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Iphone Government The Almighty Buck United States

Police Charity Bought An iPhone Hacking Tool and Gave It To Cops (vice.com) 92

Posted by BeauHD from the privately-run-charities dept.
The San Diego Police Foundation, an organization that receives donations from corporations, purchased iPhone unlocking technology for the city's police department, according to emails obtained by Motherboard. From the report: The finding comes as activist groups place renewed focus on police foundations, which are privately run charities that raise funds from Wall Street banks and other companies, purchase items, and then give those to their respective police departments. Because of their private nature, they are often less subject to public transparency laws, except for when they officially interact with a department. "The GrayKey was purchased by the Police Foundation and donated to the lab," an official from the San Diego Police Department's Crime Laboratory wrote in a 2018 email to a contracting officer, referring to the iPhone unlocking technology GrayKey.

"The EULA I sent you [is] for a software upgrade that will allow us to get into the latest generation of Apple phones. Our original license was a 1 year license agreement paid for by the Police Foundation," the email adds. In a 2019 email, two other officials discussed purchasing the GrayKey for the following year. "This is the phone unlocking technique that the Police Foundation purchased for us (for 15k). Apparently the software 'upgrade' costs the same as the initial purchase each year. :/ They are the only ones that offer a tool that can crack iPhones, so they charge A LOT!," the email reads. Because police foundations act as private entities, they also do not directly fall under public records laws, meaning their expenditure or other activity may be more opaque than that of a police department itself. "Our end goal is to have an intervention on the funneling of private money into police forces and into policing," Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns at Color of Change, told Politico recently. "If the police foundations existed to raise money for the families of fallen police officers, we wouldn't say we need to abolish police foundations. It's the specific type of work that they're doing that we object to."
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Police Charity Bought An iPhone Hacking Tool and Gave It To Cops More

Police Charity Bought An iPhone Hacking Tool and Gave It To Cops

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  • So F'ing what? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Monday September 28, 2020 @10:12PM (#60552466)
    If they use tech to bust bad guys, good for them. If they use it for monitoring "pre-crime" citizens, that's an issue. The summary only points to the former.
    • I agree with using for bad is fine but not for themselves.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      So people with iPhones who believed Apple's hype about them being secure will be interested to know that for $15k you can buy an unlocking device.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      "If they use tech to bust bad guys, good for them"

      Except on the multiple cases where they access private and protected data, without a warrant and argue that they have a parallel construction to admit that fruit of the poison tree as evidence for prosecution.

      Sounds like the ends justify the means, right? Wrong, no one should be allowed to circumvent rights granted by the constitution, especially the police!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        Straw man.
      • If the court agrees then the police are in the right.
        If the court disagrees then evidence can't be used.
        Sounds like a form of the slippery slope fallacy based on spotlighting claimed but unevidenced events. Two fallacies for the price of one. Meanwhile, you don't give two shits that criminals can buy the same tool and use it to steal your information. Your priorities are messed up, criminal loving cop hater.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Rhipf ( 525263 )

          Meanwhile, you don't give two shits that criminals can buy the same tool and use it to steal your information. Your priorities are messed up, criminal loving cop hater.

          Criminals can buy a crowbar to break into your house for a lot less than $15k. By your logic the police shouldn't bother getting warrants and just go get a crowbar and break into the house of any suspect. Let the court determine after the fact whether there was any justification in doing so.

          • No, that isn't my logic. You shouldn't lie so obviously.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Rhipf ( 525263 )

              It isn't a lie it is literally what you said. You stated "criminals can buy the same tool". Those are your words so it hard to call that a lie.

              Your logic is also that since the criminals can get what the cops are given (i.e. the cracking software) the police need the software. I doubt the software will just sit on a shelf so I assume that it would be used by the police. It is illegal for a criminal to break into your phone (or your home with the crowbar in my example) and it should be illegal for the police

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fred911 ( 83970 )

          ''Sounds like a form of the slippery slope fallacy based on spotlighting claimed but unevidenced events. ''

          This is pretty evident..
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].

