Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#131

Post by zaroth » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 1:51 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

They're presumably already 99% of the way there. If the Secure Enclave can be updated on a locked phone, all they need to do is stop allowing that, right? To me, the more profound consideration is this: if you use a strong alphanumeric password to unlock your phone, there is nothing Apple has been able to do for many years to unlock your phone. The AES-XTS key that protects data on the device is derived from your pas…

Why would they have made the Secure Enclave allow updates on a locked device without wiping the key in the first place? Either they didn't think it through, assumed they would never be compelled to use it as a backdoor, or perhaps they were afraid some bug could end up having catastrophic consequences of locking a billion people out of their phones with no way to fix it? Do we even know for certain that the Secure Enclave on the 6s can be reflashed on a locked phone without wiping the key?

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#132

Post by X-Istence » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 1:55 AM UTC

Crito wrote: post #89

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, although I'd love to see a HealthKit app that uses your Apple Watch as a dead man's switch, and disables Touch ID or powers the phone off in the event the watch is removed or your pulse is no longer detected.

Without a wristprint for the watch to read, what prevents somebody else from wearing it? The pulse and skin conductivity might change, but are either of those reliable enough metrics for such an application?

If you take the watch off, it automatically locks. I wouldn't mind it also automatically locking my phone and requiring a passcode instead of TouchID.

There is a VERY limited amount of time in which you can take the watch off and switch to another wrist (like milliseconds, you have to practically be a magician to switch wrists (which I do throughout the day)).

Apple has the watch, they could use it to beef up security for those that want it.

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#133

Post by nxzero » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 1:56 AM UTC

Unless the implementation is public and verifiable, which is unlikely, the idea that there is a "secure" iPhone is just that, an idea.

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#134

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 1:56 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

They're presumably already 99% of the way there. If the Secure Enclave can be updated on a locked phone, all they need to do is stop allowing that, right? To me, the more profound consideration is this: if you use a strong alphanumeric password to unlock your phone, there is nothing Apple has been able to do for many years to unlock your phone. The AES-XTS key that protects data on the device is derived from your pas…

I guess the last one percent is making sure you don't brick customer phones inadvertently with software update or fix.

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#135

Post by weaksauce » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 2:00 AM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #130

A lot of the comments on that article burn me up. People in the U.S. really think there's a terrorism problem here. The only problem is that government spending so much money on a non-issue! Politicians love to "debate" it because they know it is one of those things that looks good to the naive citizens but they really don't have to do anything because there's nothing to be done.

it's an appeal to emotion and it's actually a bit disgusting to me. I wish my government would stop creating the terrorists that it wants to then fight.

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#136

Post by X-Istence » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 2:01 AM UTC

teacup50 wrote: post #101

aioprisan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSLs can only ask for information, not force a company to build a product. That kind of request would have to come through legislation and apply to all US companies in a similar situation.

That's not really true; as evidence, I give you Room 641A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A "Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency" As long as you have a backdoor, and Apple does, shady government agencies can and do come knocking. We've got plenty of shady government agencies, and can never guarantee that we won't have more in the future.

That was most likely a backdoor deal between AT&T and the NSA. There was no legislation enacted. AT&T was not REQUIRED to install that room.

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#137

Post by contravariant » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 2:02 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #75

petra wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a strong pin is pretty annoying, and a relatively visible signal when using the phone on the street etc, So it can be a good filter(maybe via street cams) to filter suspicious people - which isn't a bad goal for law enforcement.

That sounds good until you remember the Bayesian Base Rate Fallacy: there are very few terrorists (the base rate of terrorism is very low), so filtering on "people with strong passphrases" is going to produce an overwhelming feed of false positives.

Be careful not to take the base rate fallacy too far, with enough difference in likelihood even a small base rate won't prevent an effect from being significant, and regardless of the base rate you'll still get some information out of it, it might just not be as much as you wanted.

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#138

Post by peteretep » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 2:02 AM UTC

petra wrote: post #66

tptacek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. If you're dead, they probably have your fingers. If you're alive, they can compel you to unlock the device with your fingerprint. The only point I'm making is that Apple already designed a cryptosystem that resists court-ordered coercion: as long as your passcode is strong (and Apple has allowed it to be strong for a long time), the phone is prohibitively difficult to unlock even if Apple cuts a special…

Using a strong pin is pretty annoying, and a relatively visible signal when using the phone on the street etc, So it can be a good filter(maybe via street cams) to filter suspicious people - which isn't a bad goal for law enforcement.

Except that with Touch ID, you only have to enter it when you reboot the phone, or if you've mis-swiped 5 times. I've had a strong pin for a couple of years, and really don't find it even a slight inconvenience (in the way that I use a super-weak password for Netflix, as entering passwords on an Apple TV is a real pain)

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#139

Post by ewzimm » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 2:03 AM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #130

A lot of the comments on that article burn me up. People in the U.S. really think there's a terrorism problem here. The only problem is that government spending so much money on a non-issue! Politicians love to "debate" it because they know it is one of those things that looks good to the naive citizens but they really don't have to do anything because there's nothing to be done.

What really burns me is that this strategy is so well known. 1984 was written almost 70 years ago, and yet we have millions of people begging for persistent, unavoidable surveillance by authorities as part of a never-ending war with an ambiguous enemy that our own policies are strengthening.

Re: Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

#140

Post by inopinatus » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 2:05 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #71

cromwellian wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the chief protection against the PIN code hacking comes from the retry counter. The FBI doesn't need the crypto keys, it just needs the PIN code. So it needs to brute force about 10,000 PIN codes. Any mechanism that prevents the application processor from either a) remembering it incremented the count b) corrupts the count or c) patches the logic that handles a retry count of 10, is sufficient to attack the phone…

You aren't limited to 10,000 possibilities. You can use an alphanumeric passphrase. The passphrase is run through PBKDF2 before being mixed with the device hardware key. On phones after the 5C, nothing you can do with the AP helps you here; the 10-strikes rule is enforced by the SE, which is a separate piece of hardware. It's true that if you can flip bits in the SE, you can influence its behavior. But whatever you d…

We can still imagine a state actor spending the megadollars to research a reliable chip-cloning process, to bring parallel brute-forcing within reach. I wonder if the NSA have been on a SEM/FIB equipment buying spree lately.

The ultimate way to defeat physical or software attacks is to exploit intrinsic properties of the universe, which suggests finding a mathematical and/or quantum structure impervious to both.