---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <35E3235C-21A0-4395-8919-E936258766F9@roscom.com> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 09:31:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Bitcoin book and course Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies Arvind Narayanan, Joseph Bonneau, Edward Felten, Andrew Miller, Steven Goldfeder with a preface by Jeremy Clark Draft Feb 9, 2016 https://d28rh4a8wq0iu5.cloudfront.net/bitcointech/readings/princeton_bitcoin_book.pdf https://www.coursera.org/course/bitcointech ***** Moderator's Note ***** This is a good article about bitcoin, and since cryptocurrencies are likely to become more important in the future, I'm approving a (slightly) non-telecom post. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <F4649B69-CF9C-45C4-9DF5-65420FB7E95F@roscom.com> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 08:33:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Attack of the Week: Apple iMessage A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering: Attack of the Week: Apple iMessage Attack of the Week: Apple iMessage Today's Washington Post has a story entitled "Johns Hopkins researchers poke a hole in Apple's encryption", which describes the results of some research my students and I have been working on over the past few months. As you might have guessed from the headline, the work concerns Apple, and specifically Apple's iMessage text messaging protocol. Over the past months my students Christina Garman, Ian Miers, Gabe Kaptchuk and Mike Rushanan and I have been looking closely at the encryption used by iMessage, in order to determine how the system fares against sophisticated attackers. The results of this analysis include some very neat new attacks that allow us to -- under very specific circumstances -- decrypt the contents of iMessage attachments, such as photos and videos. http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/03/attack-of-week-apple-imessage.html Dancing on the Lip of the Volcano: Chosen Ciphertext Attacks on Apple iMessage https://isi.jhu.edu/~mgreen/imessage.pdf ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ncs0v7$5e2$1@dont-email.me> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 13:58:59 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Apple vs. FBI: iPhone encryption battle likely to continue even after San Bernardino by Joel Rubin , Paresh Dave and Richard Winton The U.S. government's announcement that it might be able to unlock a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone without Apple's help is not likely to end the debate over encryption, privacy and national security. Law enforcement has complained for many months that data encryption creates a major investigative hurdle in the hunt for killers, human traffickers, child pornographers and other offenders. The latest fight over the issue arose after the Dec. 2 attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino that left 14 dead and 22 wounded. Justice officials have concluded that the assault by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife was an act of terrorism. www.latimes.com -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ncs0h2$3g0$1@dont-email.me> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 13:51:26 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple's Help to Unlock iPhone By KATIE BENNER and MATT APUZZO RIVERSIDE, Calif. - The Justice Department said on Monday that it might no longer need Apple's assistance in opening an iPhone used by a gunman in the San Bernardino, Calif., rampage last year. The disclosure led a judge to postpone a court hearing over the issue and temporarily sidesteps what has become a bitter clash with the world's most valuable company. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/technology/apple-fbi-hearing-unlock-iphone.html -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ncs1ui$9qg$1@dont-email.me> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 14:15:41 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Apple wants to know how the FBI plans to crack the San Bernardino iPhone by Chris Smith The FBI surprised everyone following its legal battle with Apple by asking the court to suspend Tuesday's hearing, as it found a new potential way to hack the iPhone 5c recovered from a San Bernardino shooter without Apple's help. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym has quickly agreed to postpone the hearing. The FBI has until April 5th to try its new iPhone hacking method, which an unspecified third-party brought to the Bureau's attention. The order asking Apple to assist the FBI in the investigation is stayed, pending a status update from the government. http://bgr.com/2016/03/22/apple-fbi-iphone-encryption/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ncs1ui$9qg$1@dont-email.me> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 14:15:41 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Apple wants to know how the FBI plans to crack the San Bernardino iPhone by Chris Smith The FBI surprised everyone following its legal battle with Apple by asking the court to suspend Tuesday's hearing, as it found a new potential way to hack the iPhone 5c recovered from a San Bernardino shooter without Apple's help. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym has quickly agreed to postpone the hearing. The FBI has until April 5th to try its new iPhone hacking method, which an unspecified third-party brought to the Bureau's attention. The order asking Apple to assist the FBI in the investigation is stayed, pending a status update from the government. http://bgr.com/2016/03/22/apple-fbi-iphone-encryption/

Well, this, as we used to say, is where the plot thickens. Here again we have one of my lists-of-possibilities: The FBI has realized that Apple can out-lobby and out-spend them, and will likely win the court battle that the FBI started. The NSA has decided to stake its claim as the uber-codebreaker of the world, and to deny the FBI the capability it would gain by obtaining a hacked version of IOS 8 from Apple. Apple execs have received inducements, promises, etc., which made them decide to help crack the iPhone in question without admitting they're doing it. Apple and the FBI have gotten all the free ink they both wanted from this episode, and the unnamed third-party who has offered to crack this iPhone is the puff of smoke at the end of the magician's act. Some or all of the above. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Bill

-- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) When the men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go And you've just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving slow - Jefferson Airplane ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ncs1hm$7cl$1@dont-email.me> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 14:08:51 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: FBI reportedly "stunned" by iPhone IOS 8 encryption The FBI was reportedly "stunned" when it first got to see what Apple had planned for iPhone encryption, after it received early access to iOS 8 (where Apple introduced its new, stronger iPhone encryption) so that it could examine how its evidence-gathering techniques would have to change. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple's top lawyer Bruce Sewell traveled to Washington soon after Apple previewed iOS 8 back in 2014, with the aim of discussing Apple's proposed changes with then-Attorney General Eric Holder and other administration officials. It was at this point (and not just the recent San Bernardino shooting case) when the FBI realized it had a fight on its hands. http://www.cultofmac.com/418744/fbi-was-stunned-by-apples-hardened-encryption-of-ios/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Wed, 23 Mar 2016