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iOS 11 Has a Feature To Temporarily Disable Touch ID (cultofmac.com)
A new feature baked into iOS 11 lets you quickly disable Touch ID, which could come in handy if you're ever in a situation where someone (a cop) might force you to unlock your device. Cult of Mac reports: To temporarily disable Touch ID, you simply press the power button quickly five times. This presents you with the "Emergency SOS" option, which you can swipe to call the emergency services. It also prevents your iPhone from being unlocked without the passcode. Until now, there were other ways to temporarily disable Touch ID, but they weren't quick and simply. You either had to restart your iPhone, let it sit idle for a few days until Touch ID was temporarily disabled by itself, or scan the wrong finger several times. The police, or any government agency, cannot force you to hand over your iPhone's passcode. However, they can force you to unlock your device with your fingerprint. That doesn't work if your fingerprint scanner has been disabled.
Please stop using this idiotic supposedly "cool" terminology, this isn't a cooking site or a hipster hangout. Just say "included with" FFS.
Ain't it grand that with the 8, all someone will have to do is shove the phone in your face.
Apple is a faceless corporate ? I'd have thought Apple had, and has, some very famous faces. That extends slightly down the pecking order, not just the top man; example, the UK has honoured and listens to, Jonathan Ive.
It's a shame that people assume that people reference the US as if its laws apply everywhere.
In the UK you can be compelled to hand over your passcode too.
Wouldn't help.
Almost all of those Androids are also made by real faceless corporates and are chock full of proprietary firmware.
You custom XDA ROM is just skinning faceless corporate filth at a different layer in the system.
Passed out at a party and awoke to 2 ubers successfully ordered on my phone and a few calls that (I hope) I never made all undoubtedly using my sleeping finger to unlock. Apple finally catering for the drunk. Now if they can only put a breathalyser on messaging apps I can get back to my 12th pint.
They can force me all they want. I can't even unlock that unreliable thing myself most of the time.
... if there's a secret button combo that reactivates Touch ID if it's been deactivated in this manner, but a combo that Apple only provides to law enforcement and other Government organizations.
If you're going to add a backdoor why not have one that just unlocks the phone without having to involve its original owner. That is, a backdoor that can be used without creating a witness who now knows about it!
is that unlocking your phone with a password is considered different from using a fingerprint according to the law/police.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
The Russian tourist asks a British cop: Sir, can I? - Cop: Yes, you can!
No, Sir, I mean, may I? No, you may not.
The cops MAY NOT force you to hand over your passcode, but they CAN.
Simple PIN unlock (not just finger print as an easy option, something that works right out of the shower) and long password to unencrypt for booting.
I have android, but the if I want a secure phone (long boot password), my only easy unlock option is the fingerprint, which doesn't work with touch screen gloves, and doesn't work with post shower fingers.
Then, make the five button click reboot rather than disable touch.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
https://www.xkcd.com/538/
Officer learns about new feature of iOS 11
Officer sees you tap iphone quickly five times
Officer arrests you for terrorism offences
Strange that Apple has decided to add yet another button to the phone. There's already five.
Yes, doing that in the presence of a cop isn't fishy at all. I'll go and say it could even be construed as probable cause for... "something illegal".
The article could have used a different example for the situation: a mugger, and nobody would have thought about cops invading your privacy.
I'm not saying it will pass legal muster. Prosecutors use the pain of the process to wear down defendants. You will be vindicated in the end but be out thousands of dollars in attorney's fees and time spent incarcerated.
A lot of comments on the 5th amendment here, buy taking proactive action to prevent access to evidence would likely be seen as obstruction of justice. Basically, if it is reasonable to a judge that knew an investigation was about to happen and you do something like this, it is no different than wiping your hard drive or burning your flash paper. It would be best not to use touch id at all.
Even kids know that.
And so "justice" was served in that case. You defy the government, you will pay the price. One way or another. That's what happens in this country when you question authority.
It doesn't have to. You took an action to intentionally obstruct their investigation. You're already guilty. Worse, that act may be considered "proof" that you are trying to hide something, and as such grants them permission to search the entire device. At the very least a judge is much more likely to issue a search warrant in this case, and at worst if they have to break into the device, any evidence they may try to plant on it is much more likely to stick because of your previous attempt to defy them. ("After all, that evidence must be legit due to the defendant trying to hide it....")
It's one thing to turn the device off, or lock it with something they can't compel you cough up. It's another thing entirely when you close off their legal loophole that they made for themselves.
I have an S8 - so I'm protected by the fact that no one, even those of us that own the phone, really know where the fingerprint sensor is, and it doesn't work well even when found. Still, as an extra layer of protection, how do I rapidly disable it on this device?
I don't even lock my phone these days. If the cops want to access your data, they will. At least, by not securing my phone, I can remote lock it down if it is stolen. With no lock, I think cops will be at a loss to access the phone. "What is your access key? Me: what access key?"
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
(Different AC)
My thoughts exactly. The whole idea of a "secret button combo that reactivates Touch ID" falls flat on its face once you realize that it could never be used. Because once it is, everyone will know about its existence. True, not everyone would know what the secret combo is, but the knowledge that it exists will be enough to do real damage.