          And here's how LE has used the illegally obtained and warrant-less search to successively prosecute a defendant.
          https://www.cato.org/publicati... [cato.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      One possible problem is that such funding can influence who is a 'good guy' and who is a 'bad guy'. A private organization providing expensive tools and equipment to departments can have a lot of influence over that department's policies and targets since they can always withdraw support if the dept does or says something they do not like. It is one of the ways police unions and such keep such a tight control over policing even though they have no official legal power over them.
      • Police unions keep control over policing because they donate large sums of money to political campaigns and because, at least until recently, the police union endorsement gave a big boost in some local elections. From those aspects they are no different from Teacher's unions.

    • They should be forbidden from accepting gifts, like other government employees. A gift and a bribe to a government institution are very little different.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        You can't "bribe" an entire organization.

        Although I think donors to government organizations should be barred from dealing with the organization directly - the Police department should have to appoint a "third party administrator" whose sole purpose is to deal with any donators or potential donators and will keep them confidential.

        Also, the administrator should set policies about what kind of donations they will accept, and a donation of Proprietary software licenses or electronics should not be allow

    • They ARE the bad guys.

    • You know this isn't going to be used to bust any "bad guys", it's going to be used to go after people they don't like or may or may not be up to anything more illegal than minor drug use.

    • We're all bad guys. There's barely a person alive who hasn't committed some crimes. It's just a question of if those crimes are serious enough to merit police attention - or if the police have a reason to go looking for an excuse.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        "...if the police have a reason to go looking for an excuse."

        So many ignorant responses here. Locked or not, cops need a warrant to search a cell phone. (Riley v. California, 2014)

  • This sounds great to me (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday September 28, 2020 @10:15PM (#60552470)

    I wouldn't mind police departments having lower funding, but some of that made up from charitable organizations like this that kind of helped decide what would actually be useful to police work...

    I mean, wouldn't you rather the police have an iPhone unlocking tool rather than a fleet of armored cars and grenade launchers "just in case"?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kitkoan ( 1719118 )

      The issue here is now you're assuming that the donations would be limited to iPhone unlocking tools. If the charities are getting enough money for the unlocker, they'll get enough for those as well, and I doubt they wouldn't be all ears to what the police force say they "need" (these are corporate donation charities, not common people, they have access to these kinds of funds).

      This appears more to be a toe tip to see how the waters are before plunging in, before buying "upgrades" to current equipment.

      • The issue here is now you're assuming that the donations would be limited to iPhone unlocking tools

        Nope, I am merely thinking the choices would be more level headed if made by people who are not police officers and do not get to use said gear, rather than police officers getting a giant budget and buying what amount to very large/powerful toys.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Yes, it is only a charity, it is not corporations buying police forces. No corporate executive turning up to remind those junk yard law enforcers who paid for their guns and cars with 'er' donations, nothing at all wanted in return. Don't the senior officers need cars to get to and from work, why shouldn't they be company vehicles just like any other office worker considering the risks they take only fare. So what if a corporations owns the police station and the cells, it saved the state paying for it and

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jythie ( 914043 )
          I can recall years ago when I got my first car it had a FoP sticker in the back window from the previous owner, and they (along with others) pointed out how important it was to keep that sticker there since it bought you a LOT of 'benefit of the doubt' when dealing with traffic violations. Donating to these charities buys you a surprising amount of discretionary protection...

          • You could say that about any support of anything really.

            If you kneel, you're marked safe from certain SJW factions.

          • Not as much as you think.

            It might even make you a target. They've even acknowledged that those "DARE" stickers make you a target.

            I've even heard a cop say about the FOP stickers "Those? Yeah, those mean you helped pay for our last kegger. We'll still pull you over, because they mean you're not one of us."

