The Morgan Doctrine: To the FBI: How To Crack An iPhone.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

To the FBI: How To Crack An iPhone.

Dear Morons,

I have long chronicled the incompetence of the FBI. From your failure to unravel a simple letter-substitution code (see my post here) to the attempts of former FBI Director Mueller to single-handedly kill the American software industry by publicly asking Silicon Valley to build in back doors (see my post here), you make the jihadists of the world appear to be geniuses by comparison. Your latest attempt to get Apple to build a security back door for the same nincompoops who can't even secure records and security clearance surveys of millions of federal employees is, well, laughable.

At the risk of asking the obvious, haven't you idiots ever heard of I.C.E. technology? I.C.E. is an acronym for In-Circuit Emulator. I wrote ads for these things in Silicon Valley over 30 years ago. In fact, Larry Ellison once allowed me to reference his endorsement of I.C.E. technology in an ad for a client, saying that without this technology, ORACLE would not have been running on a PC.

How does I.C.E. work?

Simply, you put an in-circuit emulator between the processor chip and it's motherboard, and step cycle the program. Do the same thing to an iPhone, along with cloning all the ROM/RAM circuitry, and you can step a device through it's operating system at your leisure. Let it go too far and blow up the system, if you're really incompetent (which you are, by definition). That's okay. You just reset the memory and processor to it's original state and start all over. Even an imbecile (or as you call them, "your best and brightest") could brute-force 9999 password attempts in, oh, about the time it takes your director to tie his shoes.

So what's going on here? I know the NSA can I.C.E. any system on the planet. Ditto for the U.S. Cyber Command. Call these guys. Admit that your affirmative action hiring practices must ignore anyone with a chromosome-21 disorder.

Not only might you find possible terrorists (notwithstanding that they've had two months to go to ground), but you wouldn't cripple American technology sales around the world. Unless that's what you jackasses are trying to do.

Man, I've got to stop listening to Donald Trump!

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Implementation suggestions for THE MORGAN DOCTRINE are most welcome. What are the "Got'chas!"? What questions would some future Cyber Privateering Czar have to answer about this in a Senate confirmation hearing?

Background: Welcome black hats, white hats and cyber swashbucklers

The Revolutionary War was fought, financed, and pretty well WON by bonded privateers, legalized pirates who were given Letters of Marque and Reprisal by the Continental Congress and authorized to attack, capture and monetize British ships. The purpose of this site is to explore the possibility of a modern-day doctrine much like the Monroe Doctrine, by means of which the U.S. government could legally and, more importantly, effectively stop international hackers. Current cybercrime law is not only ineffective, but downright stupid. My Linux servers are attacked hundreds of times a day (mostly from China and former USSR domains), yet if I retaliate against those servers with some creative technology at my disposal (I know some VERY smart guys), then I am in violation of federal law and subject to some onerous penalties. We need more than a new law. We need a new international doctrine. I call it The Morgan Doctrine, named after Morgan Rapier, a fictional character I've created (hey, this is my way of establishing ownership of the concept, should it ever see the light of day).

Why a new international doctrine? Simply, nothing else will work. Introduced on December 2, 1823, the Monroe Doctrine told the world to keep their hands off the Americas. Combine this with current legal thinking on "hot pursuit" of fugitives. In 1917 the US Army went into Mexico after Pancho Villa. More recently, in 1960 Israeli Mossad agents abducted Adolf Eichmann from Argentina. Granted, much of the world regards the Eichmann adventure as a violation of international law. I don't share that opinion and therefore use it as the third leg of my Monroe-Pancho-Aldof platform for The Morgan Doctrine.

If someone comes into your home and attacks or attempts to rob you, you may shoot them dead. You may do so as long as they expire on your property. But what about cyber criminals? They attack you in your home from their homes. Retaliate in kind, and you go to jail. The Morgan Doctrine states simply that if you attack my computers (or my banking assets held in US-based computers), then under a certain set of well-defined conditions, a licensed and bonded "cyber privateer" may attack you in your home country and split the proceeds with the U.S. government. For the sake of argument, let's call it a 50-50 split (heh heh).

Right now, American law enforcement is completely unequipped to deal with the sheer number international cyber hackers. Sure, I could report each of the thousand daily attacks to the FBI, as could the millions of other attackees in the USA. But the volume of such reports would make any meaningful resolution laughable. Not to mention that the FBI has no jurisdiction outside the USA. Yet to make such "enforcement" profitable to recognized (ie, "bonded" "deputized") privateers, as Heath Ledger's Joker said in his last role, "Now you're talking!" You raid our bank accounts, we raid yours. You make money from off-shore child pornography, we're going to loot your bank accounts and, with some REALLY creative black hat operations, you will be taken off the grid worldwide to the extent that you'll not even complete a cell phone conversation for the remainder of your miserable depraved life. Okay, that last part probably won't fly, but you get my drift.

The purpose of this site is to explore the mechanics, legalities and practicality of The Morgan Doctrine.

And I will be the sole arbiter of whether or not your comments get posted. As Mel Brooks wrote, "It's good to be king."