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Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

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Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#71

Post by zer01 »

rrego wrote: post #55
saurik wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that Apple already has unfettered access to this device: they left themselves a backdoor to which only they have the key, in the form of a "secure" update mechanism that is so "secure" that even the user can't control it, only Apple can. To me the actual question here is whether the FBI should be allowed to ask and then force Apple to use the backdoor Apple built into their product; Apple painting this…

More or less correct if fully trusting any signed code by a third party (Apple) is a backdoor. For what it's worth, signed code imparts security benefits to Apple and Android users who indeed can't be trusted to not screw up their own phones. Thing is, this entire system is based off of trust. If people lose trust in Apple, then they lose trust product. While even Apple can't decrypt the data, existence of malicious…

Signing code can only do so much.

What Apple possesses is the somewhat unique ability to design a system that is actually secure by burning the key into the secure enclave and not allowing it to be updated. The only way someone would be able to get to it then is by attacking the physical hardware itself (which I'm sure an NSA-level attacker could do), but it would render this entire thing moot, as even Apple wouldn't be able to unlock the phone if it wanted.

I say unique because they can bake security into the actual hardware design, and tightly control how the entire thing works, which android & windows simply can't do. In order to trust your OS (and in turn, your signed software), you have to trust your hardware first. The security of the entire system falls apart if you can't trust your hardware.

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#72

Post by saurik »

zer01 wrote: post #40
saurik wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that Apple already has unfettered access to this device: they left themselves a backdoor to which only they have the key, in the form of a "secure" update mechanism that is so "secure" that even the user can't control it, only Apple can. To me the actual question here is whether the FBI should be allowed to ask and then force Apple to use the backdoor Apple built into their product; Apple painting this…

Fair points, though to be fair the iOS platform is by and large the most secure mobile platform we have (please correct me if I'm wrong, you absolutely know better than I). Still, as long as the backdoor remains, it will always be possible to carry out malicious updates like this. As far as I understand the secure enclave has been updated a couple times since it's introduction, so I legitimately hope this was a v1, w…

I think Apple in general and Tim Cook in specific are highly moral people: I think they are truly looking at security as a way to make the world a better place; in discussions I have had with employees at Apple, they truly do attempt to build systems where even they don't have access to your information... only at the same time, but somehow from the other side of their mouth, when questioned about their ability to do things that are evil when they do have that ability, they just say "well, we'd never do that", and refuse to discuss scenarios where "we" is difficult to define (as it only takes a finite number of disgruntled employees to decide to do something bad) or they are forced by external parties (such as the United States government). I'm honestly kind of glad to see that latter scenario actually play out, and particularly to see it play out so publicly, so we can see how they react as "well, we'd never do that" even has the possibility of turning into "fuck, we were forced to do that".

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#73

Post by madaxe_again »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #39
madaxe_again wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the US government is Microsoft's biggest customer by a country mile. Hand that feeds you and all that. The FBI already have the info they need, don't need nsa's help, this is purely about setting a precedent.

Gates is not in charge of Microsoft anymore... and hasn't been for a long while. Actually, my best hypothesis is that, remembering that the Gates Foundation, which is the organization Gates is actually involved with now, works a lot in government/policy circles, Bill himself might have views that are more common within that circle that within the tech community. Whether that means that he is taking this point because…

He's not in charge of, but still holds at least $12bn of MS stock, on which a lot of his wealth is leveraged and predicated, which would certainly give him a vested interest in defending microsoft's interests, which are the government's interests.

You may well be right however that the circle he runs in has influenced his stance on this too, however he has historically taken a pro-government anti-knowledge stance - see http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-roll... for instance in which he trots out the "Snowden is a traitor who needs to come home for a fair trial" rhetoric.

