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Grieving Father is Begging Apple to Unlock His Dead Son's iPhone (mirror.co.uk)
"A grieving father is begging Apple to allow him access to the photos stored on his dead son's iPhone," reports Time. In September Leonardo Fabbretti's adopted son died of bone cancer at age 13, and the father believes that two months of photographs are still stored on his son's iPhone. Last fall Apple staff attempted to retrieve the photos from their cloud-storage service, but the iPhone hadn't been synced before the 13-year-old's death. "Don't deny me the memories of my son," the father writes in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The father's letter tells Apple that "Although I share your philosophy in general, I think Apple should offer solutions for exceptional cases like mine," according to a British newspaper, while 88% of respondents in their online poll believed that Apple should unlock the phone.
just kill the terrorists first, then ask Apple for access?
"Boo hoo, my emotions are more important than the whole world's privacy."
Sorry, there is literally no way for Apple to build into a phone or an OS a way to unlock it for situations like this that won't also be vulnerable to governments and hackers.
If you never see your son's photos, that will be sad for you.
If Apple actually makes the changes required to make it possible for people like you to get in to phones like these regularly, that will be devastating for all iPhone users everywhere.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Let everyone give up their privacy so you can look at a few pictures on a phone you had plenty of time to ask the password for.
Dude, seriously.
He should tell the FBI his son was a wannabe terrorist then they could get the photos
Besides the fact that math doesn't care about emotions, this is the same thing families go through all the time - when a loved one burns a house down, when they commit suicide in a remote area - they don't get to know what they saw, did, or talked to in their last moments. A locked phone is no different. You had the time with your son, your personal memories is what most of the public only has. Cherish those.
The right to privacy doesn't end at death.
unless it's for my own personal interest. Shoulda though of that before he died...
Where is Spock when you need him?
This elevation of blubbering hysteria to a right that defeats all laws and principles is pathetic. The same thing happened with Google's Mic Drop Send feature, screamy proles demanding apologies.
Do people not play board games any more? You're supposed to look one or two moves ahead, even if it's just checkers.
Finally, "exceptional cases like mine," except that it isn't an exceptional case. It's an emotional case. It's a _less_ exceptional case than the last one where they refused.
As a minor, they are unable to enter into contract. Therefor the phone belongs to the father in the first place.
This is obviously the government trying to sway public support, the entire story being a red herring.
Sig: I stole this sig.
So I take it apple doesn't have something like Google's Inactive Account Manager?
think of the dead children!
First, my condolences to the father. My kid is in college now, but I would have taken his phone away if he locked me out of it. Why? Trust is always a two way street. Sadly many people neglect that fact, which results in issues like TFA is appealing and a massive amount of social problems. Your kid giving you the password does not indicate that you have to use it, and in a healthy relationship the parent would not even have to ask. The parent not using the password to snoop is the opposite direction on that two way street. Parents need to learn that lesson, or continue down the same old path of "I can't access my kids phone after something happened to them.", and "I never knew my kid was on drugs.", and "I never knew they were seeing an older person which led to something bad.", etc.. etc.. you get the point.
The reason I called this a whopper of a fallacy is that it's an appeal to emotion on a massive scale (child, death, personal loss, disease). No matter how many appeals to emotion you stack up, it's still an appeal to emotion and fallacious argument.
The fact that this massive appeal comes from an adult reeks of propaganda. Adults are often foolish enough to attempt to use an appeal, but media is usually better about not using them when they are so obvious. If it's a legit person and request, I can hope that they learn to rationalize their thoughts and then teach others to do the same.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
He was probably hired by the FBI to write the letter.
The dead son was a minor never able to make a legal agreement except cosigned by a parent, and so was never the owner of the phone.
Everything else supposedly countering this is emotionally based techno-anarchist BS.
They unlocked my late mum's iPhone last October after they were shown the death certificate. No problem.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
my thoughts exactly. the timing is too perfect.
Just get another kid!