            If you live in a state that issues emergency vehicle plates for ham operators, get your amateur radio license. And then use a PO box for your ham license address, because anybody can use your call sign

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by DaveV1.0 ( 203135 )
        And you don't want the cops to upgrade their equipment and training why? Oh, right, you live in lala land where cops are the cause of crime so if we get rid of the cops, crime will magically disappear just like what happened in Minneapolis [mprnews.org]

        • That's a complete fallacy, they haven't been defunded yet [mprnews.org].

          And nobody claimed that police cause all crime. They just commit an awful lot of it.

          • That doesn't mean it hasn't had an effect yet. What would you do if your companies CEO said that your department was going to be defunded?
        • I didn't say I'm against upgrades per say, just "upgrades" being the armored vehicles and grenade launchers suggested in OP

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      I wouldn't mind police departments having lower funding, but some of that made up from charitable organizations like this

      Schools augmented by charity -- worst case scenario is that lots of effort spent on bake-and-buy sales rather than teaching, and in cases where they don't raise enough then bunch of kids go without adequate materials which is correlated with higher crime rates when they grow up.

      Police augmented by charity -- worst case scenario is that police "look the other way" for crimes committed by a wealthy donor so as not to upset them

      Military augmented by charity -- worst case scenario is we have 4 rather than 5 air

      • Schools augmented by charity -- worst case scenario is that lots of effort spent on bake-and-buy sales rather than teaching

        Imagine that, kids learning more about the real world than schools traditionally teach.

        Police augmented by charity -- worst case scenario is that police "look the other way" for crimes committed by a wealthy donor so as not to upset them

        Never heard of the Fraternal Order of Police cards I see.

        Military augmented by charity

        Well that's just stupid.

        Radio augmented by charity

        Again, we alread

    • What's wrong with 'NONE OF THE ABOVE'?

      Police should not have armored cars, grenade launcher, automatic weapons - AND they shouldn't have iPhone unlockers.

  • How does that chant go? Fuck the police?

  • Nowhere in the story is the word 'warrant' (Score:5, Interesting)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Monday September 28, 2020 @11:21PM (#60552606)

    The iphone unlocker is a tool like a gun or police vehicle. If it is used lawfully where warrants are acquired before unlocking a phone then what's the issue?

    • Re:Nowhere in the story is the word 'warrant' (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Frank Burly ( 4247955 ) on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @03:16AM (#60552950)

      It's certainly better than buying them a flamethrower. But SDPD budget is $277 million, a GrayKey license is $15k--this seems like the sort of thing they could afford if they needed it. Further, using what's thought of as a 'widows and orphans' fund on retail purchases of specific and expensive products suggest a bait-and-switch for donors and easy graft for board members of such companies.

      But the most troubling aspect is suggested in the summary: the charity could equip the police department with said flamethrower, or a crowd-dispersal heat ray, or the like, and the public would not have an opportunity to decide whether this is a tool they want their local police to have.

      • You are talking about policy vs. funding which are two different things. If the local politicians, elected by the local citizenry, want to prohibit the police from using certain tools, they have a way to do that. They can establish policies or pass local laws. Most police department budgets are not managed at the individual tool level of granularity by the politicians. Using funding as a way to enforce policy is bad governance made possible (or perhaps necessary) by our flawed political system. But then I d

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The issue is that they often don't bother with a warrant and just use the information for parallel construction. Stuff like this should be only available from a special police organization that requires a warrant before they will process a phone, with full oversight.

      Well the other issue is that charities are donating equipment to the police, which means either they are under-funded or they are getting gear which the democratic system that supplies them does not think they should have.

      • Apple won't cooperate with warrants. So, in fact, Apple has created a legitimate market for these kinds of products. If they would instead cooperate, the product category would be more regulated and a legal infrastrucure controlling access to said tools might develop.

        • Apple won't cooperate with warrants. So, in fact, Apple has created a legitimate market for these kinds of products. If they would instead cooperate, the product category would be more regulated and a legal infrastrucure controlling access to said tools might develop.

