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Apple's "Warrant Canary" Has Died
HughPickens.com writes When Apple published its first Transparency Report on government activity in late 2013, the document contained an important footnote that stated: "Apple has never received an order under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. We would expect to challenge such an order if served on us." Now Jeff John Roberts writes at Gigaom that Apple's warrant canary has disappeared. A review of the company's last two Transparency Reports, covering the second half of 2013 and the first six months of 2014, shows that the "canary" language is no longer there suggesting that Apple is now part of FISA or PRISM proceedings.
Warrant canaries are a tool used by companies and publishers to signify to their users that, so far, they have not been subject to a given type of law enforcement request such as a secret subpoena. If the canary disappears, then it is likely the situation has changed — and the company has been subject to such request. This may also give some insight into Apple's recent decision to rework its latest encryption in a way that makes it almost impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to police.
Warrant canaries are a tool used by companies and publishers to signify to their users that, so far, they have not been subject to a given type of law enforcement request such as a secret subpoena. If the canary disappears, then it is likely the situation has changed — and the company has been subject to such request. This may also give some insight into Apple's recent decision to rework its latest encryption in a way that makes it almost impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to police.
Here's an interesting follow up from Ars
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
Watch those corners
What's missing is a specific reference to Section 215, suggesting that a limited Section 215 order has been served on Apple.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It either can or can't be done. Almost impossible means it still can be done.
Encryption is ALWAYS breakable by brute force. Question is how long does it take? Seconds? Hours? Months? Years? Decades? This is usually determined by key sizes. The longer the key, the longer it takes to brute force. (generally)
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It either can or can't be done. Almost impossible means it still can be done.
Encryption is ALWAYS breakable by brute force. Question is how long does it take? Seconds? Hours? Months? Years? Decades? This is usually determined by key sizes. The longer the key, the longer it takes to brute force. (generally)
Decades?
Wow.
You must live pretty damn far away from a big city or something.
Takes me like fifteen minutes to buy a $5 wrench. Tops.
Encryption is ALWAYS breakable by brute force. Question is how long does it take? Seconds? Hours? Months? Years? Decades? This is usually determined by key sizes. The longer the key, the longer it takes to brute force. (generally)
Um, not quite, one time pads are provably impossible to break by brute force since the message can be decoded into any message of the right length.
Takes me like fifteen minutes to buy a $5 wrench. Tops.
That requires:
a) you know who to hit with it
b) the person you decide to hit with it knows the password
So if you shoot a "terr'ist" and retreive his encrypted smart phone... what are you going to do exactly with a wrench?
No. You don't know what you're talking about. See, OTPs use a random 'key' the same length as the data you're encrypting. It doesn't matter if there are known fields in the data, because matching those sections tells you nothing about any other section.
OTPs have a trivial proof that they provide perfect encryption as long as the key is never reused. They're just horribly impractical for everyday use.
No, one time pads cannot be broken. The key and the message have the same length. You xor the key and the message to encrypt, xor again to decrypt. Since the attacker knows neither the key nor the plain text, he cannot break it even if he is an immortal whose only objective is breaking the crypto.
Then why isn't it used everywhere? Because the key needs to be as big as the message, and the key is good for only a single use. That means you cannot send a new key encrypted with the one time pad (well, you can, but it won't help you). Any clever tricks you're thinking would make the crypto weaker.
Actually, it is not. In reality, a 256 bit key can not be brute forced because of physics - especially the second law of thermodynamics. One of the results of this law is that information needs energy to be represented. In an ideal computer, the representation of one bit requires kT energy, where k is the Boltzman constant and T is the temperature. Let's assume we can operate at the average temperature of 3.2 Kelvin, the average temperature of the universe. The required energy to represent a bit in this case would be around 4.416*10-23 Joule.
The annual amount of energy that our sun emits is about 1.21*10^34 Joule. Dividing this with the per bit-change energy, we could provide power for our ideal computer to perform 2.74*10^56 bit changes. This is just about enough to have a 187-bit counter go through all its states. This does not include the energy needed for the computations to test each key (our counter state in this case) for correctness.
A 256 bit counter would require ~400.000.000.000.000.000.000 stars like our sun just to represent in the counter of our ideal computer.
Or, to say it in the words of Bruce Schneier:
"...brute force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space".
Note: I am not talking about potential attacks against the algorithms here, etc. only pointing out that encryption is definitely not ALWAYS breakable by brute force.
My blog, if you're interested: http://www.purp
Tighten a loose bolt! I can always use a good wrench.
It's five dollars well spent, in my opinion.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
FYI Apple's privacy site is here: http://www.apple.com/privacy/p...
Of course there will be plenty of cynism here but I think it is in general a good & commendable effort for transparency. Interesting is the section on government information request:
National Security Orders from the U.S. government.
A tiny percentage of our millions of accounts is affected by national security-related requests. In the first six months of 2014, we received 250 or fewer of these requests. Though we would like to be more specific, by law this is the most precise information we are currently allowed to disclose.
No warrant canary required, it is here in the open.
So what could be the kind of thing asked taken into account the other the other privacy information on the site?
Apple double-pinky swearing that they'll never, unh-uh, not ever unlock your iPhone
That's not what they said - they said the've altered it so they CANNOT unlock your iPhone, even if they want to.
Given how the technology works, that is a quite reasonable assertion. iOS devices have had full device encryption for some time, without that key you have nothing.
All this "canary" bullshit begs the question why, if Apple really cared one little bit about their customers, don't they just come out and say what they have to say.
That just shows a misunderstanding of what companies are legally ALLOWED to say. Once you get the order you CANNOT talk about it, thus the device of the canary.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. Police seize iPhone
2. Police arrest owner.
3. Police tell owner to unlock the phone.
4. Owner refuses.
5. Police grab finger, press to button/fingerprint reader.
6. Phone is unlocked.
What encryption?
The huge machinery behind the NSA / CIA / FBI and all those alphabet agencies wants total control, and it has the enthusiastic support of private companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, amongst others
Obama? That one is but a puppet
When the term of this puppet ends, by 2016 they will have another puppet installed. But of course, they will give us an "illusive election", whereby no matter who we vote for, it will be their puppet who will be installed inside the Casa Blanca!
Viva la Maquinaria !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Another reason why biometry is great to establish identity but poor for authentication.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You underestimate the stupidity of your adversary. And their sadism.
Or, in other words, just 'cause you can't confess doesn't mean the torture ends.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Apple removed a sentence from their quarterly filings and obviously this is a sign of imminent fascist genocide.
Smart people are some of the stupidest people I've ever met.