FBI’s Ongoing Struggle: Why They Haven’t Cracked NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ Phone Yet

Pig butchering, the cryptocurrency-related scam that has reportedly siphoned off around $75 billion from victims across the globe, is expanding its reach beyond its Southeast Asian origins, with operations proliferating in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and West Africa.

The UK’s National Crime Agency revealed new details regarding the identities of the Russian ransomware group known as Evil Corp, including its connections to Russian intelligence services and its involvement in espionage activities aimed at NATO allies.

A WIRED investigation has uncovered that car-mounted automatic license plate reader cameras are capturing much more than license plates. These cameras are also picking up political yard signs, bumper stickers, and various politically charged messages, highlighting how a system designed for vehicle tracking poses risks as a broader surveillance mechanism.

In related updates, ICE has entered into a $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions, a vendor specializing in spyware products including the hacking tool Graphite. Additionally, the Pentagon is progressively integrating handheld controllers for weapon systems to create more user-friendly interfaces for soldiers accustomed to playing Xbox and PlayStation.

There’s more to share. Every week, we compile the news on privacy and security that we didn’t cover extensively ourselves. Click on the headlines to explore the full articles. And remember to stay safe.

The political landscape of America’s largest city has been shaken by the criminal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Prosecutors mentioned in court this week that there remains a “significant wild card” in the corruption allegations against him: The FBI has been unable to access his phone.

In the case targeting Adams, which revolves around alleged unlawful payments from the Turkish government, it was disclosed that the FBI has yet to break the encryption on Adams’ personal phone, nearly a year after its seizure. This phone is one of three devices taken from Adams, with agents confiscating his personal phone a day later than the other two used officially. At that time, Adams had not only changed the device’s security code from a four-digit PIN to a six-digit code—claiming it was a precaution to prevent others from accidentally or purposefully deleting information—but he also asserts he “forgot” the unlock code right after.

This selective lapse in memory may place the FBI and prosecutors in a situation reminiscent of their examination into the San Bernardino mass shooting by Syed Rizwan Farook in 2016, during which the US government requested Apple’s assistance in unlocking the shooter’s encrypted iPhone, resulting in a notable showdown between Apple and the FBI. In that instance, the cybersecurity firm Azimuth employed a secretive—and costly—hacking method to access the device. In Adams’ situation, prosecutors suggested that the FBI might need to consider similar tactics. “Decryption always catches up with encryption,” remarked prosecutor Hagan Scotten to the judge.

Face recognition technology is one of the few innovations that even major companies like Facebook and Google have approached with caution when it comes to integrating it into products such as Google Glass and the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. This hesitation is well-founded, considering the significant privacy concerns associated with a device that could enable anyone to identify a stranger and access personal details such as their phone number and home address. Recently, a group of students from Harvard has demonstrated how straightforward it is to attach face recognition capabilities to Meta’s augmented-reality eyewear. Their initiative, dubbed I-XRAY, works alongside the face-recognition service Pimeyes, allowing Ray-Ban Meta users to discover the identities of nearly anyone they encounter and subsequently search various databases for more information, including family members’ names, phone numbers, and home addresses. The students have chosen not to publish the code behind their project, emphasizing instead its purpose as a commentary on the potential privacy violations posed by augmented-reality devices. The message is clear.

In case further evidence was needed regarding the privacy concerns surrounding AR eyewear, Meta recently acknowledged to TechCrunch that it will utilize input from users’ smart glasses to train its AI systems. Initially, Meta was vague regarding whether it would collect data from the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses for AI training; this contrasts with firms like OpenAI and Anthropic, which clearly state that they do not use user inputs in their AI training. However, a few days later, Meta clarified that it does indeed leverage images or videos captured using its smart glasses for AI training purposes, but only if users choose to submit that content to Meta’s AI tools. This implies that any image or video a user presents to Meta’s AI chatbot for commentary or analysis will become part of the extensive dataset that trains Meta’s AI.

While it’s challenging to apprehend Russian hackers directly, seizing their web domains is a more feasible strategy. This tactic was recently employed by the US Justice Department, which collaborated with Microsoft and the NGO Information Sharing and Analysis Center to gain control of over a hundred domains previously operated by Russian hackers affiliated with the Kremlin’s intelligence agency, known as the FSB. These domains had been used in phishing scams executed by a Russian hacking group named Star Blizzard, infamous for targeting typical victims of geopolitical espionage—including journalists, think tanks, and NGOs. The confiscation of these domains appears to be partly a preemptive measure against potential foreign interference in the upcoming US election. “Rebuilding infrastructure takes time, absorbs resources, and costs money,” stated Steven Masada, assistant general counsel of Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit. “Today’s action impacts [the hackers’] operations at a critical point in time when foreign interference in US democratic processes is of utmost concern.”

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