A judge has restricted the FBI’s ability to sift through data acquired from major tech firms such as Apple, Google, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
In a related matter, a privacy vulnerability has been discovered within Cloudflare, one of Apple’s IT service providers, potentially compromising the approximate locations of millions of web and app users before the issue was addressed.
Judge Restricts FBI’s FISA Data Access
One of the most debated surveillance authorities conferred upon US agencies is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Organizations such as the NSA and FBI petition a FISA court to gain access to data from technology companies. The proceedings of these court hearings are conducted in secrecy, thereby preventing public and media scrutiny over the decisions reached. When firms like Apple are compelled to comply with a FISA warrant and provide user data, they cannot disclose that such access has occurred.
Intelligence agencies are permitted to apply for a FISA warrant solely for the surveillance of foreign entities. Nonetheless, once the data is provided, agencies can search it for personal details regarding US citizens without obtaining an additional warrant.
Wired has reported that a judge has ruled this practice to be illegal.
The FBI was able to conduct “backdoor searches” for information on US citizens or residents communicating with foreign individuals without first securing a warrant. Judge DeArcy Hall determined that these searches indeed require a warrant. “To hold otherwise would effectively allow law enforcement to amass a repository of communications under Section 702—including those of US persons—that can later be searched on demand without limitation,” the judge stated.
Cloudflare Privacy Vulnerability
When accessing numerous websites or utilizing various apps, your request is initially routed through a content delivery network (CDN). Cloudflare stands as one of the largest CDNs, managing traffic for roughly 19% of all websites and app servers.
Cloudflare fulfills two main roles. Firstly, it scrutinizes requests to verify whether they seem to originate from legitimate web or app users or from bots. This capability helps Cloudflare detect and hinder a frequent tactic employed by attackers to bring servers offline by overwhelming them with excessive simultaneous requests—a method known as a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack.
Secondly, Cloudflare stores cached copies of server information across hundreds of global locations. By supplying data from the nearest cache, it alleviates traffic to the primary server.
Apple utilizes Cloudflare’s services for iCloud Private Relay.
A security researcher discovered a method to ascertain which CDN server processed a request, thereby gaining a rough estimate of the user’s location.
The researcher, identified as Daniel, devised a way to send an image to a target, gather the URL, and then use a custom tool to query Cloudflare to determine which data center delivered the image—thus inferring the state or possibly the city of the recipient.
Daniel reported the vulnerability to Cloudflare, which has since resolved the issue.
Photo: FBI
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