Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#11

Post by peatmoss » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:34 PM UTC

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #7

spacefight wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rising the cost hurts the population much more in the long run - we, the people, we pay the surveillance for us. No one else. We must fight hard that we don't need to pay that tax any more - money which flows in large sums directly to the military/industrial complex.

I think you misunderstood the term "cost" as used here.

Insofar as analyst hours, kwh, computing hardware, etc. can all be converted to dollars, spacefight and I are talking about comparable units.

And the idea of reducing the cost for intelligence agencies to surveil us to save money is an interesting one. While I agree that paying more taxes for a dubiously useful "service" is bad, I disagree that the right response is to reduce that marginal cost--i.e. be more transparent in the face of government surveillance. Under a regime of high marginal costs, I'd like to believe that the NSA would simply be more selective in its targets, rather than be successful in securing additional funding.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#12

Post by tombrossman » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:36 PM UTC

spacefight wrote: post #8

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood the term "cost" as used here.

Not sure, no. Why?

I think cost can be looked at in terms of money, time, risk, effort, or any number of other things and this is what is being referred to above. That point is probably moot though, as all will translate to additional financial costs as you mention.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#13

Post by cmsj » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:37 PM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #9

MitM with a 0-day payload? Acid etching and SEM? You would have to be an extremely high-value target to legitimately worry about this stuff. The post is attacking a straw man. Apple's iPhone security is meant to address criminals, mass surveillance, and overzealous law enforcement. They're not claiming a single phone will withstand the entire resources of the NSA devoted to breaking it.

Yup. The reality is that you can't defeat the NSA unless you are able to design and fab your own silicon without any third party involvement, are able to write and audit your own crypto code with zero bugs, and are able to physically protect yourself from being "encouraged" to reveal your passphrases. It's not worth seriously trying to defeat an organisation as well funded/staffed/connected as NSA from obtaining your chat history and nude photos.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#14

Post by jokoon » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:38 PM UTC

jwise0 wrote: post #10

Although I agree with the premise -- a sufficiently dedicated attacker can defeat many mechanisms you can come up with to protect your data -- many of the points that the author makes seem to be based on either incorrect or implausible assumptions. For instance, the claim that modern cell protocols can be "silently" MITMed is not really true; the current known attack to spoof a GSM tower, I believe, is limited to usi…

> I think the crux of the matter is that this crypto scheme is not designed to stop the NSA

I think the NSA has so many tools available when it comes to hack into people's data, it doesn't really matter how you secure yourself, there are many ways for the NSA to spy on people if they really want to. Right now I don't think anyone can really pretend to secure their data from the NSA.

It might make it harder for them, but if you really want to hide from the NSA, I don't think it's really realistic to just be informed about cryptography and computer security. You would really need to just not use computers at all.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#15

Post by aftbit » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:38 PM UTC

peatmoss wrote: post #4

I'd like for people to start thinking about security measures, including encryption, as a cost function rather than as a boolean condition (e.g. safe vs. unsafe; stop the NSA vs. not stop the NSA). I doubt there is anyone who can stop the NSA from executing a targeted attack that breaches that information. My feeling is that good security measures increase the marginal cost per person surveilled. As the article point…

We could make passive observation (beamsplitters) useless by opportunistically encrypting all traffic with unauthenticated DH to derive a key. This would do nothing against an active observer, but it would raise the cost of interception significantly.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#16

Post by aftbit » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:40 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #14

jwise0 wrote: post #10

Although I agree with the premise -- a sufficiently dedicated attacker can defeat many mechanisms you can come up with to protect your data -- many of the points that the author makes seem to be based on either incorrect or implausible assumptions. For instance, the claim that modern cell protocols can be "silently" MITMed is not really true; the current known attack to spoof a GSM tower, I believe, is limited to usi…

> I think the crux of the matter is that this crypto scheme is not designed to stop the NSA I think the NSA has so many tools available when it comes to hack into people's data, it doesn't really matter how you secure yourself, there are many ways for the NSA to spy on people if they really want to. Right now I don't think anyone can really pretend to secure their data from the NSA. It might make it harder for them,…

Airgaps and secured physical access are probably good enough.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#17

Post by aftbit » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:41 PM UTC

peatmoss wrote: post #11

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood the term "cost" as used here.

Insofar as analyst hours, kwh, computing hardware, etc. can all be converted to dollars, spacefight and I are talking about comparable units. And the idea of reducing the cost for intelligence agencies to surveil us to save money is an interesting one. While I agree that paying more taxes for a dubiously useful "service" is bad, I disagree that the right response is to reduce that marginal cost--i.e. be more transpar…

Not to mention, the larger the black budget, the harder it is to hide, and the more outrage when something like Snowden happens.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#18

Post by DavidAdams » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:43 PM UTC

What's often missing from the discussion around Apple's new encryption regime is that it serves two primary important purposes: it gives privacy-oriented consumers a little bit of peace-of-mind about the surveillance state and the safety of their personal data (a plus for Apple) and it relieves Apple from having to be involved in routine, low-stakes law enforcement subpoenas and other requests (a plus for Apple), so it's a double win for Apple to make he change. Whether or not it actually deters NSA snooping is beside the point.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#19

Post by stouset » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:49 PM UTC

aftbit wrote: post #16

jokoon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the crux of the matter is that this crypto scheme is not designed to stop the NSA I think the NSA has so many tools available when it comes to hack into people's data, it doesn't really matter how you secure yourself, there are many ways for the NSA to spy on people if they really want to. Right now I don't think anyone can really pretend to secure their data from the NSA. It might make it harder for them,…

Airgaps and secured physical access are probably good enough.

You are only considering technological attacks.

Re: Why Apple's iPhone encryption won't stop NSA

#20

Post by mstolpm » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:55 PM UTC

spacefight wrote: post #5

peatmoss wrote: post #4

I'd like for people to start thinking about security measures, including encryption, as a cost function rather than as a boolean condition (e.g. safe vs. unsafe; stop the NSA vs. not stop the NSA). I doubt there is anyone who can stop the NSA from executing a targeted attack that breaches that information. My feeling is that good security measures increase the marginal cost per person surveilled. As the article point…

Rising the cost hurts the population much more in the long run - we, the people, we pay the surveillance for us. No one else. We must fight hard that we don't need to pay that tax any more - money which flows in large sums directly to the military/industrial complex.

So, perhaps a law to ban any encryption would save us a lot of money. Better yet, force everyone to make every information public.

But most likely, all this data would be of great interest for criminals? What about the cost of fraud, crime, identity theft? Is it better to have unencrypted phones stolen by criminals in exchange for easier and cheaper surveillance?

I'd think Apples encryption isn't mostly targeted to stop law enforcement and surveillance but more to stop misuse of lost and stolen phones. In addition, if able to implant zero-day exploits, any attacker can bypath any encryption - or he might just target the transmission or the other side of a sent/received secret. Most information isn't produced on an iPhone to sit there forever: either it is received from a server / second device or it is intended to be transmitted to a receiver. So, an encrypted phone isn't really stopping surveillance.