Tim Cook Says Apple Can't Read Users' Emails, That iCloud Wasn't Hacked

Apple CEO Tim Cook insists that Apple doesn't read -- in fact, says Cook, cannot read -- user's emails, and that the company's iCloud service wasn't hacked. ZDNet presents highlights from Cook's lengthy, two-part interview with Charlie Rose. One selection of particular interest: Apple previously said that even it can't access iMessage and FaceTime communications, stating that such messages and calls are not held in an "identifiable form." [Cook] claimed if the government "laid a subpoena," then Apple "can't provide it." He said, bluntly: "We don't have a key... the door is closed." He reiterated previous comments, whereby Apple has said it is not in the business of collecting people's data. He said: "When we design a new service, we try not to collect data. We're not reading your email." Cook went on to talk about PRISM in more detail, following the lead from every other technology company implicated by those now-infamous PowerPoint slides.

Comments

Is this technically impossible - no.

[queazocotal]

Is it legally possible... Not everywhere certainly.
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/in...
Is he required to lie about this?

Re:Is this technically impossible - no.

[Pieroxy]

He makes a fair point. The data stored at Apple does not generate revenue for Apple, at the contrary of Google - where your emails are scanned for content to target ads at your eyeballs.

Now, jumping from that to "We cannot do it even if we wanted to" is quite a leap forward. I'm not sure I trust that part of the statement.

Re:Is this technically impossible - no.

[fustakrakich]

Is he required to lie about this?

Very likely, if I can read my mail, so can he. It's only logical.

Re:Is this technically impossible - no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong! They have the ability to reset your password without losing your data so they would need to have either have access to the password itself or the keys to decrypt stored data.

Re:Is this technically impossible - no.

[mean pun]

For these people, with their resources, your "encryption", unless it's a one time pad, is no better than ROT13.

From the Snowdon leaks it looks like even the NSA cannot crack properly used strong encryption. That's why they try to harvest or weaken keys, try to get in before or after encryption, or use traffic (metadata) analysis.

Re:Is this technically impossible - no.

[Anubis IV]

Very likely, if I can read my mail, so can he. It's only logical.

The fact that an organization acts as a conduit for delivering messages does not necessitate that they have the ability to read the contents of those messages. The one does not follow from the other. It may be likely that the two go hand-in-hand, but by no means is it logical that they would do so.

The various white papers and other security documents Apple has released over the last year or two make it clear that they claim they do not hold the private keys necessary to decrypt their users' data. Those private keys reside on the devices of the users, with unique keys being generated for each device and unique copies of the data being maintained separately for each device. For instance, in the case of iMessages, here's how Apple claims they work:
1) I type up an iMessage to send to another Apple user and press Send.

2) My device queries Apple's servers for the public key(s) of the recipient, which could be numerous if they've configured iMessages to arrive on multiple devices.

3) My device creates and encrypts one copy of the message for each device, using the public key that is specific to each device for the copy going to it.

4) My device signs the copies using its private key.

5) The iMessage is sent to Apple, who then forwards it and immediately deletes it, unless they can't deliver it, in which case it'll stay queued for up to 7 days.

6) The recipient's device verifies the signature against my public key and then decrypts the message using its own private key.

Assuming the system works as described, Apple shouldn't have access to the content of the messages. Whether or not you believe that it works as described is a matter of how much faith you put in corporations and/or the governments that might be compelling them to insert backdoors. For instance, there are trivial ways that they can circumvent their own systems to gain access to messages, without having to compromise the private keys at all. The easiest way I can imagine would be to simply provide the public key of a wiretapping device in addition to the other keys in step #2 above. Unless you're sniffing your own traffic to ensure that you're sending EXACTLY what you're expecting to send, you'd never notice that you've sent out an extra copy of the message, and would be entirely unaware that it had landed on a government agent's device as well.

But again, it isn't logical that they would have that sort of access. "Likely", given the state of things? Sure. But logical? By no means. Again, the one does not follow from the other. Particularly so in the case of Apple, since their money comes from hardware sales, not from monetizing the user's information, so it's in their best interests to make those devices as secure to use as possible.

Re:Is this technically impossible - no.

[Trailer Trash]

People are conflating the "iMessage & Facetime" part of the quote with the "email" part. He says that they cannot (that is to say "do not have the ability") to read iMessage & Facetime. He then states that they do not read your email. People are pulling the "cannot" along with them when they read that sentence, but it doesn't say that they cannot read email, only that they choose to not read your email.

