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Have Your iPhone 6 Repaired, Only To Get It Bricked By Apple (theguardian.com)
New submitter Nemosoft Unv. writes: In case you had a problem with the fingerprint sensor or some other small defect on your iPhone 6 and had it repaired by a non-official (read: cheaper) shop, you may be in for a nasty surprise: error 53. What happens is that during an OS update or re-install the software checks the internal hardware and if it detects a non-Apple component, it will display an error 53 and brick your phone. Any photos or other data held on the handset is lost – and irretrievable. Thousands of people have flocked to forums to express their dismay at this. What's more insiduous is that the error may only appear weeks or months after the repair. Incredibly, Apple says this cannot be fixed by any hard- or software update, while it is clearly their software that causes the problem in the first place. And then you thought FTDI was being nasty ...
Sell your bricked piece of shit and buy an Android phone, which does not have this problem.
Solved.
If Apple gets away with this we may see more vendors doing the same thing to the stuff we own.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
It sounds like Apple fixed a security bug in an SU, closing a hole which allowed attackers to replace the touch ID sensor to gain access to user data. Had Apple not made this move, we'd instead be seeing an article about how Apple products are insecure and the NSA could get access to your secure date just by replacing some hardware components. Then everyone would be up in arms, demanding this exact software change, and complaining about how Apple is reactionary and not proactive in fixing security issues.
Of course, "Apple fixes vulnerabilities in iOS 9" is not really a catchy flambait title for an article.
The provisions for the FTC and the resultant class action provisions could get expensive.
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
I did some reading, and it appears to be the fingerprint sensor. The sensor itself has an encrypted channel to the mainboard. If the cable is damaged or the sensor is replaced/not working, it doesn't sync up properly.
So it makes sense to refuse to work with a different sensor. Else, someone could unlock your phone by simply bypassing the sensor.
OTOH, this appears to still happen if the phone itself is reset to a factory image. It doesn't seem to be that much of a security risk if instead of refusing to work, the phone, after being reset, would renegotiate encryption with the sensor. There's no data to be stolen in that scenario. And there's other mechanisms to prevent a stolen phone from having resale value.
Apple has made it abundantly clear that they are selling a *secure* device. Always on encryption, etc etc.
How would you expect such a device to behave when it is compromised with unauthorized components? A phone with 3rd party components could do pretty much *anything*, including sending everything on the device to an unknown third party, without your knowledge or consent.
Heck, this sort of "problem" just makes me appreciate Apple's commitment to security even more.
My only complaint is that the phone doesn't brick soon enough. It should brick itself immediately upon the next boot up.
So just disable the fingerprint part of the button, no need to brick a device.
Makes no sense. The flash memory is encrypted and the key is stored in a secure area of the CPU. The CPU is hardened so that you can't exact the key with an electron microscope or by de-capping it. It might be possible to get that key, but only with specialist equipment and unpublished vulnerabilities.
Replacing the fingerprint sensor won't get you anywhere. To unlock the phone after boot you need the passcode. Okay, say you keep it powered up while replacing the sensor. So what, you still need to send the phone the fingerprint data that matches the owner's finger, so it got you nothing.
We I were being generous I'd suggest that Apple just screwed up and made the list of "panic, erase key!" events a bit too long. More likely they just want to discourage people from getting third party repairs, because they know you have money and they want it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
OTOH, this appears to still happen if the phone itself is reset to a factory image. It doesn't seem to be that much of a security risk if instead of refusing to work, the phone, after being reset, would renegotiate encryption with the sensor. There's no data to be stolen in that scenario. And there's other mechanisms to prevent a stolen phone from having resale value.
It's still a security risk. You could imaging intercepting new iPhones, replacing the fingerprint sensor with a compromised one containing a backdoor, then reimaging the phones, putting them back in the box, and selling them to your target. After your target loads their sensitive data on to them, you could then retrieve it using the compromised sensor.
I agree this is somewhat contrived and Apple is likely just looking to block third party repairs, but it still is a valid security risk.
I did some reading, and it appears to be the fingerprint sensor. The sensor itself has an encrypted channel to the mainboard. If the cable is damaged or the sensor is replaced/not working, it doesn't sync up properly.
So it makes sense to refuse to work with a different sensor. Else, someone could unlock your phone by simply bypassing the sensor.
No. Refusing all access to your device because one small component is damaged does not make sense. Not using that component to do the unlock - and making you use the non-fingerprint method - is what would make sense.