"Don't deny me the memories of my son,"
What the actual fuck?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If the child was dying of cancer then he would have been able to access and use the phone. Any photos, videos, texts etc that he wanted his family to have he could have given them. Likewise the parent could have asked for them while the child was alive. This scenario doesn't make any sense. Why wait until after you child died to want to see his photos. And, for that matter, why would you think you child wants you going through his stuff after he died? Most teenagers like their privacy for good reason.
Apple should respect the child's wishes and the wishes of their customer base, not the parent's long over-due curiosity.
Sure, it's sad, but dad knew that the end was coming for a couple of years. He had ample time to prepare, to obtain the iPhone passcode from his son, to make any backups. (And shouldn't the photos he's asking Apple to violate the phone to access have been backed up to iCloud anyway?)
Poor planning on one man's part does not justify weakening security for everyone.
If I were cynical, given the way the FBI failed so miserably to have Apple do what this guy is asking for now, I'd suggest that this was just the government trying an alternate approach. "OMG, terr'ists" didn't work, so try pulling at the heartstrings instead.
We have this pedophile who could strike in YOUR neighborhood next! We need to decrypt his phone before he gets to your children.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The lesson from the story should really be cause to consider whether you really need to encrypt everything. Maybe the answer is yes. But perhaps consider why you are encrypting what you are encrypting and what your expectations are in such a scenario.
Seriously. This is an FBI double agent.
He can spend $290,000 to that company in israel to get the photos for him.... If the photos are that important than money is absolutely no object.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And this is why Apple and all those on the privacy side will lose:
People do NOT want phones that no one can unlock.
You might. There may be plenty of good reasons for them to exist.
But the vast majority of people do not. If you tell them that there's no way for Apple to let their loves ones onto their phone should they meet an untimely death, people are going to use other products.
People just don't want perfect security. They want to be just secure enough to prevent the majority of crime, and no more. They WANT the police to be able to break into their phones.
I empathize with the grieving step-father.
There is always a cost for safety that passwords and encryption provides.
The grieving step-father's frustration is literally one (1) family.
This proves the advice (given again and again) that (1) people should plan ahead and (2) people should backup regularly.
Maybe the grieving step-father should ask the FBI for help.
Then he would learn how much the USA Federal Government loves hime.
There are two people in my life who know the lock code to my phone. I have given them my lock code in the event it needs unlocked and I am incapacitated or flat out dead. While this is truly tragic, the kid was already dying of bone cancer. It should not even have been a matter of thinking ahead, as his impending death was already likely.
This is all so heart rending, I hate to throw in the bad parenting card but it needs to be played. It is fine for a 13 year old to have a lock code on their phone. It is not fine for the parent to be ignorant of what that lock code is. If a 13 year old has a lock code on their phone, the parent should be regularly verifying the code has not been changed. Let the kid be clever and find other ways to hide things. Lock code changed? Kid won't give it up? Things might have changed but if I remember, you can factory reset a locked phone via iTunes.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Last fall Apple staff attempted to retrieve the photos from their cloud-storage service, but the iPhone hadn't been synced before the 13-year-old's death.
They can give you access to the cloud storage account, and all synced data. They can't decrypt the phone.
Like the San Bernadino one? Doesn't that prove the whole apple line of defense is BS?
how the fuck does a 13 year old have an iphone...
and locked down from the parents...
are you stupid?
I bet if this fails there will be a child kidnapping, upcoming bombing at a school or something similar. They've not used the full "Think of the Children" excuse yet.
What did the FBI say when he asked them for help?
There is no way that any apple owner would be OK with the idea that if they ever forget their password, their phone is bricked. So what do they do when the owner contacts them asking for a password reset?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The father is, was, or is currently owned, paid, threatened or otherwise influenced by law enforcement.
Really, this is their newest ploy? They become more like cartoon villains every week.
If not, he could just brute force the damn thing.
In case you have missed it, governments have stopped making excuses. Now they issue orders and punish disobedience. Dissension is not expected but should it manifest, it will be dealt with harshly. Be compliant or do not be
The best memories are the ones we keep within - not on an iPhone. ...
