Apple-FBI Case Gets Nasty
The federal government and Apple both have dropped any semblance of civility in their battle over an encrypted iPhone, with the Department of Justice calling Apple’s arguments “corrosive” and threatening to demand the iOS source code and its master signing key for the operating system, and Apple’s lawyers calling the government “desperate”. The government on […]
EFF Says Bills Requiring Vendor Decryption of Phones Could be Unconstitutional
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has come out in opposition of a proposed California bill that would require Apple and other phone manufacturers to be able to decrypt the contents of any device they sell in the state. The California bill was introduced in January by Assemblyman Jim Cooper and it is designed to force vendors […]
Bypassing Phone Fingerprint Sensors With an Inkjet Printer
Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a clever hack that allows them to scan and then print a target user’s fingerprint and then use it to unlock a mobile phone via the fingerprint sensor. The method uses an off-the-shelf inkjet printer equipped with some special cartridges with conductive ink to print the fingerprint image […]
FCC Looking for Help Securing 5G, IoT Devices
SAN FRANCISCO–The FCC is appealing to the security and cryptographic communities for help in defining new security standards for both the forthcoming 5G wireless network and the exploding number of smart devices that make up the IoT. David Simpson, the chief of the FCC’s public safety and homeland security bureau, said in a discussion at […]
Balancing Privacy and Security in the Backdoor Debate
SAN FRANCISCO–The Apple-FBI debate has brought up many old arguments about wiretapping, surveillance, backdoors, and law enforcement, but while the discussions aren’t new, the technological context is. Cryptographers and privacy experts who are studying the case say that the recent proliferation of encrypted communications and devices has raised the stakes for everyone involved. “Wiretapping didn’t […]
‘This is Not a Case About One Isolated iPhone’
Apple’s lawyers say that not only does the compromised operating system that the FBI wants to install on the iPhone used by a terrorist not exist, but that it would take between six and 10 engineers and other employees as long as a month to create it. That fact, the company argues, along with a […]
Cook: ‘This is Not What Should Be Happening in This Country’
As the deadline for Apple to respond to a court order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone, both sides are upping the level of their rhetoric, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying “this is not what should be happening in this country.” In an interview Wednesday, Cook said that the company has refused to do […]
Acecard Android Malware Attacks Bank Apps
As more consumers and businesses have moved to mobile as their main platform for banking, attackers have taken notice and followed suit. The number of mobile banking Trojans increases every day, but some are more sophisticated than others, and researchers have discovered new variants in an old Android malware family that can attack more than […]
Rep. Lieu Asks Comey to Drop FBI’s Demands on Apple
Rep. Ted Lieu has sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey asking the bureau to drop its legal efforts to force Apple to circumvent its own security measures so the FBI can access data on an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino massacre. Lieu (D-Calif.), who has a background […]