[Noisebridge-discuss] FBI, stumped by pimp's Android pattern lock, serves warrant on Google

Sat Apr 21 23:19:40 UTC 2012

Hah, me? I expected my response might not be received as I intended it.
I'll gladly clarify anything as needed. I hate how much our government has
abused basic human rights. I only wanted to clarify for people that skipped
the article that this didn't seem to be an example of that, because that
was my original thought until I read it. Which was probably an unnecessary
clarification (and the government sure doesn't need defending), but I don't
really see superfluous comments necessarily as "batshit insane".

On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Matt Joyce <matt at nycresistor.com> wrote:

> Wow.  You sir are batshit insane.  I love it.
>
> On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
> > On Sat, 21 Apr 2012, Taylor Alexander wrote:
> >>
> >> Well, its an interesting article about Android's security. I would agree
> >> that the ideal security situation would be if Google was unable to
> provide
> >> access to that information. But then the government would probably
> >> introduce
> >> and pass a bill that simply made doing that illegal. That would be
> >> interesting...
> >
> >
> > the government already walks a fine line of passing unenforceable laws
> and
> > thus diluting its credibility.  There are probably already laws
> > criminalizing the use of such encryption that we have forgotten about,
> and
> > which the government wisely avoids mention of because they reveal quite
> > starkly that the emperor wears no clothes.
> >
> > Witness the story of Josh Wolf, a bay area anarchist who had shot video
> of a
> > protest at which a police officer was hit on the head.  The court sought
> > prosecution and persecution to a level they would have never mobilized
> for a
> > mere citizen, because this was an affront to their authority.  They
> wanted
> > Josh Wolf to provide all unreleased footage and testify to the grand jury
> > answering any questions they had (although presumably stopping at the
> fifth
> > amendment) and, being an anarchist, he simply refused.
> >
> > they put him in jail for contempt of court, for nine months i think,
> hoping
> > they would break him with their mighty authority.  But eventually it
> became
> > clear that they had no power over him, and his lawyers showed that the
> > imprisonment would not compel his cooperation and was purely punitive,
> and
> > since he had been convicted of nothing he was released.
> >
> > a perfect example of the state overreaching its authority, which
> ultimately
> > flows only, in the words of Mao, from the barrel of a gun.
> >
> >
> >>
> >> As far as whether or not it was right for the government to request that
> >> information, there are a few facts in the article that made me worry
> less
> >> about this particular incident.
> >>
> >> The guy was a convicted felon on parole when this happened; he had been
> >> practicing as a pimp and according to her testimony had on at least one
> >> occasion convinced a 15 year old homeless girl to work for him, taking
> all
> >> of her profits and eventually beating the crap out of her when she
> started
> >> speaking to someone that promised to help her from that situation. After
> >> beating her up he forced her into his trunk and drove her somewhere else
> >> in
> >> the area, then left her outside "bleeding and bruised".
> >>
> >> He was sentenced to prison for several years, and once out violated his
> >> parole several times and was sent to jail for a year and a half. Once
> out
> >> he
> >> signed away his 4th amendment rights (and interesting part of how we do
> >> things here, but as long as he gets them back after parole is over I
> feel
> >> like I'm ok with that for certain convictions like violent crimes), and
> >> was
> >> under surveillance when they noticed he appeared to be pimping again
> using
> >> the Android phone in question.
> >>
> >> So basically - in this particular case it looks like our laws were
> doing a
> >> good job protecting us from scumbags, which they are meant to do.
> However,
> >> it would be more reassuring if Google was unable to help the police,
> >> simply
> >> because we could rest assured that their job would be harder when they
> >> *were* trying to abuse innocent people's rights.
> >>
> >> On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Ben Kochie <superq at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>      I think there have been other law enforcement requests for this
> >>      and
> >>      Google did say basically that.
> >>
> >>      On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 13:52, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
> >>      > i think it would be ideal if Google could honestly answer, "we
> >>      do not have
> >>      > the ability to unlock a phone which has been locked that way,
> >>      sorry."
> >>      >
> >>      >
> >>      > On Sat, 21 Apr 2012, Jonathan Lassoff wrote:
> >>      >
> >>      >> On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 10:37 AM, Ben Kochie
> >>      <superq at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>      >>>
> >>      >>> The funny part is, the feds are still not going to get the
> >>      password to
> >>      >>> unlock the device.  Have fun with that hashed password.
> >>       Google's not
> >>      >>> stupid enough to store user passwords in plain text.
> >>      >>
> >>      >>
> >>      >> Sure, but I would presume someone there can grant a session
> >>      token or
> >>      >> somehow respond affirmatively to an authentication request
> >>      from this
> >>      >> phone, so as to get it to unlock without the password.
> >>      >>
> >>      >> Still -- what a weird situation.
> >>      >>
> >>      >> --j
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
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