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Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

nytimes.com

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Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#191

Post by Scea91 »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #183
edraferi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes total sense that the givernment would use it's forensic capabilities whenever the need arises. The question at hand is: "can the All Writs Act compel a company to proactively defeat its own security measures?" The answer will apply to all cases. The more important question is "Should the government be able to access citizen's digital data with a court order? And if so, how can that be enabled without comprom…

>I suspect we'll ultimately wind up with mainstream device manufacturers maintaining some kind of per-device master key that they turn over when ordered. It will be impossible to secure that database. Any number and size of bribes would be worth spreading around to gain a dump of it. Once I have a dump, you're up shit creek because you're faced with changing every key of every device you've ever sold to resecure them…

These kind of master keys already exists so it is not something hypothetical. I am talking about the private keys of trusted root certification authorities. If it would be as easy to get them as you say nobody would probably use TLS since it would be useless.

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#192

Post by ionised »

jondubois wrote: post #89

What's wrong with the letting the government get access to the phones of a few potential criminals/terrorists?! I don't get what all the fuss is about. I don't fully trust the government, but I trust it far more than I trust Apple. Sometimes I feel like the whole Snowden thing is just an excuse for big corporations to keep all their data and analytics practices to themselves outside of the scrutiny of the government.…

> Since when did the government become the enemy?

Since they began to treat the people as the enemy.

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#193

Post by Piskvorrr »

FrankyHollywood wrote: post #185

The discussion about encryption is getting completely out of context, like 'encryption' is something magical. We're talking about cracking a 4 digit access code of a phone, which is extremely easy. Apple knows this, that's why they set a digital booby trap which fires after 10 tries. So the real discussion should be, "Can the government force a company who placed a booby trap, to remove that same trap if needed?" Whe…

What is encryption? It's a method of denying access without the correct key (for as long as it takes for the data to become worthless - not necessarily forever). Actually destroying the data is one of the ways to deny access.

NB: if it were so easy, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So, apparently there are some mitigation techniques which help in case of weak passphrases, and make it not-so-easy, no?

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#196

Post by mcv »

cat-dev-null wrote: post #64
Laaw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you own a home? Do you own a car? The executive branch can obtain warrants from the judicial branch to "exploit vulnerabilities" and gain access to these "devices".

In the US, these are three distinctly different things: 1. A person's "papers," memories and life details typically lives as data on their personal smartphones and other devices. Currently, a phone/laptop seems to be treated as pocket lint and other personal property, so a warrant is typically not needed to access contents, i.e., airport enhanced security screening, traffic stop, etc. 2. Important papers may reside i…

> if the 10x-wipe retries counter is unencrypted, it will be broken by third-parties

It can't be encrypted with the same key as the rest of the harddisk, or it wouldn't be possible to increase it on a failed decryption attempt. But even if it is, you can always restore a previous state from backup.

To be honest, I still don't understand who the FBI can't brute force it (other than the time it would take), and how Apple's assistance could possibly help, if the encryption was done well.

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#198

Post by Piskvorrr »

hanief wrote: post #7
rrggrr wrote: post #4

State, county and municipal governments are next.

Don't forget other countries.

And just plain criminals, with political motives or not - passing a law never stopped those. "It would be unfortunate if the data from your lost iPhone somehow got leaked..."

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#199

Post by Piskvorrr »

abruzzi wrote: post #122
Shivetya wrote: post #13

Well the spin game is guaranteed to ramp up. Sycophants are already laying the ground that Apple and Cook would have to accept some of the blame in any upcoming terrorist attacks. I am amazed they haven't tried the kiddie porn route yet. Still another issue is, if they were compelled to create it they could be compelled to surrender it too. With that its a matter of weeks or months before it gets leaked to a criminal…

This is pure hypothetical, but I've wondered what would happen if apple were to lose in court, then make this custom iOS signed to work only on the specific phone in question, and provide the installer to the FBI with a bill for $5 million in development time. Then destroy all source on this special version, stating that they don't feel comfortable having that in their source tree since a rogue employee might leak it…

Well. "Hello, Mr. X and Mr. Y, we hear that you're the ones who built the previous version. We'll taking you on a vacation to Gitmo, so you can build us another one. You're welcome."

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#200

Post by Piskvorrr »

nickysielicki wrote: post #138
Falkon1313 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when a layman hears "unlock" they're more likely to picture a scene from a police detective drama when the investigators ask a landlord to unlock a deceased tenant's apartment so that they can investigate. If it were rephrased as "Hello Mr. Landlord, we're ordering you to open a machine shop and pay several employees to develop a new lockpicking device that could be copied infinitely for free and which would…

> "[...] to more easily break into [...] That's where your analogy breaks down. This hardly makes it easier. If North Korea or FBI or NSA or a criminal organization wanted to break into your iPhone, and this backdoor existed and was distributed, they would have to externally flash it with firmware and then hook up a controller that tricks the digitizer so that they can brute force the passcode, trying each one synchr…

Yes, else this would be happening. The passcode is not the complete key, and there's a reason the Secure Enclave is named that way.
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