If photos were so bloody important to this man, why didn't he take some?
In light of the possible negative consequences, his request shows total disregard for the welfare of others.
It is such an obviously selfish request, that it reeks of political inspiration.
It is easy to sympathize with this short term request,
But who will sympathize with those who could suffer the catastrophic damage that this request could cause.
Experience is a dear school, but
BTW: 88% of respondents to online polls are idiots!
This screams of propaganda and the timing of this article is right after the FBI lost in court. Seems like the kind of thing you'd want to push to help sway public opinion for round 2 in the courts.
You are the parent, why do you not already have the password?
More sleds for the top of the slippery slope.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
More recent iPhones and iPads with fingerprint recognition effectively offer multiple passwords. Such devices can be configured to accept multiple fingerprints. You can teach the device the child's prints and the parent's.
You can teach more recent iPhone and iPads the fingerprints of both the child and parents.
Sorry, there is literally no way for Apple to build into a phone or an OS a way to unlock it for situations like this that won't also be vulnerable to governments and hackers.
Apple already has a solution for this situation on iPhones and iPads with fingerprint recognition. Teach it the fingerprints of both the child and a parent.
It's actually quite a simple situation (for future reference).
1. Write a paper will.
2. Write your iphone password on it.
3. Put the will in a place where it is likely to be found after your death.
4. ??? (die, presumably)
5. Profit! (well, sorta)
Just because I have inherited a vault, does not mean I also get the combination and keys to it. If I want to take the risk of drilling into the vault (and potentially destroying its contents) then that risk is on me.
Secured facilities that self destruct have been around for a long time, it is only now that they have become available to everyone.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
"Don't deny me the memories of my son"
Too bad he fails to realize that his son was the one denying him access to those photos.
I apple acknowledges it can decode that phone (I am assuming it is an older phone with software Secure Enclave) then it is subject to court order to decode everyone's phone.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
The first thing that phone should have seen before being deployed to a kid is Apple Configurator so that it was supervised and the unlock token was captured. This is a solved issue, and the dad's ignorance is no excuse to violate the world's privacy needs.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
If you'll never use the passcode, there is no reason to have it. Asking for it is, ipso facto, reason not to trust you with it. The best solution is for the child to lie to you about the passcode. If you can be trusted, you will never find out about the lie. If you ever do find out they lied, you've proven they were justified.
nt
There's no such thing as absolute security, the best we can do is raise the cost of cracking. The FBI was willing to pay that cost ($15K+), which no doubt required expensive equipment, physical access to the phone, and specialized knowledge.
I'm sorry but if something happened to my son or my daughter I would just do a password reset on the device. Why can't he? Did he not know the iTunes account it was linked to. Did he never do that. I know he is grieving but its still his responsibility not apples to properly set up a child's device.
they should load up his phone with goatse and hand it back to him as they drop him off in north korea where all his totalitarian dreams can come true forever
I don't know why no one has suggested yet that this is obviously the FBI trying another route to get Apple to create a backdoor into iOS for them by playing the emotion card.
As next of kin/legal guardian he should actually be legally entitled to have access to his accounts, claiming them on the same premise as bank account or other posessions.
Then again IANAL.
Daddy should call Cellebrite.
"No exceptions to mathematics."
This is not mathematics, this is a policy decision, an engineering decision by Apple, and change is never more distant than the next firmware upgrade of the phone.
Rules without exceptions tend to fracture under stress. It happens all the time --- and the geek should know better than to bet that the dam will hold no matter what.
Maybe not apple, but phone carriers generally offer solutions for sharing kids accounts with the parents... so you can check up on them etc.
Then of course, your kid is dying, maybe you ask him what his password is, or make sure you sync photos? Like, talk to him about it? No... go behind his back after he's dead and have apple violate his privacy instead.
Do you *really* want to see what all of those encrypted photos were on your deceased loved one's phone or device?
