Private Data On iOS Devices Not So Private After All

theshowmecanuck (703852) writes with this excerpt from Reuters summarizing the upshot of a talk that Jonathan Zdziarski gave at last weekend's HOPE conference: Personal data including text messages, contact lists and photos can be extracted from iPhones through previously unpublicized techniques by Apple Inc employees, the company acknowledged this week. The same techniques to circumvent backup encryption could be used by law enforcement or others with access to the 'trusted' computers to which the devices have been connected, according to the security expert who prompted Apple's admission. Users are not notified that the services are running and cannot disable them, Zdziarski said. There is no way for iPhone users to know what computers have previously been granted trusted status via the backup process or block future connections. If you'd rather watch and listen, Zdziarski has posted a video showing how it's done.

Comments

Stallman was right

[jabberw0k]

These so-called "smart telephones" aren't telephones at all; they are computers. Computers that you cannot control. And if you aren't, who is?

Some folks thought Richard Stallman was crazy for saying no-one should run software or use hardware that is based on clandestine (proprietary, hidden) knowledge. This latest revelation is just one reason he was right all along.

Re:Stallman was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, if someone wants a "smartphone" that is under full control of the user, there are a few choices: Openmoko Neo Freerunner, OpenPhoenux GTA04 or latest device in development - Neo900 ( http://neo900.org/ )

The last one even goes further and implements monitoring over some unavoidably closed parts, like GSM modem (and all of them have proper modem isolation, so the modem cannot access the main RAM, possibly rendering any software encryption moot like on most of recent mainstream smartphones)

Article got it wrong

[strredwolf]

Almost all the reports are getting the gist of the paper wrong -- any press summation that doesn't go into the paper to understand it will get it wrong. The paper goes into deep detail that Apple has several services that, while protected by several layers of security that could be bypassed, can transfer data in the clear. There are also several services that don't have any obvious connecting software.

It's a rather deep hacker-style dive into iOS.

A good video about this is by TWiT Network. At http://twit.tv/sn465 Security Now ep 465 has expert Steve Gibson explain the actual paper.