
Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID - outworlder
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/05/02/judge-unlock-iphone-touch-id
======
JoshTriplett
You can be compelled to provide fingerprints based on a warrant; I'm
unsurprised (and not particularly bothered) that you can be compelled to use
them on your own device. If you care about security, don't use a fingerprint
alone; at most, only use it as a second factor for two-factor authentication.
More generally, don't use anything that removes your ability to make a choice
under duress, in whichever direction you see fit, based on what you're
protecting and what you're being threatened with.

I find the ongoing case of someone being jailed indefinitely for refusing to
supply a passphrase _far_ more concerning than someone being compelled to
supply a fingerprint.

~~~
JadeNB
You've described the state of the law as it is, but surely that doesn't
address the issue of the law as it should be. I think that it is possible to
be an intelligent but non-technical person and (EDIT: forgot the word 'not')
realise that, all technical issues aside, the "something you know" and
"something you have" parts of a password are on completely different legal
footing; and I think that it is reasonable even for a technical person to
wonder whether it should be so.

EDIT: I know that complaints about downvotes are not welcome, and it's quite
possible that I'm wrong in what I say, but I'd like to be told how rather than
just downvoted! My comment was meant to be a constructive contribution.

EDIT 2: Wow, these many replies help a lot! Thanks!

~~~
dragonwriter
"Something you have" isn't part of a password, its an alternative, non-
password factor; passwords are always "something you know".

There is a trend to use biometrics in place of passwords, which is a
convenience feature which compromises security, even though it is often
misrepresented as a security feature. (Using biometrics as a second factor
helps security, but there is a big difference between "and" and "or" security
measures.)

~~~
m_eiman
A fingerprint can improve security in at least one way: it makes it impossible
to shoulder-surf your password since you're not entering it.

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AdmiralAsshat
Always remember: your fingerprint is identification. You can be forced to
identify yourself to law enforcement. Do not make it your password. Your
password is something you know, not something you are.

~~~
cloudjacker
Or just restart your iPhone.

~~~
astrodust
I've heard more than one person say if you're going to have to surrender your
phone, if there's even the risk of it, turn it off.

~~~
jedmeyers
At the very least, use the wrong finger 5 times on the sensor and it will
disable the Touch ID.

~~~
jdmichal
And risk being charged with obstruction. Like perjury, it's naturally
difficult to prove, but one should be aware of the risks before moving down
that course.

~~~
jedmeyers
No, I mean, disable Touch ID before any potential situation where the phone
might be seized for any reason, not after a judge had ordered you to unlock
the phone with a thumbprint.

~~~
jdmichal
The moment you believe the phone is going to be seized by law enforcement and
you act accordingly to make it more difficult or impossible to retrieve data
from it, you are guilty of spoliation / tampering of evidence. This is the
same set of laws that makes it illegal to shred papers before law enforcement
can get to them. Locking or erasing your phone is simply the digital
equivalent.

~~~
Matt3o12_
Couldn't you also apply this argument to everything? The client turned on full
disk encryption 5 years before this arrest because he wanted to make it
difficult for anybody (including law enforcement) to read the content of the
disk.

I think you could just argue that you didn't want the disturbed and/or wanted
to save some battery.

~~~
jdmichal
> Couldn't you also apply this argument to everything? The client turned on
> full disk encryption 5 years before this arrest because he wanted to make it
> difficult for anybody (including law enforcement) to read the content of the
> disk.

No. The difference is that the action is taken to obstruct a specific
investigation. Generally protecting information without regard to a specific
investigation is not obstruction. Same as shredding papers years before they
become relevant to an investigation is also not obstruction.

> I think you could just argue that you didn't want the disturbed and/or
> wanted to save some battery.

Like perjury, proving obstruction may be difficult. That doesn't make it any
less illegal.

------
csense
I think the idea of using fingerprints, retina scans, face recognition, etc.
as an access token is a fascinating instance of how culture influences
technology.

These things are very poor candidates for access control because you need
fuzzy statistical/ML/AI/CV recognition techniques (which means you have to
worry about false positives and false negatives), and it's basically
impossible to re-issue credentials in case of a compromise (changing someone's
fingerprints or facial characteristics would require performing plastic
surgery on the user!)

But because of movies and TV, everyone "knows" that in the future we're
supposed to have our technology unlocked by our fingerprints, so that's what
drives people to buy and vendors to implement, regardless of how absurdly
impractical it is if you actually stop to think about it for five seconds.

