Donald Trump Calls on Apple to 'Step Up to the Plate' and Unlock iPhones Used by Florida Mass Shooter

[fairuz]

10 million permutations? lol, I’m sure the guy had set it up as “10 failed attempts = lock and erase the iPhone”

That feature is part of the hardware secrecy. Someone with knowledge of how that works (i.e. Apple) could lift the memory from the phone and decrypt it, and it won't matter then how many attempts they make. Fundamentally a private key derived from 6 base-10 digits isn't secure.

Btw, this isn't very theoretical. Previous iPhones have been reverse-engineered enough to create boxes that get around the failed attempts counter and brute force the passcode. It's a cat and mouse game.
[automerge]1579220545[/automerge]

Passcodes can be alphanumeric and longer than 6 characters.

Yeah, but that's not the default, and I doubt many people use that.

 

[vvswarup]

It never ceases to amaze me how an ardent supporter of gun rights can employ such a seamless double standard, but that's beside the point. Now more than ever, Apple needs to stand its ground. If Apple were doing something illegal that someone could get arrested for, that would have happened by now. The fact that Trump and others are trying to fight this in the media shows they know the government doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.

The encryption debate is nothing short of shameless political grandstanding. It is deplorable that the people responsible for writing and enforcing our laws have such a poor understanding of how those laws actually work and would rather engage in government overreach. It was always true regardless of who is in the Oval Office that the government has the tools to make life miserable even for those who aren't doing anything illegal.

At issue here is what constitutes compliance with a lawful government order. Say a customer got locked out of their iPhone or iCloud account and needed to recover their data. There are established ways Apple's tech support can help them out. The same tools are used for government orders. A reasonable person would interpret that as having complied with a lawful order. But what the government wants is for Apple to develop a new tool. That goes way beyond what any private entity can be compelled to do.

 

[russell_314]

I’m so glad Trump has came out to support putting a back door into iPhones. This means all those anti Trump people who have been supporting this will now have to change their position because they can’t agree with Trump on anything. Unfortunately there are even Democrats in Congress that have been pushing this.

 

[Treq]

I’m so glad Trump has came out to support putting a back door into iPhones. This means all those anti Trump people who have been supporting this will now have to change their position because they can’t agree with Trump on anything. Unfortunately there are even Democrats in Congress that have been pushing this.

What?! I mean ... what?! The democrats are usually the more privacy orientated party. The republicans are typically the party that sides with law enforcement overreach.

 

[barmann]

It's a silly discussion, I think .

Powerful private entities, be it individuals or companies, are not part of the regulation or law making process, much less of the execution side of it .

When private entities have become powerful/rich enough to manipulate the entire legal system , and do so, they need to be reigned in .

If you don't trust your government, that's a problem you should do something about .
If you think private entities should have a say in matters like this one - well, then you don't really understand the very basics of democracy and a free society .

 

[vvswarup]

I’m so glad Trump has came out to support putting a back door into iPhones. This means all those anti Trump people who have been supporting this will now have to change their position because they can’t agree with Trump on anything. Unfortunately there are even Democrats in Congress that have been pushing this.

As I pointed out, it doesn't make a difference who is in the Oval Office. Democrats and Republicans alike have shown a dangerously poor and outdated understanding of electronic security.

IMO, it's far more egregious for a Republican to be calling for encryption backdoors. They are supposed to stand for limited government and gun rights. They oppose gun control legislation on the grounds that it makes us less safe by taking guns away from law-abiding Americans. Yet, somehow, creating encryption vulnerabilities and hoping only LEOs use it and that too hope they don't abuse it somehow makes us all safer.

That's some weird logic.

 

[SeattleMoose]

I forgot there was a duplicate thread on this topic and posted this news there, then saw it made it here first.

The FBI Can Unlock an iPhone 11 Pro Max, So Why Does It Need Apple’s Help?

As U.S. politicians and lawmakers continue to turn up the heat on Apple for its stance on encryption, making hyperbolic statements that it’s being

www.idropnews.com

The absolute faith in tech and what Apple says never ceases to amaze me.
Every encryption ever devised has eventually been defeated. If it is done by humans, it can be undone by humans. And never discount the power of bribery/threats.

 

[Treq]

The absolute faith in tech and what Apple says never ceases to amaze me.
Every encryption ever devised has eventually been defeated. If it is done by humans, it can be undone by humans. And never discount the power of bribery/threats.

This is not true. The One-time pad type encryption has not and theoretically can never be decrypted.

 

[vvswarup]

It's a silly discussion, I think .

Powerful private entities, be it individuals or companies, are not part of the regulation or law making process, much less of the execution side of it .

When private entities have become powerful/rich enough to manipulate the entire legal system , and do so, they need to be reigned in .

If you don't trust your government, that's a problem you should do something about .
If you think private entities should have a say in matters like this one - well, then you don't really understand the very basics of democracy and a free society .

When government officials know they don't have a legal leg to stand on and then resort to political grandstanding and smear campaigns to intimidate private entities into doing its bidding, it needs to be reigned in.

If you think people with such a dangerously outdated understanding of technology have any business making laws regulating the same, you have no understanding of democracy and free society.

 

[Cartaphilus]

United States President Donald Trump this afternoon weighed in on a disagreement between Apple and the FBI, calling on Apple to "step up to the plate" and "help our great country" by unlocking the iPhones used by Florida shooter Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani.

Trump said that the U.S. is "helping Apple all of the time" but Apple refuses to "unlock" smartphones used by "killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements."

The Twitter rant comes following a request yesterday from U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who asked Apple to unlock the iPhone 5 and iPhone 7 used by Alshamrani. Barr complained that Apple had provided "no substantive assistance" and said that it is critical "that the public be able to get access to digital evidence."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1217228960964038658

Apple previously said that it had provided all of the information in its possession (such as iCloud backups) to the FBI earlier in the month after the FBI asked for assistance obtaining the shooter's data. Law enforcement officials are not satisfied with the iCloud data, however, and want Apple to provide a way to unlock the shooter's iPhones, which is not possible without a backdoor into the software.

After Barr's request, Apple issued another statement and provided further detail on the data that has been provided, as well as once again stating that there is "no such thing as a backdoor just for the good guys." Apple's full response to Barr that ultimately triggered Trump's tweet is below:The current dispute between Apple and the U.S. government mirrors a similar incident in 2016. Apple was ordered by a federal judge to unlock the iPhone owned by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. Apple fought hard against the order, which was asking for backdoor access into iPhones, and explained that weakening security "makes no sense" and would create "new and dangerous weaknesses."

Apple ultimately won the dispute and the government was able to find another way to access Farook's iPhone, which may also be an option in the current situation. Bloomberg this afternoon spoke to several security researchers, including Will Strafach, who said the government could "absolutely" get into the iPhone 5 and iPhone 7 owned by Alshamrani using technology offered by Cellebrite and other iPhone cracking firms.

As in 2016, Apple is not likely to cave in to government demands because doing so would compromise the security of all iPhones. A new report from The New York Times suggests Apple is privately preparing for a legal fight while also attempting to publicly diffuse the situation.

Apple executives are said to be surprised at the case's "quick escalation" and some of the team working on the issue are frustrated that the Justice Department "hasn't spent enough time trying to get into the iPhones with third-party tools." Apple CEO Tim Cook has put together a team handling the dispute, and the group is said to be hoping to steer the situation towards an outside resolution that "doesn't involve the company breaking its own security."

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Donald Trump Calls on Apple to 'Step Up to the Plate' and Unlock iPhones Used by Florida Mass Shooter

[automerge]1579466871[/automerge]
And if anyone knows about stepping up to (and filling) plates...