It's not out of the realm of possibility that the reason that content wasn't synced to cloud storage is because it was sensitive content the owner didn't WANT anyone else to know about. (Naked pics of a girlfriend or wife, perhaps? Or even a secret boyfriend if the guy was a closet gay?)
IMO, it's best to let someone rest in peace without digging as hard as you can to turn up every little piece of content they had stored away on personal devices. You might regret what you find.
That actually works. I was able to login to an email account, from Google, that I'd completely forgotten about. It even had all the emails I'd collected since 2009 in it. It's amusing that this pops up now because I just went through the process (it was painless and I actually remembered the password) just two days ago.
I'm not sure how that's salient, however. The problem is not that the pictures are in the cloud. The problem is that the pictures are on the phone. Google's Inactive Account Manager doesn't have anything specific to do with the hardware and won't matter if you're unable to get into the hardware itself. Of course, with Google's Android phones - you might be able to mount it and unlock it all on your own using ADB and just mounting the drive as a regular USB drive.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
While this is technically true, security techniques such as those used by Apple can raise the cost of cracking so high that the lifetime and energy content of the universe are insufficient to undertake the crack. Of course, you have to use a modern phone, and a very long password, but that doesn't change the facts. With the fingerprint sensor, it's quite practical to use a password with entropy high enough that attacks become unfeasible.
For all practical purposes, the number of possible keys might as well be infinite.
Most people act emotionally, with zero understanding of the issue at hand. That is disastrous and the main reason why democracy does not work (everything else that is known works even worse though), as it makes them extremely vulnerable to manipulation.
The simple fact of the matter is that unless some account sharing was requested by the customer and set-up before the data-loss, crypto needs to prevent this type of access or it is broken. If Apple can do anything, then they were selling a defective product.
This is grandstanding by stupid. Some attention-whoring obviously included.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
My precious snowflake!!!!!
First, most people don't turn on "erase phone after ten incorrect attempts". In that case, and if there is a four digit passcode, then there is a simple solution. Two days of typing, and the phone is unlocked.
Six digits or higher passcode: Simple solution for absolute emergencies if you don't want to violate the kid's trust: Ask for the last two or four digits of the passcode, so that you need four more. Now criminals or FBI can't get in, the parents can get into the phone in a day or two. Asking for the last digits makes it easy to verify: Kid types in the first four digits, you type in the rest, and unlock the phone immediately.
and trying to hide all the evidence?
Hell, I wouldn't want my parents to see all the horrible porn I had on my computer at 14. Especially if it has the chance to ruin their memories of me.
"I will continue the battle to recover my child’s iPhone data. I will not give up," he said in the interview. "He was also a minor. I have the right to access to the phone. There is in a bit of Dama’s life, and I do not want to be subtracted as well. They told me that the only possible operation is to reset the device, but doing so would delete the data, destroying [the iPhone’s] contents... I understand privacy, but I wonder what if inside a disabled iPhone was the password to block the explosion of an atomic bomb planted by terrorists in Rome, then what do we do? Do we let it explode? "
Jumps from tugging on heartstrings to "but terrorists!"
Right... There goes any support I had been feeling for him.
(emphasis added)
End of line..
Shouldn't there be a way for the account holder of a minor child's phone to be able to control or reset the security code ? Allow a pass code to be set so the phone is not open but not allow the code to be reset without the account holders pin ? Seems like a straight forward solution to this kind of a problem in the future, not much help to the poor guy now though. I know the account holder can track the location of phones under the account, my sisters kids are always complaining that their dad always knows where they are but they can't track him unless he agrees to load an app, which he is smart enough not to do.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Seriously, grief or no, I want my phone thrown into the sun if I die. This makes me think more and more about how we're going to have to enter into legal agreements with our providers much like doctors' offices about who is authorized to access our data in the even we are incapacitated.
My digital devices are just an extension to myself. If I want certain "memories" retained for my family or friends then I will make provisions for them to be retained or distributed. If not, then too bad, they die with me, and if you wanted memories of me then you should have made more time to make those memories.
Just because he is grieving doesn't make his request rational.
