The FBI employed an advanced version of Cellebrite to unlock the phone of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the shooter involved in the incident targeting former President Donald Trump, Bloomberg is reporting.
According to sources familiar with the case, the FBI was granted access to this unreleased technology as they struggled to access the shooter’s phone following the attack.
On the morning after the shooting, FBI agents encountered difficulties unlocking the device. They reached out to Cellebrite, an Israeli-founded digital intelligence company known for its collaboration with various U.S. federal agencies.
The FBI needed to extract data from Crooks’ phone to understand his motives behind the shooting at the Bethel Park rally in Pennsylvania, which resulted in Donald Trump suffering a minor injury and a spectator losing their life.
The Pittsburgh branch of the FBI already had a license for Cellebrite’s software, designed to identify or bypass phone passcodes. However, this software proved ineffective on Crooks’ newer Samsung model running on Android.
Consequently, FBI agents contacted Cellebrite’s federal team, which works closely with law enforcement and government entities. Within hours, Cellebrite provided additional technical support and a new, still-in-development software to the FBI in Quantico, Virginia.
The FBI successfully unlocked Crooks’ phone within 40 minutes of receiving the updated software, as first reported by the Washington Post.
Cellebrite, which is publicly traded on the Nasdaq, derives about 20% of its public sector revenue from federal clients. In the first quarter of 2024, the company reported an annual recurring revenue of $89.6 million and has contributed to over 5 million cases globally.
Despite its successes, Cellebrite faces criticism from privacy advocates who argue that its technology constitutes unethical hacking and has been misused by foreign governments against activists.
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Ever since 1998 and Digital Millennium Copyright Act in US, it is illegal to make and distribute devices, services and technology that are aimed at bypassing the measures which control access to copyrighted works AND makes illegal the very act of circumventing said access control even if there is no copyright infringement.
What I don’t understand is how a company like Cellebrite can operate with impunity within that legal framework and offer their services to law enforcement, no less? Are those who are supposed to uphold and enforce the law entitled to break it as they see fit?
Because DMCA doesn’t apply to hardware, it applies to software.
So, what is the operating system on the iPhone or any other smart phone (Samsung with Android in this case)? A hardware?
Ever since 1998 and Digital Millennium Copyright Act in US, it is illegal to make and distribute devices, services and technology that are aimed at bypassing the measures which control access to copyrighted works AND makes illegal the very act of circumventing said access control even if there is no copyright infringement.
What I don’t understand is how a company like Cellebrite can operate with impunity within that legal framework and offer their services to law enforcement, no less? Are those who are supposed to uphold and enforce the law entitled to break it as they see fit?
What I don’t understand is why the type of phone isn’t mentioned in the article.
They said in the article that it was a newer Android (Samsung) Phone
They really buried it towards the end, whereas every other news site mentioned it in the headline or opening sentence. Bizarre choice.
Ignore the context for a second and just think about the government having unlimited access to your whole digital life.
"Why do you care if you have nothing to hide" is an idiotic argument against the sovereign privacy right.