Apple ordered to unlock phone by court.

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rugrat

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Topic # 191847 18-Feb-2016 01:31

http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-ordered-to-unlock-san-bernardino-shooters-iphone/

Apple is refusing to comply with court ruling, as they say it would weaken the security on all their encryption key.

Also if they are forced to make a tool for law enforcement in US, then they argue that they would have to allow the Chinese to break their encryption as well.

While I can see how it would help with solving crimes and preventing some, maybe the bigger picture isn't so black and white.

Be interested to see how this plays out.

Open letter from Apple,

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

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Reply # 1494556 18-Feb-2016 03:29

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As much as I hate crime this is one request I hope they don't comply with. The ramifications are huge.

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SaltyNZ

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Reply # 1494560 18-Feb-2016 06:45

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While I can see how it would help with solving crimes and preventing some, maybe the bigger picture isn't so black and white.

Of course it's not. You don't let the police have a key to your front door so that they can come in and look around for terrorists because you know that if that key were stolen you'd have a much bigger problem with regular criminals.

Encryption is no different. The benefit you get in hiding your important information (e.g. bank details) from common or garden variety criminals - of which there are relatively many - vastly outweighs the occasional benefit police might get from unlocking the phone of the relatively very rare criminal such as this guy and his wife. And of course, his wife - the only person who can be put on trial, since he's already dead - was witnessed doing the shooting by a lot of people.

They're not going to have trouble getting a conviction, iPhone or not. The next argument would be 'but we want to know who she's been in contact with.' Fine - the call records stored at her phone company will be much more useful than the contents of her iPhone. So will her Facebook, Twitter or other social media accounts. None of those are encrypted. Social media can probably be accessed just by going to the site like any member of the public.

Nobody else gets to compromise public safety just to sometimes make their jobs a little easier. I don't see why this is any different.

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Linuxluver

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Reply # 1494562 18-Feb-2016 07:00

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rugrat: http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-ordered-to-unlock-san-bernardino-shooters-iphone/

Apple is refusing to comply with court ruling, as they say it would weaken the security on all their encryption key.

Also if they are forced to make a tool for law enforcement in US, then they argue that they would have to allow the Chinese to break their encryption as well.

While I can see how it would help with solving crimes and preventing some, maybe the bigger picture isn't so black and white.

Be interested to see how this plays out.

Open letter from Apple,

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

I'm trying to tie this story up with what happened when my wife found an iPad at Auckland Airport.

I called Apple and the iPad hadn't been registered by the user. The user also had not enabled Siri so I wasn't able to do the "Who owns this iPad" question by holding down the Home button.

Apple told me to take it to police and have the police call them and they would help the police identify the owner.....presumably by giving the police access to the device.

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lxsw20

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Reply # 1494565 18-Feb-2016 07:13

I very much doubt Apple would give device access to the NZ police.

sbiddle

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Reply # 1494566 18-Feb-2016 07:15

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On a related note it really shows why the current saga around error 53 is so important. The TouchID sensor is a TPM and it's pretty much an unknown as to what functions in the OS now rely on this TPM. Bricking a device with a TPM that's potentially been tampered with is the only way to ensure data integrety.

Linuxluver

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Reply # 1494568 18-Feb-2016 07:21

lxsw20:

I very much doubt Apple would give device access to the NZ police.

You'd think.

Thinking more -> Perhaps finding out who the owner is doesn't compromise the security of the data. For example, if you could somehow enable Siri externally so the question could be put....that would allow the owner to be identified without giving up access to the device.

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SaltyNZ

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Reply # 1494583 18-Feb-2016 08:10

Linuxluver:

lxsw20:

I very much doubt Apple would give device access to the NZ police.

You'd think.

Thinking more -> Perhaps finding out who the owner is doesn't compromise the security of the data. For example, if you could somehow enable Siri externally so the question could be put....that would allow the owner to be identified without giving up access to the device.

It's an interesting question. The TICSA act is deliberately worded in such a way that Apple's iMessage service can be construed as making Apple a telecommunications service provider (since it provides a telecommunications service to more than 4,000 (from memory) people) on the say-so of the minister via an order in council. All telecommunications providers covered by TICSA are required by law to be able to decrypt any encrypted service they provide. Right now, the minister has left Apple off the table.

However, if at any time he or she should declare them to be a carrier under TICSA then they could be severely penalised for refusing an order to decrypt. What 'severely penalised' means in practice would be interesting. It wouldn't take a very big fine to make NZ unprofitable for Apple, who could then simply turn around and withdraw support from NZ. It wouldn't take very long with no iTunes etc. before the rabble would (rightly) be demanding political heads - hell, even the PM has an iPhone - and that decision would be quietly reversed.