At 12 the child's iPhone credentials should have only been generated by the parent for a myriad of reasons. Not apples problem.
I'm not asking an adult for their password, I'm telling my kid that they don't have a choice but to share their password with me. Trust is not a given, especially with a child who is going to push the boundaries to know their place.
The fact that you can't differentiate parental duties from asking a different adult for their password/passcode is a huge psychological deficiency.
I don't find it surprising that you have an expectation of being lied to, and not testing facts to ensure boundaries are established.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
. . . get an axe.
The law is not an ass. No really.
The family could have shared the phone's passcode. The family could have synced the phone to the cloud. They did not.
I understand their desire for memories and likely, the phone wasn't the priority at the time of the child's illness. For this they have my sympathy and support.
Unfortunately my support ends when the request starts to create a huge security gap for all the rest of us living citizens. They are making the wrong request of the wrong entity here. When anyone does this they should expect a great big "Sorry but NO".
Imagine that Apple finds it's heartstrings tugged and acquiesces to this request. After all this is a grieving family, right? What's the harm? As soon as the Three Letter Agencies learn of a backdoor for grieving families they will be all over Apple. "You've already made the security backdoor, there is no longer any undue burden, and your principles allowed you to make a cracking system. Now share it with us or suffer our unholy wrath!! Also we expect you to support the same or equivalent backdoor technology from now until the end of time."
There are all manner of hardware hacks. They require specialized equipment and knowledge--presumably this is how the Israeli company got in.
this reeks of psyop
If it were a debate, the you would be right in the identification of an appeal to emotion fallacy.
But this is not a debate, it is a request for mercy. It is not an argument for reason or policy change, it is a request for an exception to the rules. Allowing it or denying it is entirely Apple's choice, and they can choose either way and still be right.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Very sorry for this father. But I believe Apple has the right to deny this. Honestly, the story writer is trying to use a grieving father's emotions to hijack Apple, and ignorant of privacy and security, which I find stupid and sickening.
Forward this parent to a company that can do the data recovery, at whatever cost -- whether it's hundreds of thousands, or millions. He'll complain, but then Apple responds "That's what it would cost us to do it, because that's how we would have to do it. Pay us or pay them, we don't work for free."
This would also work strongly toward the legal case here, saying "It's possible, just very expensive, and we have no intention of changing this."
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I'm the dad of a 12 year old son. If something were to happen to him, I'd be devastated and would want any scrap of memory of him to cling to. Any last photo or video would be as precious to me as a ton of gold. My knee-jerk reaction is to cry out "Apple, please unlock this phone for this grieving father."
Of course, we all know that knee-jerk reactions are rarely the right ones. After I got past my initial would-be response, I realized just what was being asked here. This is the same request that the FBI was making. Unlock "just this one" iPhone. Let's assume Apple grants this request. Let's also leave the police/FBI out of this so as not to muddy the waters. (Though, we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking they wouldn't pounce the second this request was granted.) After this iPhone is unlocked, another grieving parent would make a similar request. And then another one. Maybe a parent of a runaway who happens to have his/her kid's phone would ask for an unlocking. And then the parent of a teen they suspect to be suicidal. The unlock requests would pour in and would expand in scope until the security on the phones was worthless.
Not only that, but Apple would have to decide the merits of each case - a virtual minefield. One wrong unlock and they gave the contents of the phone to someone who really shouldn't have it (maybe an abusive parent trying to track down a teen who just escaped that situation) or refused to unlock for someone who is in the exact situation they've unlocked for in the past. Either way would be horrible PR.
I feel for this dad, I really do. I wish him and his family the best and hope he finds peace after his son's death. Still, I couldn't in good conscience support unlocking the phone. I really do wish there was some way of retrieving the photos without a special "we promise it's a one time thing" unlock - and maybe Apple can help with that. Other than that, though, this is one of those cases where "doing the right thing" either hurts a small number of people right now or a large number of people later on. Either way, you're going to hurt someone and I'd side with protecting everyone else's privacy over helping a grieving dad.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
for less than a dicksuck.
u know he's gay right
He was USING the phone for the last two months, but hadn't sync it to iCloud during that period? Also, usually the person with the phone is taking pictures, no so much in them. If the kid was terminal and in the last few months, what would be on there?
