The FBI claims that the government has no alternatives to access the information. However, we have no way to know if that is true. Edward Snowden has implied that the NSA has the capability.
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Tim Cook to Discuss Ongoing FBI Battle on Tonight's Episode of 'World News Tonight'
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Terrorist stand up for that they believe, you know. We call them terrorist while they call themselves heroes
Just different point of views.While I don't agree with Apple on that one, calling them terrorists is a bit far fetched. Let's say I understand their motives for refusing, but it has nothing to do with helping terrorists.
Now I do wonder how we'll even have any proof that people commited crimes or are going to do a terrorist attack if everything is encrypted and we can't access any data, though.
agree, I think Apple is just defending their view point and it (Apple) is just caught between the FBI trying to force the Legislative branch to make proper laws.
The FBI didn't choose this case by accident. It likely carefully chose this case to say "we need clear laws on encryption to do our jobs" to force Congress to start making laws now. It's much bigger than Apple.
Rep. Ted Lieu of California asked the FBI to withdrawl the case to allow the Legislative branch time to make laws.
The FBI chose this case because it deals with recent terrorism and Apple to make it as high profile as possible to force it to the top of the agenda for Congress. I.e. "Make clear, applicable laws or we will use the Judicial branch to set precedence."
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Thank you, Apple, for taking everyone's privacy seriously and for defending our right to privacy. We now know that Apple doesn't just pay lip service to the importance they place on our personal privacy and our device's security. They really have engineered the iPhone and its software so that it can be configured to be impossible to crack unless you have the proper credentials physically (fingerprint) or you know the passcode. And that's exactly as it should be.
Side note: If the terrorist in San Bernardino had a 5s or newer instead of a 5c and had configured Touch ID, this almost certainly would've been a complete non-story. The Feds could've simply tried all the fingers on the corpse until they found the one that unlocked the phone. Of course, if the phone was turned off by the terrorist, all bets would be off since it would prompt the Feds for the passcode when they turned the phone back on.
Side note: If the terrorist in San Bernardino had a 5s or newer instead of a 5c and had configured Touch ID, this almost certainly would've been a complete non-story. The Feds could've simply tried all the fingers on the corpse until they found the one that unlocked the phone. Of course, if the phone was turned off by the terrorist, all bets would be off since it would prompt the Feds for the passcode when they turned the phone back on.
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Not necessarily..
When the iPhone restarts or recharges after the battery dies (which both occurred in this case), the iPhone would require the password upon restart. TouchID would have been ineffective at that point.
BL.
That's funny. I *just* updated my post after I realized I'd forgotten the passcode being required upon restart scenario.
If you ask Comey: Your privacy, and your security.
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But it's a very understandable decision. The county wants to be sure that they can read everything on the phone if one of their employees goes on a killing spree. The county's residents will feel safe in the knowledge that when they get shot, we will be able to find the killer's Candy Crush high scores.
I'm going with: They (the FBI) are opportunistically using the San Bernardino case to get the extra powers they've wanted for a long time.
Because it was the FBI that went to the press first. As Cook said, they learned about this through the press. The FBI could have kept this out of the media by asking the court order to be sealed (which is what Apple actually asked them for) but they wanted to try this in the court of public opinion.
Lets not forget how much data is on our phones. Once unlocked you can get to my: phone calls, text messages, email, banking information, location history, social media, notes/journal, cloud storage, and photos/videos (w/ geolocation). Not to mention whatever access I have to my spouse/friends (text conversations, facebook profile access, etc). And now some cars/homes have electronic locks available through your phone too...
Previously this would have taken a number of warrants to show need/cause from each provider but its all in 1 neat tidy package on my phone. It's no wonder Law Enforcement wants easy access to this stuff, it would make their jobs much easier.
Previously this would have taken a number of warrants to show need/cause from each provider but its all in 1 neat tidy package on my phone. It's no wonder Law Enforcement wants easy access to this stuff, it would make their jobs much easier.
Is it safe to assume this is Tim's office? I always imagined it would be a very long, empty hall with stone floors and a grand table at the end and a giant door that creaks when people enter.
