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

[Matt Joyce]

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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