While some law enforcement agencies use hackers to try and break iPhone encryption, detectives in the U.K. found a simpler solution: mugging suspects before they get the chance to lock their phones.
According to a report from the BBC, the tactic was revealed after a cybercrime unit smashed a fake credit card fraud racket:
“Officers realised crucial evidence in the investigation was concealed on a suspect’s iPhone – but it would be unobtainable if the device was locked. So a covert team seized it in the street while the suspect was on a call — beating the security settings.”
This unorthodox workaround comes as concerns mount over the types of information that might be locked away on smartphones owned by criminals and terrorists. Apple’s strong encryption, and refusal to build a backdoor into iOS, earned praise from privacy and security advocates (and scorn from the Department of Justice).
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The battle over whether Apple should help law enforcement hack iPhones was probably the biggest story the company was involved with this year.
The U.K. authorities’ decision to beat iPhone security in this way reportedly came after officers considered forcing a suspect to unlock their phone using Touch ID, only to find out that they didn’t have permission to do so.
In the end, they opted for a legal “street robbery” by waiting for the suspect to use his phone and then swooping in to grab it. As the suspect was restrained by some officers, another was given the job of continually swiping the iPhone’s display to make sure the handset wouldn’t lock before the necessary data could be obtained.
As a result of the seizure, police were able to crack the crime ring. The suspect has been jailed for five-and-a-half years.
Cracking encryption has been a big theme in the U.K. as of late. Recently, the country’s government pushed through its Investigatory Powers Act, aka the “snooper’s charter,” giving it unprecedented abilities to undermine encryption and push for surveillance backdoors.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
2 responses to “U.K. cops use low-tech method to get around iPhone encryption”
It is difficult to decide how much of a pinch of salt should be used regarding this topic, ie. defeating encryption. How much of it is real news and how much is fabricated and deposited on us in order to cloud the issue and have us believe and accept ordinarily unacceptable actions, laws, norms of behaviour, etc.? Could it actually be true that the powers-that-be are really under dire threat from apparent terrorists and criminals or could it be that the powers-that-be simply want to implement new laws and policy, helped along by massive data mining facilities like GCHQ in Gloucester to help them to spy, snoop, keep watch and overtly control the peons? Us And Them was a song by Pink Floyd recorded way back in late 1972 for early 1973 release on their seminal Dark Side Of The Moon, that underscores the increasing separation between control-hungry powers-that-be and ordinary citizens that is as pertinent today as it was then, 46 years ago, the main difference being that now we are more indifferent, complacent, brainwashed.
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