On the other hand, am I in favour of a multinational demanding the elected government bend over and do whatever they say just because they happen to have more power over the people than the government does? No. No, I am not. Apple isn't my friend. Apple does whatever Apple believes will make Apple the most money. Today that might be to do something I also want them to do. But that could change in an instant.

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Lias

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Reply # 1494605 18-Feb-2016 08:52

From what I read <somewhere> it sounded as if the FBI was requiring apple to install a custom firmware on the device, which allowed unlimited attempts at cracking the lock code, without any delay between attempts, without locking out the device or damaging the data, and allowed the lock code attempts to be launched from any connection to the device rather than just the touchpad.

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Lias

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Reply # 1494614 18-Feb-2016 09:02

Apple's reasonable technical assistance shall accomplish the following three important functions: (1) it will bypass or disable the auto-erase function whether or not it has been enabled; (2) it will enable the FBI to submit passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE for testing electronically via the physical device port, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other protocol available on the SUBJECT and (3) it will ensure that when the FBI submits passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE, software running on the device will not purposefully introduce any additional delay between passcode attempts beyond what is incurred by Apple hardware.

From the court order via Ars

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SaltyNZ

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Reply # 1494618 18-Feb-2016 09:04

Lias:

From what I read <somewhere> it sounded as if the FBI was requiring apple to install a custom firmware on the device, which allowed unlimited attempts at cracking the lock code, without any delay between attempts, without locking out the device or damaging the data, and allowed the lock code attempts to be launched from any connection to the device rather than just the touchpad.

Correct, which is effectively a backdoor, especially if the user in question was only using 4-digit PIN protection. It would take only a few seconds to unlock it that way if the built-in delays and self-destruct were disabled in the OS.

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nigelj

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Reply # 1494682 18-Feb-2016 09:56

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Linuxluver:

I'm trying to tie this story up with what happened when my wife found an iPad at Auckland Airport.

I called Apple and the iPad hadn't been registered by the user. The user also had not enabled Siri so I wasn't able to do the "Who owns this iPad" question by holding down the Home button.

Apple told me to take it to police and have the police call them and they would help the police identify the owner.....presumably by giving the police access to the device.

Two different things, Police can call up Apple and say "We have found a device with serial number XYZ, we need to make reasonable attempts to return this lost property, can you help", Apple can in turn look up Apple IDs that have signed into the iPad recently (especially if said iPad is a trusted device on someone's iTunes account) and contact the owner directly. No 'breaking in' required.

What the FBI are requesting is that Apple replace the copy of iOS on the phone with one that gives the FBI the ability to use a digital lockpick. That is wrong.

I hope Apple can find a way of winning this battle.

MadEngineer

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Reply # 1494697 18-Feb-2016 10:16

If they could gain access to the owners email address registered with Apple then they could easily clone the phone from iCloud backup -- assuming the owner used this function and had an email account with a provider happy to give the authorities access.

dickytim

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Reply # 1494729 18-Feb-2016 11:02

nigelj:

Linuxluver:

I'm trying to tie this story up with what happened when my wife found an iPad at Auckland Airport.

I called Apple and the iPad hadn't been registered by the user. The user also had not enabled Siri so I wasn't able to do the "Who owns this iPad" question by holding down the Home button.

Apple told me to take it to police and have the police call them and they would help the police identify the owner.....presumably by giving the police access to the device.

Two different things, Police can call up Apple and say "We have found a device with serial number XYZ, we need to make reasonable attempts to return this lost property, can you help", Apple can in turn look up Apple IDs that have signed into the iPad recently (especially if said iPad is a trusted device on someone's iTunes account) and contact the owner directly. No 'breaking in' required.

What the FBI are requesting is that Apple replace the copy of iOS on the phone with one that gives the FBI the ability to use a digital lockpick. That is wrong.

I hope Apple can find a way of winning this battle.

Why is it wrong that Apple put this firmware on a specific device of a mass murdering criminal, your moral compass must be really out of whack.

Andib

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Reply # 1494777 18-Feb-2016 11:15

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dickytim:

Why is it wrong that Apple put this firmware on a specific device of a mass murdering criminal, your moral compass must be really out of whack.

Because what stops them using it for lesser crimes or from corporate pressure in the future? its for a mass murder now, But once they have the software, What's stopping them using it on another iPhone who is accused of copyright for example?

Not having the ability at all to bypass security is much better than having the ability and trusting that it will never be abused.

If they were to create a backdoor it would be exploited by people who it wasn't intended for. You just have to look at the exploits already in iOS being used to jailbreak devices

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Reply # 1494781 18-Feb-2016 11:20

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dickytim:

Why is it wrong that Apple put this firmware on a specific device of a mass murdering criminal, your moral compass must be really out of whack.

In addition to the slippery slope argument, because once it exists it becomes a target for thieves, and once it is out in the wild the security is broken for everyone. EDIT: snap!

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