The main thing missed from this is that if Apple does this then any evidence from it becomes the domain of the court. The court can force Apple to disseminate the information for the process and require it to be verified via third party and be reproducible for an arbitrary iPhone under laboratory conditions. In essence, this would force Apple to disclose all their encryption technology to third parties.
There are versions of iOS 8 that were vulnerable to an exploit that allows trying a passcode, shutting down the device, and then trying another passcode. This bug doesn't increment the failure count which allows an unlimited number of guessing and the device won't wipe itself.
Google IP BOX.
Finding nothing new would not be a surprise. These folks were well prepared and destroyed what they needed to by all appearances.
The NSA had the capability before Apple moved everything related to encryption keys to the secure element.
If the NSA or FBI still had the capability, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Most encryption algorithms are already public. The mark of a good encryption system is if the encryption is still unbreakable even if you know the encryption scheme, and the only thing that can be used to decrypt it is the private key.
For example, the RSA algorithm is public, but good luck breaking something encrypted with a 4096 bit RSA key.
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Yes, it is so secure. The only way to get to the data is to:
- Write a modified version of iOS/firmware that (a) removes the minimum time that is imposed between trying different passcodes, (b) disables the automatic deletion of all data after ten incorrect guesses (if the user had enabled this), and (c) make it possible to enter passcodes via an electronic interface (ie, not requiring them to by 'typed' via the touchscreen, then
- Get Apple's key signature and load that version of iOS onto the device, then
- Brute force the encryption by trying out all possible passcodes. If the passcode is only four numbers that's a matter of hours at most, if it six numbers that's days or weeks, if it is 20-character long passcode it could take years. That is because this still would have to take place on the phone. The reason for this is that there is hardware key stored inside the iPhone that is combined with the users passcode. That hardware key cannot be read from the outside (unless maybe you have the capability to solder new contacts onto the chip at the 14 nm level) and thus if you simply read out the SSD storage chip inside the phone, you would have to content with brute-forcing a key (the user passcode combined with the hardware key) that is so long that it cannot be done in a human life time with current computing capabilities.
This specific device is running iOS 9. Unlike versions 7 and earlier, a significant amount of user core data is now encrypted and Apple has placed the encryption key in the users hand, not Apple's.
By the way, to date Apple has not unlocked the passcode of any device submitted to them by law authorities. Prior to iOS 8 and above, they had a secondary way to get at the information. With iOS 8 and above, that information is now encrypted and pretty much useless.
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And so far as it has been communicated, the FBI has not answered if the have asked the NSA to break into the device. This needs answering as the task given to Apple by the courts is required to be a "after all attempts". Haven't seen that in any of the warrant / writ court documentation either.
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I miss Peter Jennings, too. He had the background and the experience that would make people watch and listen.
Apple offers solutions for organizations to control the iPhones that they own.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/it/
If the County had managed this iPhone, then they would be in control of the passcode, and could surrender it to the FBI, rather than needing Apple to make a special version of iOS to get past the device's built-in security features (setting a precedent that potentially weakens the security of all of our electronic devices).
This is an option for any government or business. The boycott by this Arizona county is for show.
You can look at Berlusconi, an Italian media tycoon that was Italy's prime minister on and off for about ten years (with another short stint ten years before that). He is not quite as outlandish as trump but his taste for prostitutes/escorts was an open secret and appeared frequently in the company of beautiful young ladies that weren't his nieces. In particular towards the end of his reign (in 2011), most other European heads of governments tried to limit any contact to the officially necessary and he was known for his fruity jokes. That didn't help Italy but the world can go with largely ignoring the Italian governing. That would work not so well with the United States.
So the government says this is only for one phone and would never leave Apple HQ. But if Apple created a tool that was used by the government wouldn't 3rd parties need to validate or want access to that tool? In a court case wouldn't the defense ask for the code behind this tool or could they argue the evidence is invalid/made up by the government? Also what happens if congress gets involved and passes a law that outlaws encryption? This is about so much more than this one phone.