          I don't see a link to your credit card numbers and all other personal info in your posts.
          Clearly, you're not cooperating with practices which would harm you financially and possibly physically.
          Obviously, you're of the mind that personal security is not your business only in the sense of a "profession" but in a sense of a vital "function" as well.
          But that's OK.

          Cause you just argued that by NOT opening up all your private stuff to the public, you've created a "legitimate market" for selling access to all your

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Apple won't cooperate with warrants. So, in fact, Apple has created a legitimate market for these kinds of products. If they would instead cooperate, the product category would be more regulated and a legal infrastrucure controlling access to said tools might develop.

          Apple complies with warrants fully. They provide all the data they have - iCloud, purchase data, etc are all provided on warrant. And sometimes, in the interests of expediency, Apple will provide the data before the warranty is issued.

          What Appl

          • What Apple cannot do is unlock a locked iPhone, because Apple does not design their products with a "master key" that allows them to do it. If the product has a PIN or other security lock on it, Apple is barred from entry.

            And yet some third party can sell a tool to unlock the Iphone that Apple themselves cannot unlock.

  • the cops getting money from private entities is basically a bribe. You don't investigate those entities that are funneling you cash.
    • Much like political campaign contributions?

  • Not your money (Score:3)

    by Carrier Lifetime ( 6166666 ) on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @12:06AM (#60552698)

    "Our end goal is to have an intervention on the funneling of private money into police forces and into policing," - Since is are private money what is their problem? It is not illegal to donate money to the police.

    • Re:Not your money (Score:5, Insightful)

      by orzetto ( 545509 ) on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @04:08AM (#60553040)

      The problem is that private money is not free. Those who give it expect something back. Private citizens donating to the police means the police will be more willing to protect these donors, which for the sake of example could be rich, white, old men, and not give a damn against single black mothers with three jobs.

      The proper way to fund the police is through taxes managed by the people's government. Anything else is worse than corruption, as it turns police in guns for hire, and it does not get any less rotten just because they plaster "charity" over it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's a problem when the police force is controlled by money, rather than by democratic institutions. It gives donors undue influence.

      Imagine the local crime boss offering to buy the cops some gear in exchange for them turning a blind eye. Imagine people buying the cops weapons to use on their political opponents.

      It subverts the basic checks and balances that are necessary to balance the extraordinary powers the police are granted.

      • Please. Like your fabled "Democratic Institutions" aren't controlled by money.

        • They are. And that's a core issue.

          We tried to get the money out of politics once, with a suite of FEC reforms. Then we repealed the reforms with Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United vs FEC. Now we havea government that's entirely bribed by megacorps.

          I mean, just look at how they donate beforehand to the senators who are about to be questioning them regarding their potentially illegal actions. If that isn't bribery and corruption, I don't know what is.

    • "Funneling of private money into police forces." Somebody must get paid by the word. Otherwise they would have just said "bribe." Or maybe they think the fancy prose somehow changes what this is.

  • ... oh wait that already did happen!!!!!

    • Really? Citation please. I can only find evidence of police receiving armored wheeled vehicles and an occasional APC. But nothing that meets the definition of "tank."
  • The issue here isn't necessarily the way that the Police Foundation are using charitable funds to provide equipment for the police - although I would agree that it might be worth a deeper look, especially if the public are asked for funds and if the public are led to believe the money would go to other things.

    A much bigger concern here is the [lack of] transparency involved in this process.

    There is plenty of legal precedent to show that a police department has to get a warrant to conduct a search of y

    • "The issue here isn't necessarily the way that the Police Foundation are using charitable funds to provide equipment for the police "
      That is a SIGNIFICANT issue!
      No government entity should be able to accept anything that they themselves cannot purchase. If government entity cannot get approval to purchase the item, they should not be able to accept it as a 'gift'. I'd even go further and say that maybe government entities should not be accepting 'gifts' at all. This used to be called BRIBING a government

      • with an LEO apples EULA does not apply and apple can't use the DMCA to stop them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ytene ( 4376651 )
        "The issue here isn't necessarily the way that the Police Foundation are using charitable funds to provide equipment for the police "
        "That is a SIGNIFICANT issue!"