~~~
shawnz
> But because of movies and TV, everyone "knows" that in the future we're
> supposed to have our technology unlocked by our fingerprints, so that's what
> drives people to buy and vendors to implement

I, for one, would love fingerprint unlock on my phone. And it's not for any
crazy sci-fi expectation -- I just don't see any other method of unlocking my
phone which could be as quick and convenient as that. Facial unlock is another
possibility, but what concerns me about that is how easily someone could
produce a picture of my face.

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united893
If you have five minutes, please see this short video from CGPGrey, which
summarizes succinctly why access to your phone is akin to access to brain:

>
> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo)

~~~
harryh
I don't think it makes that point well at all. It says that (kinda) but
doesn't support the idea with any form of reasoning. In fact, it's a
relatively minor point and not really the main point of the video at all.

If you had access to my phone you could learn a great many things about me
(most of them banal) but there are many many many thoughts in my head that
don't exist on my phone in any form.

Continued nerd insistence of your point is little more than fetishization of
technology. There's a reason Obama used that word at sxsw. It connotes a level
of obsession and overfocus that is, quite frankly, pretty creepy.

------
xoa
While it would not be cost-free against law enforcement (as they could charge
with contempt/destruction of evidence and so on) I hope as this sort of thing
happens more often it pushes Apple to respond with a native coercion code
system rather then requiring a jailbreak. Security has been improving at a
nice clip in the last 5 years after significant stagnation, and bringing
coercion codes to the general public seems like the next straight forward,
logical improvement. Apple seems to already have the basic system level
infrastructure in place since they store and register each of the five
fingerprints separately and fire off appropriate different system events,
which is why a jailbroken device can have an imperfect but reasonably
effective one. Apple though could make it more user friendly, and have it be
not just for Touch ID but also using a PIN.

While law enforcement gets the most press, this is and growing threat from
non-state actors as well as mobile devices become ever larger gateways to the
public's private lives and finances. Apple would do everyone a service by
blazing the trail here and sooner (iOS 10) rather then later.

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Aelinsaar
This... makes sense. You can be compelled to produce your fingerprints, or a
physical key, or really anything physical with a warrant. It's the issue of
producing KNOWLEDGE from your mind alone that is really the issue most of us
care about, or at least, it's a newer issue.

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rdez6173
Could it be argued that the knowledge of _which_ finger (or part of your
finger) you use for authentication is equivalent to a passcode?

~~~
ihsw
Conversely, is there anything preventing them from having you try _all ten_
fingers?

~~~
simcop2387
Chance. It'll stop accepting them after 5 attempts according to other posters
in this thread. Combine that with the fact you don't know if it read properly
or not you really don't have good odds that you'll succeed.

~~~
mywittyname
Plus, I think you can use your knuckles too.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Touch ID is disabled when an iPhone initially powers on. So, if you want to
prevent law enforcement compelling you to decrypt using your _fingerprint_ ,
hold down the power button and then slide right to power off the phone. Now
they need your password.

~~~
Lxr
Unless you are prepared in advance, after they take your phone you likely
won't have the chance to turn it off.

~~~
gherkin0
There should also be a timer that puts the phones into require-password mode.
So after a few hours they'll need more than a fingerprint.

Maybe you should also have the option of setting up a "coercion
fingerprint(s)", which if used to authenticate would put the phone into
require-passcode mode. Then, if the court compels you to unlock your phone
with your fingerprint, you can put yourself back into 5th amendment territory.

Actually, in that last case, you might already be protected. If 9 if your
fingers will force your phone to require a passcode, and only one will unlock
it. Could the courts/police force you to disclose which finger is the one that
unlocks? I'd imagine you could put them in a situation where they have to
chose which finger you use (or manipulate your hand themselves) to perform the
unlock action, and in that case they'd only have a 1/10 chance of actually
getting what they want.

~~~
illumin8
There is- after 48 hours iOS will require the PIN again to enable Touch ID.

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DannyBee
I'm not sure why this is surprising, under current precedent,you can be forced
to type in your password
([https://articles.forensicfocus.com/2012/02/09/another-
judge-...](https://articles.forensicfocus.com/2012/02/09/another-judge-rules-
encryption-passphrase-not-testimonial-under-fifth-amendment-analysis/) covers
some cases, but there are a _lot_ of cases).

Touch ID is not really different.

In general, one of the only reasons you won't be forced to type in your
password is if the act of proving you have the password is somehow
incriminating (IE there is a dispute over ownership, etc).

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FussyZeus
Hold the phone (heh): Touch ID is disabled after 24 hours, how in the world
did they get a warrant to do this within that time frame? It says in the
article that the phone was seized on Feb. 25.

