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A Message to Our Customers

apple.com

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Re: A Message to Our Customers

#401

Post by [deleted] »

giovannibajo1 wrote: post #151
rms_returns wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. What you say about Facebook is true, but Google's Android is open source, so there is no way they can plant a privacy-invading code and get away with that.

No phone on earth runs the open source version of Android that you can download from git. They all run custom versions that include not only closed source personalizations to the system, but they also run lots of closed code as root (play services first and foremost). The reason why this doesn't happen with Android is much more mundane: most Android phones are not encrypted so the FBI doesn't need help to read all th…

[deleted]

Re: A Message to Our Customers

#402

Post by sametmax »

threatofrain wrote: post #175
epaga wrote: post #2

Huge props to Apple - here's hoping against hope that Google, Facebook, and Amazon get behind this. One thing I was wondering is how Apple is even able to create a backdoor. It is explained toward the end: "The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force…

I'm afraid I'm too skeptical to get the same assurances as you. Apple accuses the FBI of playing language games with the term "backdoor", but I think Apple has done the same. The fact that they can push weak OS updates to a locked phone is the backdoor . This means that they can already comply with the court order, and they likely will. This letter covers them from PR damage.

Exactly. Plus, all backups of the iphones on icloud are already unencrypted, so half of the phones are already indirectly unlocked.

EDIT: backups are encrypted, but apple have the keys. See below.

Re: A Message to Our Customers

#403

Post by coderjames »

threatofrain wrote: post #175
epaga wrote: post #2

Huge props to Apple - here's hoping against hope that Google, Facebook, and Amazon get behind this. One thing I was wondering is how Apple is even able to create a backdoor. It is explained toward the end: "The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force…

I'm afraid I'm too skeptical to get the same assurances as you. Apple accuses the FBI of playing language games with the term "backdoor", but I think Apple has done the same. The fact that they can push weak OS updates to a locked phone is the backdoor . This means that they can already comply with the court order, and they likely will. This letter covers them from PR damage.

I'm not sure you can draw the conclusion that Apple can push OS updates to a locked phone.

What Tim Cook wrote is that > "install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation." > "the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession."

So the FBI has the physical phone already. They can deliver to Apple who can disassemble it and either use a JTAG/Flash programmer on an internal connector to manually write new software, or they could desolder the Flash holding the old OS and place a new one.

Both of these techniques are common enough in the embedded industry that I expect this is what Apple means. They probably can't push an OTA software update and force the install on a locked device.

Re: A Message to Our Customers

#404

Post by kimolas »

sametmax wrote: post #402
threatofrain wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid I'm too skeptical to get the same assurances as you. Apple accuses the FBI of playing language games with the term "backdoor", but I think Apple has done the same. The fact that they can push weak OS updates to a locked phone is the backdoor . This means that they can already comply with the court order, and they likely will. This letter covers them from PR damage.

Exactly. Plus, all backups of the iphones on icloud are already unencrypted, so half of the phones are already indirectly unlocked. EDIT: backups are encrypted, but apple have the keys. See below.

iCloud backups are 100% encrypted. Only some iTunes backups are not, and only if the option to use encryption to protect the backup is not selected.

Re: A Message to Our Customers

#405

Post by sametmax »

bambax wrote: post #163
epaga wrote: post #2

Huge props to Apple - here's hoping against hope that Google, Facebook, and Amazon get behind this. One thing I was wondering is how Apple is even able to create a backdoor. It is explained toward the end: "The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force…

I don't see how this "reassuring"; to me it's rather very confusing (as mentioned in many other comments). If Apple could in fact write a software backdoor, doesn't it mean that the backdoor exists, at least potentially? And how can one be sure that Apple is the only company able to build that door? At the very least, couldn't the right Apple engineer be either bribed or forced (by terrorists or the government) to bu…

But why would you even think apple, google or facebook would be a good bet to defend your privacy in the first place ? They got the most terrible track record of not caring about.

If you have things that you need to be private, don't put it on a smartphone.

Re: A Message to Our Customers

#407

Post by cognivore »

If I were Cook, I'd draw a line in the sand. If we are force to comply, we exit the phone business, because we won't make phones that compromise our customer's security.

But that would take more balls than anyone left here in this "Land of the free and home of the brave" seems to have left anymore.

Re: A Message to Our Customers

#408

Post by ageofwant »

nindalf wrote: post #26
rms_returns wrote: post #21

This is quite unlike Apple. Is this the same company that insists on keeping its source proprietary and is always against FOSS? The idea that you care for your users' privacy and still like to keep control on them by not giving them the freedom to modify source-code is not what I buy.

You're talking nonsense. Protecting users' privacy and keeping source code closed aren't mutually exclusive.

Maybe not, but they are strongly correlated. Strongly enough to make an aggressive assertion like "You're talking nonsense" unwarranted at best.

Re: A Message to Our Customers

#410

Post by Terretta »

GreaterFool wrote: post #59

This is interesting: "Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession." Am I reading this right? Apple, if they chose to, ca…

I think the ask is for a custom recovery mode tool / image.

See https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/DFU_Mode

Not same thing as an OS update.

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