When you ask for what you're asking for, you're asking the whole world to forsake the right to privacy for a few last glimpses of the child you've lost. If your son or daughter grew up, do you think they'd be the kind of person who'd demand that themselves? We hope not: but the individual is not a rational actor in society as a whole. We collectively know that autonomous cars are safer than the average human, but we insist on manual control and accountability because of the 'What if it has to swerve, and one way is a pregnant woman, and the other is an old man' dilema. We let ourselves be collectively extinguished by the queues at airports, exhausting thousands of times the average human lifespan queuing for security theatre because of the comforting illusion of control, even though TSA queues have consumed more hours of life than Islamic terrorists ever could.
I'm sorry for your loss, but the loss you're asking us all to take is far greater. On the one side of the fence is our freedom, and the other side of the fence you get a last glimpse at a moment you missed for some reason, but the rest of the world comes for a ride into a papers-please type state, and that itself is too big an ask for one man to make, and I hope that you eventually come to accept that and move on.
-SG
This isn't a problem. All the father has to do is pop out the SD card and put it in another... oh
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Maybe ask the FBI?
I don't understand why so many people think it is impossible to access a locked iPhone. All you have to do is Google how to unlock an iPhone and your in. There are many hackers out there that know how to do this plus many gray market apps that allow you to get ghosted into an iPhone. Catchthemtoday com has the app that knows how to do this in seconds come on people or just call your local it college kid and they know how to Crack it as well.
It's that simple. Apple's policy on unlocking an iPhone is clear, if it could potentially be a problem for you then don't buy one.
Buyer beware.
With the FBI hiring an Israeli company to hack into Apple's iPhone, you should be asking the FBI for help. Creating a back door so that you can retrieve photos of your deceased son will also create the unintended consequence of rendering the encryption useless like it currently is since it has been cracked. It will only be a matter of time before someone other than the FBI will either steal what the FBI and this company created or figure out on their own how to exploit this same vulnerability unless Apple patches this vulnerability. Fortunately for people who rely on secure encryption, the FBI and this firm will not be interested in helping Apple secure their iPhone from this vulnerability since they also lose the ability to hack into iPhones if Apple plugs this hole.
He should have had a talk with his son about his impending death, and asked him what kind of funeral he wanted, who to give his toys to, who should get his iphone password, etc.... and they should have written this onto a piece of paper sealed into an envelope with the promise that he would only open if in the presence of persons A,B & C after his death.
Apple shouldn't do have to do something thing because he didn't prepare his son for death.
Dying of cancer, so he knew what was going on. This isn't hard people. Ask for the PW while they're still alive. Better yet, offload those pictures ahead of time.
May be all iPhone buyers should give to Apple the ID and Name of a Next of KIN. Then in case of death or coma state, certified by a Medical pratitioner; Apple would retrieve all the documents, photos, messages and songs whatever place them on a USB Key reformat the iPhone for normal reuse.
As Simple as this.
Hell, the FBI probably murdered his child.
said everyone, always.
Don't get me wrong, photos of family can be priceless, but I'm sure he can reflect back on the thousands of other images he has.
The porn on the phone is going to be child porn. If I was dying of cancer at 13, I'd be using that to get girls in my class to send me naked picts, no question about it. Kids don't wait until high school to start sexting each other, and dying kids get a ton of pity.
The kid's parents should be glad Apple isn't landing them in felony charges by letting them take possession of the unencrypted files. I'm just glad there was no such thing as sexting back when I was that age, or who knows what sort of illegal stuff I might have in old computer back-ups.
Anyway, pretty stupid of the parents not to have their kid's phone lock code, especially if he was terminal. I'll grant that in their situation I probably wouldn't be thinking of that beforehand either, but it's still stupid not to retain access to a kid's very expensive devices regardless of the circumstances.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You