Hackers claim proof the FBI is tracking Apple mobile devices

Blue_State · Sep 4, 2012

Mods, not sure if you want to move this into conspiracies or what, but I figured I would put it here since it was on CNN this morning.

During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of "NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv" turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc. the personal details fields referring to people appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted on many parts. no other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose.

Hackers claim proof the FBI is tracking Apple mobile devices - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech

The above, is a quote from the hackers and has not been proven. The data files however are available for download. It looks legitimate, at least on the surface.

Do you think this is a violation of our rights? Is our government overstepping in order to protect us?

Blue_State · Sep 4, 2012

This is to add a little conspiracy theory to my first post.

Do you think the Apple ruling that just came out against Samsung was manipulated in any way to help keep our government's love affair going with the Giant Tech Company? Given that Samsung has won similar patent infringement cases against Apple around the globe?

TheNextEra · Sep 4, 2012

Blue_State said:
This is to add a little conspiracy theory to my first post.

Do you think the Apple ruling that just came out against Samsung was manipulated in any way to help keep our government's love affair going with the Giant Tech Company? Given that Samsung has won similar patent infringement cases against Apple around the globe?

I don't think the Samsung ruling really has any bearing on it IMO since the lawsuit covered some of Samsungs older technology and not it's newer devices.

However, don't really have any comment on original part of the conspiracy cause I don't have much knowledge of hacking to know how much weight that comment carries in the OP.

rathi · Sep 4, 2012

We know for a fact that Anonymous obtained a large list of UDIDs for Apple devices. They claim it was obtained from the the FBI. While it will be difficult to confirm that claim, its hardly a conspiracy theory given that the FBI has many documented instances of illegal surveillance in the last decade. Any connection to the Samsung case is nonsense, that was just an incompetent judge and utterly moronic jury.

Blue_State · Sep 4, 2012

rathi said:
We know for a fact that Anonymous obtained a large list of UDIDs for Apple devices. They claim it was obtained from the the FBI. While it will be difficult to confirm that claim, its hardly a conspiracy theory given that the FBI has many documented instances of illegal surveillance in the last decade. Any connection to the Samsung case is nonsense, that was just an incompetent judge and utterly moronic jury.

I threw that in there for the fun of it.

I think the overall note is that our own government is out of control in its attempts to herd the general population and survey us. The government oversteps its bounds and our politicians look the other way.

Kandahar · Sep 4, 2012

This is definitely not a conspiracy theory, it's a legitimate story. Over a million UDIDs were compromised (the hackers claim 12 million but they've only released about 1 million so far), and the early evidence suggests that it came from an FBI laptop. You can check to see if your iPhone UDID has been compromised here: http://kimosabe.net/test.html. What I'm wondering is 1) Why does the FBI suck so badly at cybersecurity, and 2) Why are they tracking our iPhones in the first place?

Here is what TechCrunch has to say about the incident: http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/an...-million-allegedly-stolen-from-an-fbi-laptop/

Fiddytree · Sep 4, 2012

In this recent bit, they make claims about murdering hackers, faking their suicides, and then with no sense at all, they cut to....

If you buy a Playstation, you are not allowed to use it as you want to -- you
can only use it the Sony wants you to. If you have found a way to improve
something, just shut up. You are not allowed to share this info with anyone
else and let them make improvements, too. We are not the real owners of
anything anymore. We just borrow things from the System. Shiny, colorful
things, we agree to play with for a fee. A fee for life.
Because this system works only if you keep working to buy new things.
Not important if they are good things, just buy new crap, even better like that.
So everything gets outdated soon.

Politics, government conspiracy to murder....Playstation video game console tweaking. Hmm...

Helix · Sep 4, 2012

Kandahar said:
This is definitely not a conspiracy theory, it's a legitimate story. Over a million UDIDs were compromised (the hackers claim 12 million but they've only released about 1 million so far), and the early evidence suggests that it came from an FBI laptop. You can check to see if your iPhone UDID has been compromised here: kimosabe.net - UDUD hack check. What I'm wondering is 1) Why does the FBI suck so badly at cybersecurity, and 2) Why are they tracking our iPhones in the first place?

Here is what TechCrunch has to say about the incident: Antisec Leaks 1,000,001 UDIDs From A Trove Of 12 Million Allegedly Stolen From An FBI Laptop | TechCrunch

probably patriot act related. and i truly doubt it's just Apple phones.

