownistan is very different than shooting up your friends and neighbors.  The country is different, the food is different, the people dress differently, speak a different language.  It makes it easy to "dehumanize".  But even then, the military has a way more restrictive ROE than the local police in the US, and they don't really just go mowing down mass groups of people.  And you have to remember, a lot of the military is kind of against the current president, and don't like most of the likely candidates.  You would be hard pressed to get the military to march down the streets and enforce martial law.  Not even accounting for the fact that the US is freakin huge, and the military can't even pretend to enforce law in all the major cities.  And once you start using high level military tech to make examples of people, you more often force the moderates to pick a side.  Besides, how many white middle/upper class American children will be plastered all over every news outlet in every country before the whole US goes insane?

 

Another major point to consider, military scale and level hardware is really bad at "keeping the peace" in a population you are trying to rule peacefully.  Farmers with old crappy AKs have been holding off highly advanced militaries in the middle east because there is no real way to fight them, short of genocide.  And you can't really genocide a population you will want to rule afterwards.  Plus, the political climate would never allow military usage, because once the protestors/revolutionaries got enough support, politicians who think they can benefit from it will join them.  The government itself will fracture, and likely some real election/political change will happen.  All we would really need is enough unrest to let the government know that we were willing to revolt, and the politicians would use it to their advantage to seize power.  They would make some big changes that the protestors wanted, everything would calm down, and in the end, likely nothing would really change.

 

TL:DR;  The US military is not going to turn against the US people unless we get Hitler level charisma and national discontent.  Different factions of the gov't would use the discontent to get change, then dissipate the hatred before it went full revolution.  The current power structures want to maintain control.

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Not only is a successful revolution impossible, but it has never happened to begin with. Correct me if I am wrong, but every revolution and quasi-revolution in history (that I can remember at least), has ultimately backfired and left the country in question in an even more miserable state in the long term.

 

As to that IMO silly argument, those that shout it to others are blissfully unaware of the volume of resources that the Governments have in their hands. Long story short, if the American citizens revolt, even assuming that ALL of the forces will side with them, they would be wiped out in no time at all. As you said, an absolute massacre on both sides. To say that the "government is afraid of them" in this context is little more than wishful thinking and false/blind optimism.

One could argue that the American Revolution was quite successful. They revolted against the British (With some assistance from the French, if I recall correctly), and became the largest economy in the world. If they had lost the war, or if it never happened, would the US still be a colony? Would the UK now be the largest economy, with the power and might of the combined US/UK military? All speculation. More than likely, the US would have still gained independence, just much later, and peacefully (Like the Canadians - although we're still a part of the Commonwealth, with the Monarch (Queen Elizabeth II) as our ruler (Who in practice has basically no power of the Canadian government or affairs).

 

In any case, you would be hard pressed to argue that the US was better off before, as a Colony.

 

The Civil War, on the other hand? That uprising was unsuccessful, since the revolutionaries (the confederates) lost the war. And even if they had won, I don't think it would have made the US better off. I don't think any rational person thinks that the confederates should have won the war.

2 hours ago, FPSwithaWacomTablet said:

But Apple already has to give the source code to China, why is this even a thing?

Here's the thing - source code does not include the private or public signing keys. China can reverse engineer how iOS works via that source code, but what they cannot do, is break the Apple encryption/security without:

1. some loophole Apple doesn't know about

2. the encryption keys

2 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

Isn't this the guy who's company was responsible for crashing a lot of systems back in 2000 due to a bug in his shitty av?

A guy who hasn't been involved with that company since 1994... Seriously, why do people need to be reminded of that? Any shitty bugs in their AV in the year 2000 had nothing to do with John McAfee - he hadn't been part of the company for six years at that point.

 

Believe it or not, but McAfee AV was a good product at one point.

[PlayStation 2]

If John McAfee is sucking Intel's dick then this isn't really surprising.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

I didn't know he left the company in 1994.  That might be why.  Yes, it was a good product, but it is shit now.

I haven't used it recently, but we used to use an older version of their Enterprise product at work before switching to Kaspersky Endpoint, and it was pretty garbage.

[Guest Kloaked]

@No Nrg Here's an update to the whole thing from Ars: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/john-mcafee-better-prepare-to-eat-a-shoe-because-he-doesnt-know-how-iphones-work/

[No Nrg]

13 hours ago, Kloaked said:

@No Nrg Here's an update to the whole thing from Ars: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/john-mcafee-better-prepare-to-eat-a-shoe-because-he-doesnt-know-how-iphones-work/

Thanks for the update. Backs up the claim that once again McAfee is out there trolling.

 

Guess he's just enjoying his time in the limelight, trying to get his name out there for his campaign for president literally nobody knows he's running.

[dimitriianghelov]

41 minutes ago, No Nrg said:

Thanks for the update. Backs up the claim that once again McAfee is out there trolling.

 

Guess he's just enjoying his time in the limelight, trying to get his name out there for his campaign for president literally nobody knows he's running.

 

he might be but is arstechnica expert in the field ? i wouldn't put my money it