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#74

Post by saurik »

acqq wrote: post #70
saurik wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to still fundamentally misunderstand the situation, as you seem to be challenging me to build the tool today and get Apple off the hook, as if that was all that mattered. I can build the tool. What I can't do is sign the result. The only thing any of us are missing is the 4096-bit RSA encryption key used to sign the firmware. The way we load this tool onto the iPhone 4 is using a vulnerability in their bootl…

> he only thing any of us are missing is the 4096-bit RSA encryption key used to sign the firmware. Ah, so Apple's encryption does actually work. That's the essence of the good encryption: everything is known, except the key. You are not supposed to have it. FBI, hopefully, isn't supposed to have it too. That's why we have laws. Checks and balances and stuff. Laws made for specific cases, not "we can do anything."

If this were a normal door lock that someone possessed the master key to, the FBI would have just requested access to the master key temporarily. The FBI is not operating outside the law here: they have a court order. While in some ways it would be more horrific, I'd almost rather see them ask the more analogous question "we would like a copy of your master key" to see how Apple responds, as they'd no longer be able to pretend like it would take them a lot of time to build what the FBI wants: the FBI would just be asking for literally 512 bytes of data that Apple has that stands between them and their goal.

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#75

Post by acqq »

saurik wrote: post #74
acqq wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he only thing any of us are missing is the 4096-bit RSA encryption key used to sign the firmware. Ah, so Apple's encryption does actually work. That's the essence of the good encryption: everything is known, except the key. You are not supposed to have it. FBI, hopefully, isn't supposed to have it too. That's why we have laws. Checks and balances and stuff. Laws made for specific cases, not "we can do anything."

If this were a normal door lock that someone possessed the master key to, the FBI would have just requested access to the master key temporarily. The FBI is not operating outside the law here: they have a court order. While in some ways it would be more horrific, I'd almost rather see them ask the more analogous question "we would like a copy of your master key" to see how Apple responds, as they'd no longer be able…

It's not just what FBI orders, it's the unprecedented legal basis for the order, All Writs which simply states that they can order whatever they want. ("Why?" "Just because!")

Which is very bad if it is accepted this time.

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#76

Post by marak830 »

Wow. Just wow. I keep thinking there is some huge cavet missing from the story, but if there isnt, that is massivly disconnected from reality.

Call and message info, okay maybe, but full access? There is no way you can say thats fine.

I have said it in an earlier comment and ill say it again, i think they are inly doing this, on this case, to make a precedent, and only on this case, as few people will want it to be on record, that they are 'siding' with terrorists.

Imho, its bullshit, all the way through.

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#77

Post by somberi »

In an interview with Rolling Stone's Jeff Goodell, the Microsoft co-founder and richest man in the world did not mince words when asked if he considered whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor.

"I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero," Gates said. "If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience or something of that kind, or if he had been careful in terms of what he had released, then it would fit more of the model of 'OK, I'm really trying to improve things.' You won't find much admiration from me."

Gates said that there "has to be a debate" about government snooping, but indicated that some aspects of government surveillance are best left a secret.

Microsoft has seen quite a bit of controversy regarding its alleged cooperation with the NSA. Last July, the Guardian reported that Microsoft had aided both the NSA and FBI in accessing user data, including providing video and audio conversations from Skype, Microsoft's video chat service. A Der Spiegel report in December also found that the NSA would use fake Windows error messages to spy on people.

Ref: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-gates-snowden_n_496...

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-roll...

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#78

Post by pfg »

saurik wrote: post #59
pfg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a fair assessment. Apple is being asked to create a firmware version without brute force rate-limiting. With a sufficiently complex passphrase, the FBI is still SOL. They're not being asked to create a firmware version that would decrypt the disk - which would be impossible due to the iPhone's security architecture. The fact that only Apple is in a position to sign firmware that could do this is…

> Apple is being asked to create a firmware version without brute force rate-limiting. This is a one line of code change for Apple and would take them a few minutes. FWIW, there are people in the iOS jailbreaking community who could do this without the source code rather quickly. I'll even go so far as to say that we actually already have all the tools for this lying around for the iPhone 4, and with only minimal cha…

I think there are a lot of conflating issues in this discussion.

