Great idea, right up until your sibling/friend decides to play a "hilarious" prank on you.
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'GrayKey' iPhone Unlocking Box Seeing Wide Adoption Among Law Enforcement
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$100K is a drop in the bucket for a government agency. That's less than the cost of a single agent. They would GLADLY pay that every year - likely after a hardy laugh about how cheap it is to access 60% of smartphones.
Why does MacRumors not allow members to post to these types of threads, without a minimum of 100 posts? Like who are they protecting? Seriously, what does MacRumors gain from not letting everyone comment on political discussions? Is this the equality that everyones talking about?!
My phone would be wiped at least once a week by one of my kids.
People really misunderstand this. The 10 failed attempts wipe function is based off of 10 failed attempts punched into the touchscreen GUI. This device isn't reaching robotic fingers up onto the screen to punch in passcodes. It almost certainly uses a vulnerability to gain access to the filesystem, then performs a brute force attack of some kind there.
I'm amazed that Apple's security is so poor that this is even a possibility and it makes you wonder just how safe even strong encryption really is that's supposedly uncrackable save quantum computers potentially. They most have massive holes in their security or a workaround.
But I don't know that the 10 failed attempts would work given how this box operates. I'm guessing it's able somehow to do a hard copy of the memory storage and then use a second phone to set up a virtual copy of the other phone (the logon/boot part only would be all that's needed to test it, not the whole phone) that it can then reset that "backup" to test literally endless codes. Test 10 and then reset the simulation and copy it over again. It never uses the original phone after it copies the drive so the real phone never locks it out. Once it virtually can access the phone then the real phone can safely be unlocked. It wouldn't have to copy the entire phone to do this, just the boot-sequence code program and the stored code. Is that technically possible? I have no idea (certainly virtual computer emulation IS possible, VMWare and even arcade emulators do it all the time), but there is simply no way this is just a brute force device that just randomly tries pass codes. Apple could defeat that in an instant and their $15k+ device would be rendered worthless.
If they have a way to copy the internal drive contents still encrypted and all and present a virtual simulation of that boot content (we know that the entire iPhone can be emulated on a Mac with a developer kit, for instance), it could easily bypass the lockout by copying it and the other phone wouldn't even have to be booted, just powering up the drive and copying it somehow. The virtual copy could then be brute forced quite easily (the passcodes themselves aren't typically very long).
I hope they sell a million of these... and Apple patches iOS and renders them useless.
I'll save law enforcement some $ and work. My passcode is 4684.
You really don’t value personal privacy do you? I don’t care if you have nothing to hide. It’s a matter of self respect.
Once again, that's not how this works.
I find it hilarious that everyone here seems to think that they are James Bond, and that every FBI agent is chomping at the bit to gain access to the $26.32 in their bank account, their duck-faced Instagram selfies, lame tweets, and Facebook posts (which apparently are easy to get even without access to your phone).
Cops can get a warrant and search your entire home and office, your cell calls, your financial records, and nobody has any problems with that. But my smartphone? No, HELL no!
Um, the FBI are trying to solve real federal crimes to protect you, dummies, not gain access to Joe Q. Boring's iPhone.
At some point, there is going to be a horrendous kidnapping, mass murder, or terrorist crime which could be solved or thwarted by simple access to a smartphone, but nope - thanks to privacy and encryption uber alles, it's a no go.
Then you'll all whine about how ineffective the FBI is.
Cops can get a warrant and search your entire home and office, your cell calls, your financial records, and nobody has any problems with that. But my smartphone? No, HELL no!
Um, the FBI are trying to solve real federal crimes to protect you, dummies, not gain access to Joe Q. Boring's iPhone.
At some point, there is going to be a horrendous kidnapping, mass murder, or terrorist crime which could be solved or thwarted by simple access to a smartphone, but nope - thanks to privacy and encryption uber alles, it's a no go.
Then you'll all whine about how ineffective the FBI is.
I don't use a passcode. A sure-fire way to make the box succumb to an existential crisis once my phone is connected, and implode as the result. Hack that, you useless box you.
I'm sure Apple will void the warranty on all iPhones that law enforcement unlocks. . .
You missed the point of his post; which was for a Trump acolyte to faithfully bash the FBI. There's no value in trying to respond intelligently.