Federal investigators are analyzing device’s content, although it is unclear how agency gained access
The FBI has gained access to the phone of the suspected gunman who opened fire on Donald Trump’s rally and is analyzing the device’s contents, the agency stated in a press release on Monday afternoon. The shooting, which killed one audience member and left Trump bleeding from one ear, is being investigated as an assassination attempt.
Authorities have been working to determine the motive behind the attack at Trump’s campaign rally on Saturday, but no clear picture has yet emerged. The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks by the FBI, was shot and killed in the incident.
Federal investigators announced on Sunday that they had obtained Crooks’s cellphone, but had issues with bypassing its password protections to access the data within. FBI investigators then shipped the phone to a lab in Virginia, where agents successfully gained access, per the bureau’s press release.
they watched a youtube video by a guy from India on how to unlock it.
Seriously though, some of those videos actually work. I had a Samsung Galaxy that I got from some flea market for like $20. it was locked due to the FRP so I didn’t have access to the email or phone number. I just wanted to use it as a headset mounted gyroscope thing for war thunder (yeah, ask me about that one). Watched a youtube vid by some guy in India who went through the most bizarre way to unlock the phone and it worked. I was scanning QR codes and installing the samsung file manager app and a bunch of weird crap and was surprised that it worked. Dudes on reddit were deadset that it was impossible, impossible I tells ya, to bypass the FRP. it is possible. and you don’t need to download any of the scammy ‘unlock your phone’ programs either.
Do you mean like an eye tracking system for headsets in wt? I’ve always just used vr if I wanted that capability.
sort of. it was more like head tracking. so you move your head and you could look around your cockpit. It was essentially a poor mans way of head tracking. there was an app you could download to your phone and your pc that would connect to each other. then with your phones gyroscope it would track your head movements. So then I would take the phone and strap it to the top of my headset with like a hair tie. it worked for a few games. War Thunder, MechWarrior Online, Star Citizen, pretty much any sort of sim it would work.
Crooks, who left behind no immediately available manifesto or record of the attack, unlike many other modern assassination plots or mass shootings. He was registered as a Republican voter and donated $15 to a Democratic-allied organization but did not maintain a large online presence.
Well this is thoroughly unhelpful.
Anyone know what kind of phone they reported they cracked? This should bring fear to anyone who cares even a little about privacy.
Otherwise, it will become normal to question why you take a shit with the door closed (what are you hiding in there?) slippery slopes and what-not.
It doesn’t matter. If a nation state is a wants access, they’re gaining access.
It’s probably an exploit from that Israeli cyber company that I forget the name of.
Cellebrite is the name, I think.
Or are you thinking about pegasus?
NSO Group I was thinking of. They make Pegasus.
Bro forgot to turn off his phone before they shot him.
If he had fingerprint unlock it would be pretty easy to get in considering they have access to his fingers. Facial recognition… less successful in this case.
Gotta turn the phone off so it makes you actually log in.
On my pixel the pin required lock is up vol and power > lockdown.
Lmao. I don’t restart enough to have realized that’s an option. My failsafe was to chuck it so it restarts…
I do have my Nexus One hanging out somewhere in storage. Had to know all the tricks back then.
This comes up every so often and it was something I learned during the same conversation, so I always just pass it along.
For me the fingerprint unlock is just too convenient to not use, but it’s nice to know I can lock down my phone quickly if I need to.
Something sus about how quickly they can unlock phones when it’s attempted murderer killed dead and murder victims killed dead.
Most phones are locked with a four digit numerical PIN. The current technique is taking an image of the flash memory, and reflashing the memory after every few attempts.
It still takes a bit longer than straight brute force without a temporal lockout, but it’s still pretty trivial.
15 years ago, yes, nowadays especially on iPhone this does not work at all
It does when you have physical access to the RAM and storage, and a disassembly lab expressly configured for this purpose.
This is the backbone for a number of forensic services offered to law enforcement, and an entire cottage industry. I know with certainty it was still feasible as of the iPhone 12, which is well inside of 15 years. I don’t believe the architecture in the 13 or 14 has changed significantly to make this impossible.
With slightly earlier phones, tethered jailbreaks are often good enough, though law enforcement would more likely outsource to a firm leveraging Cellebrite or Axiom as the first step.
look into celebrite
I think there’s videos on youtube.
they can plug in most phones and have access to everything through an easy gui
I would definitely not call Cellebrite an “easy GUI” and they definitely don’t get into most devices. Ive seen devices take months to unlock, if ever.
If it used face unlock, just have the dead body and prop the eyes open and you’re in?
Fingerprint unlock would be even easier.
I shouldn’t have, but I smiled.
I should clarify: I meant that if they’re law enforcement does the killing, cracking the phone takes much less time than it does when the phone belongs to the murder victim.
