Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 246 posts

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#151

Post by snowwrestler »

ianamartin wrote: post #140
digitalchaos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The government is the moving party. If the moving party drops it, the court drops it.

I understand that in principle, but is that the end of it in reality? I'm pretty sure NewEgg was recently taken to court by a patent troll, and after the troll realized that NewEgg fights instead of paying, they backed off. Then NewEgg sued to get a judgement that would guarantee this couldn't happen to them again. I know this is a different venue and there are topical differences. But are you absolutely certain that…

This court case is over. But the fight for encryption was never really in court anyway, it was in Congress and the White House. It became obvious over the past month that there is still a lot of education on encryption that needs to happen.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#152

Post by bcook »

BashiBazouk wrote: post #146
a3n wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a very good smoke screen, since the most probable interpretation of the filing is that the NSA has an exploit. I've wondered if the NSA already had the phone cracked, and Apple's help was just parallel construction to not reveal capabilities.

Could the NSA crack the phone in a way that Apple engineers would not be able to tell the phone had been cracked?

Presuming that we are unaware of the NSA's capabilities, the answer must be "yes".

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#153

Post by snowwrestler »

RussellDussel wrote: post #149

Can somebody please point out to me the obvious fact I am missing. Don't Apple design their security such that even they themselves can't crack it? Like storing hashed passwords, they don't want that kind of accountability. The media keeps suggesting that Apple won't do it, I thought it would be the case that Apple can't do it...

Apple did try to design encryption that it can't break. But they also want to be able to fix bugs. So they can update the OS on the phone even if it is locked.

So by writing a new update, they could remove some of the ancillary security features that reinforce short passcodes: the "wipe after 10 tries" feature, and the "progressively longer delay between tries" feature. Without these, a numeric (short) passcode can be brute-forced in a day or two. This is what the FBI has been trying to force them to do: write a new update to remove these features. That's what Apple has been refusing to do.

BTW, if you use a long alphanumeric passcode, then it wouldn't matter if Apple was forced to push this update. A 15 character passcode with upper case, lower case, numbers, and symbols would probably be safe from brute forcing no matter how fast someone tries. But most folks are not willing to remember or type in 15 characters on their phone.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#154

Post by colejohnson66 »

jacquesm wrote: post #99
wfunction wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be foolish to think they struck some kind of behind-the-doors deal with Apple?

Yes because it would open Apple up to someone leaking the details of that deal. After the stand Tim Cook took that would not go down well.

If you had engineers threatening to quit if forced to write "GovtOS", it would make sense that there would be quite a few who wouldn't mind leaking that a behind-the-doors deal was made.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#155

Post by abecedarius »

abecedarius wrote: post #75
valine wrote: post #18

So basically they're saying, "This isn't going according to plan. Let's wait for another opportunity and try again."

"Heads I win, tails we flip again" -- how can we counter this? How does it become a game they can lose?

One partial answer Snowden tweeted about tonight: keep reminding people what this story implies about the FBI's credibility. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/712067602835759104 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/712063056835166208

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#156

Post by wool_gather »

rms_returns wrote: post #142
wool_gather wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it more likely that this is simply a tactical decision: they already knew about this "new method", and were holding it in reserve so that they could cancel the proceedings if necessary (i.e., if Apple put up too much of a fight). They will keep trying until they get the precedent.

> They will keep trying until they get the precedent. Don't they already have a precedent when they shut down Truecrypt some years ago?

I don't remember the FBI being involved with TrueCrypt at all, but I don't know.

There was a case where the FBI wanted to force someone to divulge his (I think) TrueCrypt keys, which was found to be a fifth amendment issue, in favor of the defendant.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#157

Post by CrazyCatDog »

jacquesm wrote: post #98
themartorana wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boo. IANAL so I can't quite see where the harm may lie in requiring the "moving party" to see through what they started (if the defending party wants it, of course).

That would be the end of a whole pile of legal strategies.

It's not that obvious. Paul Klemperer (auction theorist) covers a similar question: what happens if the losing party has to pay the prevailing party's legal fees? Answer: the same amount will be spent on legal fees and the same cases will be brought forward.

(1) See middle of page 5 here: http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/klemperer/WhyEveryEconomist.p... Where he debunks Dan Quayle's court reform ideas

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#158

Post by donarb »

r00fus wrote: post #71
wfunction wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be foolish to think they struck some kind of behind-the-doors deal with Apple?

Not foolish, but would Apple really agree to the "we found another way to backdoor the phone" messaging?

What agreement? Apple doesn't nor should they care what the government does with the phone. If the government drops their suit, Apple has prevailed in their argument.
Post reply on HN