Firmware signing and how updates are delivered are one thing. I would argue that having only one possible adversary is preferable to everyone being able to create firmware that runs on your device. If there's a practical and secure approach that would allow users to install only firmware updates they approve of, I'd be all for that[1]. In the end - please correct me if I'm wrong - this would require a user-generated key or passphrase of some sort, and then we're back at a brute-force problem and the question of how secure is that passphrase and how are rate-limits enforced.

The iPhone's disc encryption, however, does not rely on this so-called master key. That's why I think calling this a backdoor isn't a fair assessment. It's entirely reliant on the complexity of your passphrase. The iPhone's security architecture, including the firmware signing and in newer versions the secure enclave, make attacks against this significantly harder (or next to impossible, if the secure enclave firmware is actually read-only ... something that definitely needs to be clarified). Compare this to your typical desktop full-disk encryption, where you usually have no countermeasures whatsoever against this kind of thing.

[1]: Speaking as a developer. I'm not qualified to answer this for sure, but my gut feeling is that such a feature in the hands of typical end-users might actually be a bad thing for security.

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#79

Post by rrego »

acqq wrote: post #70
saurik wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to still fundamentally misunderstand the situation, as you seem to be challenging me to build the tool today and get Apple off the hook, as if that was all that mattered. I can build the tool. What I can't do is sign the result. The only thing any of us are missing is the 4096-bit RSA encryption key used to sign the firmware. The way we load this tool onto the iPhone 4 is using a vulnerability in their bootl…

> he only thing any of us are missing is the 4096-bit RSA encryption key used to sign the firmware. Ah, so Apple's encryption does actually work. That's the essence of the good encryption: everything is known, except the key. You are not supposed to have it. FBI, hopefully, isn't supposed to have it too. That's why we have laws. Checks and balances and stuff. Laws made for specific cases, not "we can do anything."

You're really missing the point. Yes the only relevant code that is going to be run on that device will code signed by Apple. I don't think FBI will have direct access to this "key".

The FBI wants Apple to create "malicious" code/update/software version that would allow for multiple decryption attempts among other things. Apple CAN comply with these requests, probably easily. However, by doing so they will destroy trust in Apple signed code and set a precedent.

It doesn't matter WHO has the key because Apple will be acting in proxy.

Re: Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone

#80

Post by saurik »

brbsix wrote: post #49
saurik wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that Apple already has unfettered access to this device: they left themselves a backdoor to which only they have the key, in the form of a "secure" update mechanism that is so "secure" that even the user can't control it, only Apple can. To me the actual question here is whether the FBI should be allowed to ask and then force Apple to use the backdoor Apple built into their product; Apple painting this…

Doesn't the secure update mechanism simply permit access to the system partition? This late in the game, how can that possibly give Apple user filesystem keys? Those require the PIN or password. An OS update at this point can only permit rapid brute force iteration. Obviously "unfettered access to the device" is really useful to steal user keys while the device is unlocked, but it's not so helpful after the fact.

> Obviously "unfettered access to the device" is really useful to steal user keys while the device is unlocked, but it's not so helpful after the fact.

Exactly: the ability for Apple to send a specific user a different firmware update than they send everyone else is extremely brutal and there is absolutely no way the user (no matter how intelligent) could even tell that they were being targeted as the only person who has even remotely powerful access to the firmware being loaded is Apple themselves.

> This late in the game, how can that possibly give Apple user filesystem keys? Those require the PIN or password.

You just brute force this. On the iPhone 4 it took minutes to brute force a 4- digit PIN code, and clearly it wouldn't be a challenge to brute force a 6- digit PIN code (this is still less than a day). If the user has a password, it might take a while (depending on how good it is), but it is still a guaranteed attack. You can quibble with me on the definition of "unfettered", but I maintain that "will take (maybe) some time but almost no effort to get a 100% success rate, and which will complete almost certainly before the statute of limitations expires on the crime" is not usefully "fettered".

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