This is now the most-upvoted story HN has ever had.
And apparently #2 is also by Tim Cook? http://www.hntoplinks.com/all
That's #4, behind 3078128 and 3742902 (though that one cheated).
A Message to Our Customers
971–980 of 1001 posts
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#972Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to a former apple engineer that worked on this stuff, the enclave's firmware is indeed a signed blob: https://twitter.com/JohnHedge/status/699882614212075520 The key thing would be for it to lose all stored keys on update when the current passphase has not been provided, and it sounds like that may not currently be the case. Maybe in this case, Apple could comply, but a simple tweak would make it impossible…
But "on update" isn't really the issue. If the code can be swapped underneath it, how does it know an "update" took place? Again you're in the situation where all of that process would have to be managed by hardware , when what is really happening is that the enclave is a computer running signed software that can be replaced.
Have it store the firmware itself encrypted with the UID. It never leaves the secure enclave so only the secure enclave itself could "sign" updates. You could still allow for recovery by providing a method to reset the UID.
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#973Dear Tim Cook,
Thank you!
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#974Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>> I am really glad that one of the most valuable companies in the world is drawing a bright line in the sand. So I really support Tim's position on this one. Tim's position today might not be apple's position tomorrow. Apple is a large publicly traded company. They owe a duty only to shareholders. Fighting this fight will probably impact the bottom line. Tim's continuation may turn on the outcome. Cooperation may s…
They owe a duty only to shareholders. Because Freedom Markets(tm), booyah! Society can bumble along just fine without corporations. Corporations serve society. Take away society, with its culture, laws, rules, regulations, courts, people, economy, markets, capital, etc, there can be no corporations. The Shareholder Fallacy http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/the_shareholder_fallacy/ Historically, corporations were unders…
>>In reality, there is nothing in any U.S. statute, federal or state, that requires corporations to maximize their profits.
Laws and statutes don't enforce contracts. But courts do. You are trumpeting a theory I've heard many times before. It's creators lack a basic understanding of contract law or corporate organization. :ookup "shareholder derivative actions".
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#975Earlier quoted context omitted.
They address this at the end of the letter. They say it's "an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority." They go on to talk about what that precedent would mean. It's at the very bottom.
I don't buy it. The FBI is not trying to dictate how Apple builds their devices. They want Apple to take measures to unlock one device. How do they get from that to "[the government] would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data"? Apple seems to be saying that if the FBI can ask Apple to install special software on one person's phone, then they can ask Apple to install special software on e…
Your response feels very naive or short sighted. Or both.
If this goes through, you better believe that there will be court orders left and right, which can't be authentically argued against since Apple has already done it before.
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#976Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They wrote the OS, they designed the phone, they know where the JTAG connectors are. Cracking the phone apart and putting is logic board up on a debugger would likely enable them to bypass security. When a passcode is entered, the SoC queries the Secure Enclave with the passcode. If the passcode is correct, the Secure Enclave responds with the decryption key for the flash storage. The best Apple could do is sign a…
> The best Apple could do is sign a malicious update to the Secure Enclave firmware that either removes the time delays or dumps the keys. Dumping the Secure Enclave would not result in the keys necessary to read the files on the filesystem. Each file has a unique key, which is wrapped by a class key, and for some classes, the class key is wrapped by a key derived from the passcode. If you don't have the passcode, yo…
You could bruteforce the passcode.
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#977This is just huge hypocrisy and full of lies. First of all, Apple CAN attempt to brute force the password. Compiling whatever new firmware is needed and signing it with their keys will not introduce any new backdoor like they claimed and lied to the public - the backdoor is already there, and it is their private keys. Just like that "backdoor" somehow end up at some bad guy's hand, so could their private keys. I woul…
> This is just huge hypocrisy and full of lies. First of all, Apple CAN attempt to brute force the password. Compiling whatever new firmware is needed and signing it with their keys will not introduce any new backdoor like they claimed and lied to the public - the backdoor is already there, and it is their private keys. Just like that "backdoor" somehow end up at some bad guy's hand, so could their private keys.
Thank you! This is the most important technical point about this whole thing. All the talking about the SE (fascinating as it may be) is irrelevant. All strong crypto that is based on a private key being kept in a secure vault at some corporation does have a backdoor. The keeper of the key can be compelled to use it to sign something.
This is exactly why this would be such a dangerous precedent. Government giving software specifications that are signed with a vendors public key. In this case, it's a one off but it's a step into the direction of "upload a screen-shot of the phone's display every minute to ftp.nsa.gov with your next iOS update". And no SecureEnclave will protect against that. It will just be a OS update signed by Apple.
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#978Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Apple has implicitly for a long time, and lately much more vocally, cared about privacy. They say that. But with closed source software we can't verify that it's true. I'm not saying they don't care about privacy, only that we don't really know if they do or not.
With open source software, it doesn't appear that people can verify things are safe either given the long-term security issues with things like OpenSSL et al.
We found the bug in OpenSSL BECAUSE it was opensource. If it weren't, nobody would have seen it.
Plus, with open source you can verify intent, which you can't with apple.
Which provide a device getting your finger prints, all your phone numbers, internet search, bank details, some paiements, network communication, voice communications, text communications, localisation using GPS and wifi + hotspot + phone towers and soon ihealth device collection body metrics.
And they are profit oriented, not people oriented.
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#979Can't they dump the drive's data to protect it from being erased?
Re: A Message to Our Customers
#980Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, if iOS were open source / the iPhone was able to run unsigned code there would be nothing stopping the FBI from just doing what they've asked apple to do themselves (assuming it's actually technically possible).
Open source doesn't preclude securing the boot chain. TianoCore implements UEFI Secure Boot, and it's BSD licensed. I think the bigger issue is the (unreasonably) low trust in things like secure elements and TPMs in open source, but that needs to change, and is rapidly off topic. More on topic is whether Apple or even Google get out from under this if their on disk encryption mechanism is open source. If everyone own…
In that case the FBI don't get a warrant and compel a company to comply, they put out an RFP and pay a contract company to comply.