There is some hope for the Fourth and Fifth Amendments!
Not that Apple actually intended this. I would not be surprised if this feature goes away. Soon.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
..If your'e JB'd you can set an Activator action to reboot (and therefore require a passcode no matter what) on a specific finger's print, instead of your "UNLOCK" finger prints.. This is currently available, seamless (depending on which finger you use) and would be transparent to anyone illegally attempting to gain access to your private data without your consent.
It seems perfectly in keeping with Apple's business plan--they do seem to care about customer security.
I used an option in Settings to disable the fingerprint scanning on my phone quite some time ago. If the idea is that you set your phone up in advance, that's nothing new. If the idea is that you can quickly do it when being arrested, that's legally risky.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Usually, the high-profile "phone unlocking" cases you hear of lately are terrorism or drug-related. Your average iPhone owner is most likely looking to protect his contact list, evidence of dealings, etc. than planning an attack. I'd say Apple aimed this feature squarely at their core demographic -- affluent Millenials:
- Locking up your phone when high/drunk prevents people from using your fingerprint without your knowledge to get access to the phone
- If you're stopped for a minor offense (traffic stop, DWI, etc.) it could prevent the police from finding anything else to make your situation worse if they are suspicious
- Almost all non-violent interactions with the police involve traffic issues or drugs. If a cop catches you in possession of a small amount of drugs, they may or may not be more willing to just let you go if they have to go through a whole search warrant process, take you in and fill out paperwork to see what's on your phone.
What would be an even more interesting feature is if you held down a certain key sequence (three long, three short, three long sounds good...SOS) and the phone instantly wiped itself by shorting out the flash memory and destroying itself. You wouldn't have your $1000 computer in your pocket anymore, but you'd have to decide if that was worth less than the evidence the police could have obtained.
I guarantee this is going to get challenged in court to sort it out. 200+ years ago, and even in the Miranda era, no one was carrying a device capable of storing every personal detail of their lives in their pocket. The best you'd ever get is a drug dealer's notebook with their contacts. Phones are interesting in that they're extensions of the people who carry them.
Im pretty sure you don't have to.
They need a compromised password feature like VeraCrypt so that if you have to give a password, you can but it only shows what you want them to see. This way, you not some poor guy held up in a jail cell for not cooperating. You technically gave them access. Matter of fact, I'd argue that password protected apps don't count in the same way as unlocking your phone. There are ways to lock any app on an iPhone if jailbroken.
Anyone know what the law / application of law in Australia is like when it comes to forcing people to hand over passwords?
What about at airports?
I thought about this, and when the phone is "cop locked" it shouldn't be totally locked down. FIngerprint should open it into "dumb phone" mode. In dumbphone mode, you should be able to make calls and send texts, but without the address book or call history; you should be able to receive calls, but only from people on the "all circumstances receive" list; you should be able to record photos, audio, and video, but not review that content. You should be able to play some fiddly little game that doesn't keep score.
Also, when someone "cop locks" their phone, the user should have the option to set it to broadcast a wifi ssid indicating that this happened, so that others nearby who have chosen for their phones to respond to that can have their phones automatically "cop locked." That way, during an incident, everyone in a group doesn't have to simultaneously whip their phones out and start punching the power button. And, of course this capability would need the corresponding ability to lock the phone down if it detects the presence of jamming that could prevent detection of the other signal.
If this is a thing, a phone should probably automatically go into a similar mode (the exception being to receive every call with only fingerprint needed to answer) after a half hour or so without active user interaction - also so you don't have to whip out your phone and lock it down when you're minding your own business in an urban environment and cops show up, mistaking you for a participant in a matter that concerns them.
Of course, once security awareness is incorporated into modes of operation, then one could go in the other direction as well. There could be three modes: dumbphone, tourist, and secure location. In tourist mode, your secure location password vault, secure location contacts, secure location messages to regular contacts, secure communication apps, secure files and secure location mode itself would all seem not to exist. That way, you could share your phone with a friend without sharing your surprise party planning messages. Everyone might know this mode has the potential to exist, but it'd still be rude to have a "secure mode" button sitting there thumbing its nose at your phone use guests.
Real spies won't need a secret mode, though. They could use apps located on nfc devices to encrypt their secrets into tourist mode pics in (relatively) plain sight.
I'm not saying it will pass legal muster. Prosecutors use the pain of the process to wear down defendants. You will be vindicated in the end but be out thousands of dollars in attorney's fees and time spent incarcerated.
You don't get it. When a cop arrests you, he can take a look at your personal possessions. Mostly to make sure you don't carry knifes, guns, spray cans, anything dangerous. Looking at your personal possessions includes your unlocked phone. And it includes putting your finger on the finger print scanner of your locked phone. That's prevented. And in that situation, you cannot be forced to reveal a passcode or use it to unlock your phone.
What you are talking about is cops with warrants, or being in court. That's a totally different situation. Disabling TouchID doesn't help. "Forgetting" the passcode doesn't help, only get's you into trouble. The only thing that helps is having no evidence against you on the phone.
They should offer a 2 factor option of PIN and fingerprint.
Why not just turn your phone off? Passcode is required after a reboot...