this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Cellebrite asks cops to keep its phone hacking tech ‘hush hush’ | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Cellebrite asks cops to keep its phone hacking tech ‘hush hush’ | TechCrunch::For years, cops and other government authorities all over the world have been using phone hacking technology provided by Cellebrite to unlock phones and In a leaked video, a Cellebrite employee urges law enforcement customers to keep their use of its phone hacking technology secret.

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[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I do agree it seems legal to hack the things you own. My comment has nothing to do with that, so your comment felt like a nonsequiter, or at best a straw man.

In this case, cellebrite is not hacking things it owns. It is hacking things other people own. It is bizarre to me how this is legal given the laws against it that individuals have been prosecuted with. Also, doing security research to find vulnerabilities usually results in disclosing those vulnerabilities to the software producer. In this case, cellebrite is not doing that because it would not like to see those vulnerabilities patched.

[–] stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cellebrite not disclosing the vulnerabilities isn’t very “nice” but it’s not the law. I’m definitely not arguing for this company being ethical in any way. They’re also not the one hacking other peoples devices. They just make the device that is capable of doing so.

Forgive the analogy, but they’re basically making guns. Now whether or not we should allow anyone to make weapons that could impact others is another question we’ve not had sufficient time to discuss legally yet. Mostly because the govt in my country is old as shit and mostly clueless about tech

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They do hack the devices though. https://9to5mac.com/2022/02/10/cellebrite-kit-cant-unlock-iphones/

To follow your gun analogy, it’s like “we won’t sell you this special gun, but for a fee we can be your hit man.”

[–] stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago

Oh…

Yeah that’s not so great and should definitely be handled. How do they know for example that you’re with the police for sure or not etc etc