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iPhone Attack Reveals Passwords In Six Minutes
angry tapir writes "Researchers in Germany say they've been able to reveal passwords stored in a locked iPhone in just six minutes and they did it without cracking the phone's passcode. The attack, which requires possession of the phone, targets keychain, Apple's password management system. Passwords for networks and corporate information systems can be revealed if an iPhone or iPad is lost or stolen."
For a buddy's bachelor party we went white water rafting, and rented a huge cabin for the weekend. When we first arrived, we were all staking out beds (18 of us), and some of them were of the slide under the couch futon variety. While we were pulling one out, we found a woman's wallet from the previous occupants. It belonged to a girl in her early 20's that was clearly there partying it up. Her wallet contained everything, ID, credit cards, iPhone, etc.. (even a little white baggy of nose candy). Anyway the iPhone was locked, but one of the guys took it and said (his words not mine) "lets see how dumb this bitch is...". He typed 1,2,3,4 into the iPhone and nothing. Then he said, hey hand me her ID (which all the guys were checking out as she was rather hot), and then typed in her birthday as found on her ID into the iPhone... Click. Two tries. Her phone had plenty of photos of her and her girl friends which we all checked out. Anyway in the end we flushed her baggy, and using the contacts of her iPhone called up her Mom and some of her friends to get hold of her, told her we found her stuff, got her address and at the conclusion of our weekend mailed her stuff back to her. When we talked to her on the phone, we suggested she change her password to something a little stronger.
Moral of the story, 1) People pick stupid passwords anyway, you hardly need some sophisticated password cracking system in many cases, 2) don't loose your iPhone with a stupid password at a party resort unless you want a bunch of stupid guys ogling your photos... We also may have taken a photo of one of the guys on the toilet using her phone, not sure if that ever got erased or not...