
FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry - mikece
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/fbi-recovered-hundreds-of-encrypted-messages-from-michael-cohens-phone/
======
mirimir
Damn, you'd think that someone at that level would pay for better OPSEC
support. But then, I guess that I'm not surprised. Blackberry does have a
reputation, not at all deserved at this point. I'm pretty sure that the
President's phone is just as poorly secured. Probably less, from what I've
read.

~~~
boomboomsubban
This issue is huge in politics. The entire Clinton personal e-mail scandal was
essentially her unwilling to give up her BlackBerry, something Obama was
unwilling to give up too. These people learned how to use some technology
decades ago, and will continue using it no matter what other issues it causes.

~~~
zacharycohn
Check your timelines. Obama was elected in 2008, and BlackBerry was the
dominant player in the market at that point.

Also, he DID swap out his phone for a secured one, and his staff instituted a
number of security protocols to keep it secure.

~~~
boomboomsubban
A dominant player, yet Obama needed a special highly modified version to
securely access the White House network. A huge amount of work to keep using
what he was comfortable with.

~~~
los_angeles
Which makes complete sense. He is the most powerful individual in a country of
300+ million people. If he needs a certain thing to keep him operating at peak
efficiency and focus, he gets that thing. Period. Unless it violates national
security.

Being elected president is not the time to learn a new technology suite.
Hopefully most presidents have better things to do with their time than that.

At that level your people have people who have people to deal with that kind
of minutiae.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>Being elected president is not the time to learn a new technology suite.
Hopefully most presidents have better things to do with their time than that.

At what level does this stop being a waste of time for the person?

I'm not suggesting Obama should have been forced to change, but every else in
his administration was forced to change. There's some serious clashing between
the need for secure devices and the reluctance to change from old technology.

~~~
untog
I think it's fair to ask what the secure alternative platform was. I wouldn't
be surprised if it was five years out of date and barely functional. I think
the President ought to be able to say "this is crap, improve it".

------
MilnerRoute
Manfort [not Cohen, as I originally wrote, but Manafort] had his message
stored on iCloud. That turned out to be part of how the FBI was able to
recover them so easily.

[https://gizmodo.com/paul-manafort-learns-that-encrypting-
mes...](https://gizmodo.com/paul-manafort-learns-that-encrypting-messages-
doesnt-ma-1826561511)

~~~
bilbo0s
"...Cohen's messages were stored on iCloud..."

???

Your comment had me struggling to determine how one could store WhatsApp
messages on iCloud. (From a Blackberry no less.)

But then I followed your link. I don't think that article was about Cohen. You
may want to change your post.

On an equally important note, why is it that people out there assume that ANY
form of electronic communication is impervious from government surveillance?
The reality is that if a three letter agency is after you, it's probably
unwise to be using WhatsApp and Signal in an incriminating fashion. (Or
anything else for that matter.)

It's like locking your physical spaces. Yeah, you should go ahead and lock
your house or office and turn on the alarm system while you're gone...

but you should also go ahead and assume that those three letter agencies
planted surveillance devices in that house or office even in the face of your
security measures.

~~~
ohtwenty
>On an equally important note, why is it that people out there assume that ANY
form of electronic communication is impervious from government surveillance?
The reality is that if a three letter agency is after you, it's probably
unwise to be using WhatsApp and Signal in an incriminating fashion. (Or
anything else for that matter.)

Signal has a feature for self-destroying messages (on-read, or after x amount
of time). Seems like that could've been used and it wouldn't have lead to this
right here.

~~~
bilbo0s
Point is that the messages still have to go over the public networks, so if
three letter agencies have you under surveillance, you should assume they're
gonna get everything you're saying. You should NOT just say, "well, I'm using
encryption so I'm golden."

------
jlgaddis
If there's one (family of) devices(s) that the FBI certainly knows how to 100%
completely pwn the shit out of... it's the Blackberry.

~~~
lstyls
Why?

~~~
krn
BlackBerry CEO: We'll Try To Break Our Own Encryption If Feds Demand It (2017)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/10/25/black...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/10/25/blackberry-
ceo-well-try-to-break-our-own-encryption-if-feds-demand-it/#61bfbd769772)

BlackBerry CEO blasts Apple for focusing on user privacy, data protection
(2015)

[https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-
bla...](https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-blasts-apple-
for-focusing-on-user-privacy-data-protection)

~~~
ppseafield
Related: BlackBerry gives Indian government ability to intercept messages
(2013)

[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/blackberry-
india](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/blackberry-india)

Edit: Also

RIM to share some BlackBerry codes with Saudis: source (2010)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackberry-saudi/rim-
to-s...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackberry-saudi/rim-to-share-
some-blackberry-codes-with-saudis-source-
idUSTRE6751Q220100810#tgPYKWxcfm9HeB3P.97)

BlackBerry approved in Russia (2007) [required access during criminal
investigation]

[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/business/worldbusiness/27...](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/business/worldbusiness/27iht-
berry.4.8499664.html?_r=0)

------
justboxing
> The letter to Judge Kimba Wood stated that "the Government was advised that
> the FBI’s original electronic extraction of data from telephones did not
> capture content related to encrypted messaging applications, such as
> WhatsApp and Signal... The FBI has now obtained this material."

I don't get this. How could you possibly decrypt encrypted messages without
WhatsApp or Signal's assistance?

Isn't the whole point of encryption that no-one can decrypt it unless they
have the necessary keys?