~~~
talmand
I've always understood that getting a local judge to expedite a warrant for
timely reasons is not unheard of.

------
saboot
Curious, what would happen if you purposefully damage your fingerprint? Say by
forcing a burn on your finger using a stove top or car cigarette lighter.

~~~
cheepin
That's a pretty painful option compared to just handling rough objects. I've
rendered touchID almost entirely ineffective just by grip taping a skateboard.

The answer to your question though is that, at least on the phone's side, it
would require your passcode to login

------
maaku
5th amendment: "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a
witness against himself."

How does this not apply here?

~~~
icebraining
Providing your fingerprint (or blood, or DNA) is not considered testimony.

~~~
talles
But is kinda silly how "numeric passcodes are protected individual privacies,
but fingerprints are not" in this case.

The _use_ of your blood or DNA in the case should dictate if it's applicable
or not, not the nature of the evidence itself.

~~~
bendykstra
The purpose of the right against self-incrimination is to prevent forced
confessions and torture. With that in mind, it makes sense to draw a line
between compelling someone to provide their fingerprint or DNA and forcing
someone to divulge something they know. When the state has the right to make
someone talk, how does it go about it? Also, it's impossible to know whether
someone actually knows the passcode to a device, so someone could end up
imprisoned indefinitely just for forgetting a password.

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pessimizer
A judge can have you force fed, put into a straitjacket and spitguard, or have
people put their fingers up your asshole and vagina. The idea that they can't
get you to touch a piece of plastic is absurd. I'd be surprised if they
wouldn't sedate you in order to do it. As someone who has been anally probed
by the state, I find it pleasantly surprising that they even think they need a
warrant to force you to put your finger wherever they want.

Do passwords really need to be simplified? Do we invariably have to envision
the future as a place where we wave our arms around beams of light and gently
touch secret symbols to make things work? Isn't that just a juvenile fantasy
of being a magician? Was Excalibur the first touch ID?

------
kefka
"Judge, Which finger am I required to try?"

Edit: the question is a legal trap to kept from being held in contempt. After
2 or 3 scans, the device demands a password. By asking which finger, they have
a 20% chance of getting right finger.

~~~
Matt3o12_
No, they have 5 tries, and most people use at least 2 fingers (I use 3) so you
can unlock it with both hands.

Furthermore, most people use at least their thumb. So if the judge said use
your left and right thumb, the chance of succeeding would be a lot higher
(statistically speaking). If you use, let's say, your pinky finger, the chance
of a judge guessing the right fingerprint is even lower because he will try
out the most obvious choices before that.

------
nkrisc
I think what's interesting is they're forcing her to verify that it is in fact
her phone or that she had access to it. Now, in the case of a phone it likely
wouldn't be hard to prove that other ways, but what if it was an otherwise
unidentifiable device? It would force her to effectively testify she owned it
when the police might otherwise not be able to prove that.

------
tn13
At this stage the lady may consider temporarily injuring her finger to the
extent the iphone does not accept it and falls back to passphrase.

~~~
paulddraper
Self mutilation might not be the best option. I think you'd be a sub par legal
advisor.

------
bdcravens
Mine won't accept my right thumb after a day or so. (other fingers seem to be
ok though) Probably due to diabetes and the way my medical condition causes
clubbing of the fingers (I just re-add that thumb over and over)

If she ate a bunch of salt and swelled up a bit, it might have the same
affect. Providing the finger scan isn't the same as promising it unlocks.

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anigbrowl
This doesn't seem that remarkable. It's one thing if you have the combination
to a safe and won't give it up; the police will have to get into the safe some
other way. On the other hand, if it locks with a physical key which you happen
to keep on your belt, I doubt any court would think twice before ordering you
to hand it over.

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DarkContinent
The Constitutional right to not incriminate oneself was originally intended to
prevent the government from engaging in Star Chamber-style interrogations, i.
e. using physical force to extract information from a person. This case
frankly doesn't seem any different from such forcible extraction.

------
drcube
Don't the cops already have her fingerprints? This is partly why biometric
authentication is useless. You're supposed to change passwords frequently. How
do you change your fingerprints? Who chooses a password the cops already know,
and anyone else who knows you has access to?

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randyrand
Workaround for the common person:

When compelled, try your other fingers first than the one you registered. Do
not register your thumb. After 5 tries, your password is required.

