Slashdot Mirror
Apple Tells US Judge It's 'Impossible' To Break Through Locks On New iPhones (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Apple told a U.S. judge that accessing data stored on a locked iPhone would be "impossible" with devices using its latest operating system, but the company has the "technical ability" to help law enforcement unlock older phones. Apple's position was laid out in a brief filed late Monday, after a federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn, New York, sought its input as he weighed a U.S. Justice Department request to force the company to help authorities access a seized iPhone during an investigation. In court papers, Apple said that for the 90 percent of its devices running iOS 8 or higher, granting the Justice Department's request "would be impossible to perform" after it strengthened encryption methods.
Sounds like a challenge!
So all of you must upgrade your phone to be 'safe'
1) If the phone hadn't been seized it would have been trivial for Apple to get the password since it controls the software running on the phone remotely.
2) Why they want to avoid compelling the owner to unlock the phone is not stated. Is he likely to challenge the demand on legal grounds as an illegal search? Isn't that his right? Why the attempt at a reach-around here?
Really think of Carrier IQ, think of its ability to capture everything you do from key presses to app usage to files, to log everything. That is still present on every handset. Samsung in particular absolutely load their phones with spyware that can be run simply from the GSM connection remotely. Apple will have exactly the same. Because behind the scenes Apple was just another company that signed up to PRISM, and so their handsets will be exactly the same, even if they can't reveal that to a Judge.
Made in USA = backdoored, Snowden showed us that.
I'm not sure the judicial conviction of this one suspect is worth granting law enforcement the unfettered ability to deputize anyone, any time it's convenient.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This is what encryption is for. Keeping data from the bad guys.
Anything is possible. The impossible just takes longer to figure out.
Besides, obligatory XKCD reference
Introducing the "Mom, Freedom, and Apple Pie Anti-Terrorist Act of 2015," that requires that all phone manufacturers build in government approved backdoors into every phone. And after a few Democrats and Rand Paul pretend to object to it, and briefly pretend to stand up against it, it will be approved by Congress with a unanimous vote and signed by the President (who will also pretend to give a flying fuck about privacy concerns by pinkie-swearing that it won't be abused).
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
On Android you can browse the Play Market on a desktop-browser and remotely install applications on your phone, with no confirmation or anything needed on the phone. This applies even if you have automatic updates disabled. Can you do the same on iOS-devices? If you can, then what would be stopping Apple from sending an small application this way to the device that unlocks it? This way there's no decryption needed, no passwords or anything, since they basically have a backdoor behind it all already, and Apple obviously does have access to all the low-level APIs and everything needed.
Then it is not impossible. Now that Apple claims this, watch it will be hacked in a few weeks to months.
Silly Apple.
It's a straight up application of Schneier's Law:
-- Bruce Schneier
Someone might be able to break it, but if they can I doubt they'd talk about it.
Log in or piss off.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Snowden's Panorama Interview revealed GCHQ 'Smurfs', backdoors used to spy and control smartphones. So the timing of this release seems very handy.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34444233
George Holtz, did you see this? Let me know when you are done disproving this.
This sounds like a marketing scheme to get people to think:
"Oh nos! DOJ can break into my 'older phones' running 'iOS [7 or lower]'! Better buy the newest one!"
How does an Apple customer verify that the claim is true?
If it is locked via password and they have physical access to the device, they could theoretically still brute force the password, although this may take a while.
Impossible means something different from what Apple is claiming.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Apple even puts ads in their statements to US Judge!
>Old iPhones can be broken, but new ones cannot!
>Isn't it a good reason to buy a new one?
In other news, the Department Of Homeland Security declares that Apple is now an "Enemy of the State", and will be moving to seize all of their assets.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
nt
Americans and Apple were already declared an enemy of the state; this was implicit when the state deployed their military spy apparatus against them.
does the stuff on my cell phone seem like it should be protected by the 5th? Much of the data on my cell phone is data I wouldn't want created in the first place, and odds are it's damning enough to land me in prison regardless of whether I did the crime I'm being investigated for or not. If that unintentional byproduct of device usage is going to incriminate me, then how can I invoke the privilege? I feel like if there is a judicial body investigating me, there are places where I can invoke the 5th and draw the line, and my cell phone is one of those. These things are becoming part of us. I say, encrypt the shit out of them automatically. All of them.
It is just that Apple doesn't have the tools in place to do it, and in fact may not know how to do it, and Apple is likely not pursuing the capability to do it. The court cannot compel Apple to do something that they do not know how to do.
I've heard rumors that his cancer was government-caused (like Jack Ruby's). In Steve's case, it was because he wasn't playing ball with the spying agencies. This is saddening, but it's good to see Apple standing up for The People.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I have not thought of getting any apple products due to their mediocre quality and business model. But if their new phones really can't expose data if encrypted and locked them sign me up.
Anyone else notice that the second story beneath "Apple Tells US Judge It's 'Impossible' To Break Through Locks On New iPhones" is "Self-Encrypting Western Digital Hard Drives Easy To Crack"? (No relationship, just amused)
Apple should patiently explain that while not impossible the universe may cease to exist before they are done, but they could get lucky, then charge $1 per key tried. Heck I may set up that business. More money per hour from the courts than Apple had to pay for their antitrust oversight lawyer! Perfectly legal, and make contract good for the statute of limitations of the suspected offense.
it's impossible!
sounds like Oracle's ridiculous "unbreakable" statement. They may not currently know of a way around it, but I am willing to bet it isn't impossible and someone will discover a weakness, they always do.
So Apple are saying they can't hack your phone. But they'll still let you install apps that give your data away for free hmmmmm
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
For phones that PIN numbers specifically, an easier method I've used is programming an Arduino to act as a keyboard. No need to desolder chips or anything. Plug the Arduino mini into the USB, Android sees it as an external keyboard. A very simple Arduino program can be used to try four or five PINs, then wait a few seconds and loop. It'll get the PIN overnight or sooner. Again, I've done this one.
Screen unlock patterns are often visible as long smudges on the screen if you angle the screen in different ways relative to the light. You'll see lots of small smudges and one big smudge that goes across the screen with a couple of turns. The big one is the unlock pattern.
If the password is weak enough that you can search the space just by entering values, then there's really not much that can be done at present. My "dump the flash" approach is for when that can't work because the space is too large for it to be practical and you need something faster. Prior to Lollipop you could simply obtain the crypto footer then fire up a whole bunch of machines to search the password space in parallel.
The new TEE-based Gatekeepr password authentication app (introduced in M) offers a better way. It implements exponentially-increasing delays between allowed password attempts. I think the slope is too gentle, but it's steep enough that you're unlikely to get more than a couple hundred attempts, and that will take you months. Unfortunately it's not used to protect disk encryption in M (long story).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.