        Yes, you're right, it's a significant issue when the funds are being used to provide phone cracking technology. But that's not how the rules of charities get written up. What happens is that the charity's bye-laws are written up to grant the representative of the Police Foundation and the Force in question broad discretion to determine how the
      • What if the tool didn't cost $15K? What if you could get the tool for $15 and the desk Sgt. could buy it out of the same budget that they use for evidence baggies? Then would you be fine with it? If not then the problem isn't how they came by it. This is really a policy and procedures issue and the funding source is a red herring.

        • no, I wouldn't be okay with it. It would only be wrong for one less reason. There are multiple reasons why this is wrong. Bribery, warrantless searches, parallel construction...these are a few of my least favorite things.

          • You have gone off the rails. I guess in your world police wouldn't have any tools? So many can be abused. The gun can be used inappropriately, so no guns then, or Tasers, or batons for that matter. The cops should all be given the teen driver or valet keys so they don't speed, because that could be abused; never mind those needing emergency police help. And then we have the warrant issues. Right now police can make write out sworn statements and get a judge to sign a warrant for a search. Because that sworn

  • Law enforcement agency acquires law enforcement tool. How is this a story? What's next, police department buys handcuffs and cop cars?

    How is this possibly a story? Police departments have been involved in forensics for literally decades, I don't see how this can possibly news. Charities have bought things for police agencies in need since the literal beginning of policing. I'm just not seeing the story on this one.

    • because its from the ridiculous and absurd website vice.com They complain that police shouldn't try to find criminals and legally search their stuff. But if you don't agree with vice.com politically then by all means any search and seizure is allowed like storming Michael Flynn's home with a swat team for supposedly telling a white lie. And giving an enema to all political opponents in search of a crime, not in reaction to a crime.

      • They'll have credibility when they call for other people in that whole debacle who committed the same or similar crimes to be held to the same standard. I do believe one Mr. James Comey comes to mind right off the top of my mind. I do believe he committed the exact same crime, as did several of his cohorts. Equal justice under the law demands that they be held to the same standard and get the same justice that Trump's associates got. Somehow I don't think Vice is very interested in justice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      The story is not the tool itself, but the opaque process by which they obtained it. Yes, it is an old process, but not one people think about much so highlighting it now and then when a particular instance comes up IS the story. Corruption doesn't stop being a story just because it has been going on for a long time.

      • How is this corruption though? The story was about getting a software license. If the lab was using it on people without warrants that would be an issue. Most forensics labs are pretty good about that kind of thing though. It isn't worth losing their accreditation and professional career just to check out something their curious on.

        Some of the original police departments in the 1800's were founded by citizens who were concerned about crime and donated private resources to help get local law enforcement up a

  • Companies that produce devices like this, in combination with Apple marketing their Iphones as 'impenetrable' is a pretty effective honeypot strategy. Apple should keep it up.

  • "Our end goal is to have an intervention on the funneling of private money into police forces and into policing," And what is wrong with that??? NOTHING. This is a group of radical anti-America who probably not even Americans, who don't care about law and order: just generally angry under-educated children. I like this idea of buying and donating. I'll look into doing it myself. I don't need a foundation to help out with the only source of protection from criminals that ANY of us have. Well, unless you

    • The cops are the anti-American radicals. The cops are the gangs roaming our cities running extortion rackets. The cops are the Mafia.

      • The cops are the ones who took down the American flag on government property and replaced it with another, while on duty. These are clear traitors.

        ICE officers, in their official capacity, removed the AMERICAN FLAG and raised their own. Treason.

        Then, when protestors removed the traitorous replacement flag, the copa threw a shit fit about how the American flag was being disrespected...when it was the Blue Lives Matter treason flag that was illegally flown in place of the US flag which was removed (must be fl

  • Why rehash a 6-year old article???? The children are still having a temper tantrum over being locked-down? https://www.propublica.org/art... [propublica.org]
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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