------
cmurf
Rubberhose fs, with a modification: two passcodes, one unlocks primary fs A.
The other unlocks secondary fs B and causes the DEK for fs A to be wiped.

------
banach
I guess this will just make (savvy) criminals turn Touch ID off on their
iDevices.

------
tn13
Isn't this same as forcing a person to give testimony against herself ?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its more like "what have you got in your pocket?"

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diegorbaquero
Power cycle it. Win.

~~~
bdcravens
Then you get charged with tampering, even if found not guilty on other
charges. Probably lesser charge, but not a "win".

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dogecoinbase
Needs to support a duress finger.

~~~
goda90
Wouldn't using the duress finger result in some sort of destruction of
evidence charge?

~~~
dogecoinbase
As with most duress mechanisms, one would have to judge whether using it was
better or worse than not -- I suppose ideally one would have two, one of which
simply reenabled the passcode and would have some deniability (this is
effectively already possible by using a nonstandard finger, unless LE has
witnessed previous successful unlocks and can identify the finger which should
be used), and one which initiated a wipe of the phone.

------
spdustin
For me, the ongoing question that needs to be addressed by the court is this:
Is the content of your smartphone considered to be documentary evidence
(something you have) or testimony (something you know). I know I'm mixing
definitions of the something you have/know combination, but it's a difference
without a distinction, IMHO.

I tell my phone, either directly or indirectly, all sorts of things that I
would not otherwise document. Locations I've visited, for example. That's
something that, unless I've been surveilled, only I know. By unlocking the
phone, have I allowed access to documentary evidence, or have I allowed access
to an extension of my mind?

Is a smartphone a privileged companion? Like an attorney, or a doctor, or a
partner? The spousal communications privilege in the US protects the personal
conversations I have with my wife from being disclosed via compelled
testimony. If she tells me that she committed a crime, or vice-versa, the
recipient of that communication cannot be compelled to testify against the
utterer.

Further, spousal testimonial privilege means that she could not be compelled
to describe her _observations_ if they may incriminate me.

We have similar affordances in the US for communications with legal counsel,
or with medical personnel.

I'm going to go one step further and say that 95% of you, dear readers, tell
or otherwise provide secrets to your phone that, if you somehow had to
communicate to an actual person, you'd only be willing to tell your spouse,
your doctor or your lawyer. To me, that makes my smartphone a privileged
confidant. And because it routinely collects information that I do not
directly provide it, even though I'm capable of observing and remembering it
myself, it acts like (and I treat it like) an extension of my mind. An
augmentation that increases the capacity of my own brain's memory.

I'm not in the habit of committing crimes, though I (like most of you) have
committed some infractions in the past (speeding, "TP-ing" a house, a bounced
check - ahh, the indiscretions of youth). But the knowledge in my head and the
communications I have with privileged recipients may, if taken out of context,
be used as documentary evidence supporting any number of charges against me.

For example, the fact that I went to Home Depot four times in one week over a
year ago could support the charge that I had assembled some device that was
later used in a violent crime. That's a scary place to be, isn't it? To know
that you did nothing wrong, and yet the vague memories you have of visiting
Home Depot last year have potentially been documented more thoroughly by your
phone. Is the common man supposed to assume that a smartphone they bought just
so their kids can FaceTime with their grandmother 1,500 miles away is silently
surveilling them, and can be forced to disclose all manner of information
about them?

It's a new world, and the laws of the land are old. Legislation moves at a
snails pace already, but compared to the rapidity of technological
advancement, the law moves like the pitch drop experiment.

~~~
harryh
I don't think you understand the legal justification behind the 5th amendment.
It has nothing to do with the contents of your mind being private. It is a
protection against forced confessions via torture.

A long time ago it used to be common to torture people until the admitted to
committing a crime that they did not commit just to stop getting tortured. By
making this sort of testimony inadmissible it removes the incentive to
torture.

The various restrictions against law enforcement whether it be the 5th
amendment or anything else all exist for specific reasons. They aren't just
there to make law enforcement's job harder and as a general privacy
protections. Extending these rules beyond the justification for their
existence (as you attempt to do in your comment) isn't supported by legal
precedent.

------
ultim8k
Judges just go fuck yourself.

------
rdudek
Would they cut her finger off if she denied that request?

~~~
eganist
No, they'd just hold her in contempt.

~~~
randyrand
But after 48 hours she no longer has the means to unlock it with her
fingerprint.