Your description of the iMessage encryption is good, but what the original poster said was true given a few constraints. So let me restate it in a logically consistent manner: if I can read my icloud email on any browser then apple also has the ability to read it.

But, but, maybe they encrypt it using your password on their server! If they did, "change password" would always require the old password and if you forgot your password your email would be lost forever. So, no, they're not doing that.

The bottom line is that if they can show me my email in any browser (which they can) then they can also read it trivially.

This isn't inconsistent with Cook's statement - he merely says that they choose to not do that.

Re:Is this technically impossible - no.

[Tuidjy]

I personally don't believe that the NSA can't crack strong encryption.

I'm not quite sure what you are saying. It sounds to me as if you think that there is no encryption strong enough that the NSA cannot crack it. This is completely false.

A simple example is using one time pad encryption. Without the pad, you you cannot even theoretically crack it. Try every possible pad, and you will get every possible message of the proper length - some of them will make perfect sense, so you will not be able to find the right one.

Taking it a bit further, there are encryptions that would take too long to crack, if they are properly executed, and the NSA does not have a backdoor. And by too long, I mean that there is not enough time before the heat death of the Universe.

Hell, I am perfectly sure that I could establish communication with some of my friends from college that could not be cracked, even theoretically. I would have to exchange some information with them in a secure manner before hand, of course. But I would never take the risk of doing something like this. It would attract the wrong kind of attention.

Poor Apple

[obarthelemy]

It seems they've picked "privacy" as a fighting point vs Google. They don't seem to realize that people either
1- don't care anyway
or
2- care, and know Apple is bullshitting.

Re:Lie.

[Sockatume]

...because that's not what he actually said. He has previously stated that iMessage and Facetime, by design, can't be intercepted (it's all encrypted client-side); in this new interview he stated that they don't read your email, and that as a general principle they try to design systems so that they can't capture data, or at the very least aren't capturing anything they don't need to do what they're supposed to be doing.

tanslation for the masses:

[nimbius]

Tim cook, talking head who has only ever held managerial roles in various fortune 100 companies, expels platitudes about the sanctity of the iGalaxy for users who slept through FISA and NSA backdoors and only recently began giving a shit when selfies and nudes were leaked from the magical cloud by notorious hacker 4chan.

Re:If true thats great

[binarylarry]

Yeah I can't wait until he starts saying:

"Bono and the Edge totally pulled a fast one on us. Apple has no way of automatically installing horrible music on your devices with your permission."

Re:Not Hacked?

[jratcliffe]

Actually, it's more the distinction between "they broke into the bank vault and went through your safety deposit box" and "they pickpocketed you, and used your key and a fake ID to get into your safety deposit box."

iAD http://advertising.apple.com/ since iOS4

[tuppe666]

"With iAD you can get your message out to millions of people worldwide who use Apple products every day. Connect with users as they listen to music on iTunes Radio or while they use their favourite App Network. Find your audience using targeted tools built upon a foundation of registration and media consumption datahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v... start at 44 Min The idea is you spy on people in Apps not in search, because people spens 97% of their time in apps

Re:Lie.

[bberens]

This can't be true. Or at least if it is true they have the encryption key. If your password was required to access the e-mail data, then if you lost your password you'd lose access to all of your historical data during a password reset.

Re:If true thats great

[ahaweb]

That's like calling spam "free advice".

False Headline

[Bob9113]

Tim Cook Says Apple Can't Read Users' Emails,

No he didn't.

Apple previously said that even it can't access iMessage and FaceTime communications, stating that such messages and calls are not held in an "identifiable form." [Cook] claimed if the government "laid a subpoena," then Apple "can't provide it." He said, bluntly: "We don't have a key... the door is closed." He reiterated previous comments, whereby Apple has said it is not in the business of collecting people's data. He said: "When we design a new service, we try not to collect data. We're not reading your email."

He said they cannot read iMessage and FaceTime, and they are not reading your email. That is a very important distinction. It might be one he was hoping you would miss, and you did miss it, but he did not say they can't access your email.

And I'm not blowing sunshine up his skirt. I came here intending to kick him in the balls (metaphorically, of course) for lying, but he didn't.

Pro-tip: If any system includes a password recovery mechanism that allows you to get back messages, then the administrator of the password recovery system can read your back messages.