Fiddytree · Sep 4, 2012

Probably. The hackers are just "butthurt" that they are being criminally persecuted for their iuvenille activities and didnt like that "the man" was trying to recruit them to potentially cause mischief on behalf of the federal government against citizens, and just wanted to do that themselves for cash and "the lulz" while pretending it is meaningful counterculture activity.

LiberalAvenger · Sep 4, 2012

It's a scary world. It's really hard to know, "Who's on first"

PeteEU · Sep 4, 2012

Helix said:
probably patriot act related. and i truly doubt it's just Apple phones.

It is Patriot Act related, and it is not just Apple phones.. but the Apple phones are the easiest to hack. Not long ago local police in a US city were hacking iPhones at street corners while cars were waiting for the red light to change.

joko104 · Sep 4, 2012

Blue_State said:
Mods, not sure if you want to move this into conspiracies or what, but I figured I would put it here since it was on CNN this morning.

Hackers claim proof the FBI is tracking Apple mobile devices - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech

The above, is a quote from the hackers and has not been proven. The data files however are available for download. It looks legitimate, at least on the surface.

Do you think this is a violation of our rights? Is our government overstepping in order to protect us?

I would have assumed it is a truism. Name any information the government could possible obtain that it won't?

Travelsonic · Sep 4, 2012

Fiddytree said:
Probably. The hackers are just "butthurt" that they are being criminally persecuted for their iuvenille activities and didnt like that "the man" was trying to recruit them to potentially cause mischief on behalf of the federal government against citizens, and just wanted to do that themselves for cash and "the lulz" while pretending it is meaningful counterculture activity.

[citation needed]

clownboy · Sep 4, 2012

To the hackers - DUH! That said, they (the FBI) will continue to gather all the info and ways to get into mibile devices that they can. Doesn't mean they're using them for peeks now, just means they have the info ready should they ever go for a warrant.

Wireless signals are not difficult to grab, and anyone who expects privacy when using a mobile device is seriously deluded. Heck, we never expected privacy from the old landline system (everyone thought AT&T was listening - because they were).

If we want privacy in communications that travel over the public space we'll have to roll out a privacy amendment to the Constitution. As it is, not such beast exists (though the SCOTUS has done their best to stretch what isn't there).

LiberalAvenger · Sep 4, 2012

clownboy said:
To the hackers - DUH! That said, they (the FBI) will continue to gather all the info and ways to get into mibile devices that they can. Doesn't mean they're using them for peeks now, just means they have the info ready should they ever go for a warrant.

Wireless signals are not difficult to grab, and anyone who expects privacy when using a mobile device is seriously deluded. Heck, we never expected privacy from the old landline system (everyone thought AT&T was listening - because they were).

If we want privacy in communications that travel over the public space we'll have to roll out a privacy amendment to the Constitution. As it is, not such beast exists (though the SCOTUS has done their best to stretch what isn't there).

not to go off course here but was not roe/wade a privacy ruling?

clownboy · Sep 4, 2012

LiberalAvenger said:
not to go off course here but was not roe/wade a privacy ruling?

Yeah, but it was a stretch by the SCOTUS to create something that did not exist in the Constitution. That aside, not even the same stretch would include electronic communications travelling over public space. You know how we caught Benedict Arnold don't you? We intercepted and read his mail without warrant. :mrgreen:

Fiddytree · Sep 4, 2012

His first link has the dump (not the OP). It's in there.

John.NoseTip · Sep 7, 2012

FBI Agent With 12 Million Apple Device IDs? WTF!

In case anyone missed it Anonymous claims to have hacked FBI agent Christopher Stangl's computer which contained a spreadsheet with 12 million apple device ids. Along with the ids they also claim to have user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers and addresses. As you can see CBS does their usual cracker jack job of reporting where they talk all about the hack with very little coverage of the most obvious question... Why the hell does an FBI agent have this information. The story is still in it's early stages so who knows how it will turn out but many of their past claims turned out to be true. It should be interesting to see what if any mainstream press coverage this gets in the future

FBI Agent's Laptop 'Hacked' To Grab 12 Million Apple IDs

Anonymous hackers claim to have obtained 12 million iPhone and iPad IDs from FBI computer - Tech Talk - CBS News

Tigger · Sep 7, 2012

Re: FBI Agent With 12 Million Apple Device IDs? WTF!

I agree, WTF..... WTF sort of security does the FBI computer system have that this guy was able to get through their firewall, security, etc... and into an agent's PC?

Midwest Lib · Sep 9, 2012