~~~
ben1040
Encryption in transit doesn't imply encryption at rest.

For instance, WhatsApp on Android will happily back up to Google Drive, if you
allow it, and it does so in cleartext.

~~~
ebikelaw
Nothing on Google Drive is stored "in clear text".

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
If I put a file with certain content into Google Drive, then Google Drive, or
a subpoena for my Google Drive data, will return exactly those contents.

Hence, it is reasonable to apply any distinction to the content as a user of
Google Drive sees it, and not as it may be stored on the backend. Hence, if
the data WhatsApp pushes to the Google Drive API is unencrypted (and we're
talking about the data, not about the HTTPS-encapsulated form that passes over
the network), it is reasonable to call it "in clear text", and it wouldn't be
reasonable to call it encrypted.

------
49bc
The article doesn't specify whether or not the encryption was "broken", or
whether Cohen is simply cooperating. My hunch tells me it's the latter.

~~~
craftyguy
Yea this is key. It's possible to have Signal on your device but not implement
any device locking passcode or passcode for unlocking Signal... That would
make it trivial to recover data if you have the device.

~~~
StudentStuff
An alternative method of protecting oneself is to set an expiry timer, which
makes messages in a conversation ephemeral. 1 week seems to be a fine balance
between being able to look back at old messages, while also not having those
you communicate with be allowed to store data on your device for too long.

~~~
inferiorhuman
Signal won't prune the messages until you open the app (or maybe the
conversation) again. There've been a few releases where the changelog notes
that the app didn't expire ephemeral messages properly.

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gpm
Signal encryption relies on a password (last I used it, which was a long time
ago). Typing long random passwords in a phone is nothing if not impractical.

It wouldn't shock me to find out they just brute forced the password.

~~~
michaelchisari
Or found a sticky with the password on it when they raided his office.

~~~
joemaller1
Most likely scenario.

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naner
You can get WhatsApp and Signal on a BlackBerry?

~~~
oxide
Why wouldn't you be able to?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
BB used to run a custom QNX-based OS, not Android.

~~~
sangnoir
WhatApp ran on Nokia's S60 platform, which is for feature-phones. Making a QNX
version was probably much less of challenge.

~~~
distances
You mean S40. S60 was Symbian, the smartphone platform.

------
fwdpropaganda
Trump is in trouble now.

EDIT: It is suspected that Michael Cohen, being a long time Trump friend and
personal lawyer, is familiar with Trump's money laundering. If Michael Cohen
believes he's at risk of being sent to jail for many years, he might
collaborate with the FBI.

~~~
civilitty
A _lot_ of trouble. A Ukrainian national said in an interview that he
testified in front of a grand jury convened by the Mueller investigation last
Friday. He said that the prosecutor's questions focused on Cohen so he is
about to be squeezed from both sides and his family is now selling several
multimillion dollar apartments (including his in-laws), supposedly to cover
legal bills. His current legal team will cease all work for Cohen after today
with sources saying that it is due to a failed attempt at negotiating down
some already owed bills.

Federal grand juries convene on Fridays so we will know by Monday whether more
indictments will be handed down.

~~~
patrickg_zill
I was under the impression that grand jury questioning was not to be
disclosed? Am I wrong about this?

~~~
civilitty
The jurors are not allowed to talk about the proceedings but unless the judge
institutes a gag order or the contents of the testimony are otherwise
protected (i.e., the case involves a child whose identity must be kept sealed,
person testifying has security clearance and the topic is classified, etc.),
witnesses can do whatever they please.

------
mrcactu5
do people still use BlackBerry in Washington? Seems a little out of date to
me...

------
econ_th0
i cannt read i am dumb, but?

did they have his phone password or is this saying they hacked the chat
softwares?

------
hurrrrrrrrrr
It says that they have "731 pages of encrypted data" but nowhere does it say
that they managed to decrypt the data, and read the plain text.

It states that they did not disclose what was in the "encrypted data" so...
there's no indication or assurance that they've managed to access the plain
text.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Why on earth would those fools print it all out?

~~~
hurrrrrrrrrr
Hard copy for future reference, in case some sort of vulnerability becomes
exploitable at a later date.

Also, to provide a vague, yet seemingly impressive metric, true to form for
federal government employees, because it seems official to the non-technical
layman.

If you were to declare a metric such as 900KB of encyphered base64, well, gee,
that's like, almost nothing. But print it out, and non-expert jurors start
thinking "Well, gee! 700 pages is longer than that Stephen King book that I
just read!"

And anyway, they wouldn't have to print it out, to obtain a quotable metric.
All they'd have to do is paste it into an evidence template, and prep it in a
printable format, like a DOCX file or a PDF. Then, they can subpoena for the
metadata, and at least maybe infer a relationship between entities, even if
they are denied awareness of the nature of the conversations etween them.

Seriously, this is how government officials and lawyers tend to think.

