US government request Apple for backdoor

[Belwarrior]

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

Not sure if Apple website got compromised or this posting is true! If Apple is forced to build the backdoor into the next IOS, everyone's data may be accessed by FBI

[Umfriend]

Oh, this is real.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/16/us/san-bernardino-shooter-phone-apple/

[Jammrock]

I can understand Apple's position on this and am glad they took a stance. If they give in they will be flooded with requests from governments to use that back door. Some, like the NSA, may try to leverage the back door as a permanent way to snoop on people.

It would cause a serious loss of faith in the platform and mass exodus of every security and privacy conscious person. It's bad business. It's bad security. And, despite the circumstances, it's the right decision to make.

Most of the big tech companies have been taking this same kind of stance, and I'm glad they are.

[Umfriend]

I concur.

[cjolley]

I have a pretty hard time believing that IPhones haven't been cracked already. At least by a government.
Remember the mantra that all security is lost once physical access has been achieved.

[Dr Mordrid]

The built in encryption for both iPhone and Android uses a long key and that's giving law enforcement and intel agencies fits. Especially now that encryption is baked in.

I can see both sides; outfits like organized crime, AQ, IS etc. can plan with impunity, and yet other govt agencies and security companies are telling people to protect their data. Some kind of compromise is needed.

[cjolley]

I can see both sides too.
The question I have is why Apple "could do it in an afternoon" and the government can't. That just doesn't make sense to me.

[KRSESQ]

For that matter, they could probably get the backdoor code from the Chinese in less than an hour, if they knew who to bribe.

[cjolley]

Here's a sensible explanation: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debat...nto-an-iphone/

1, His phone is an old iPhone 5c
2, They want a one-off OS that doesn't have a progressive timeout pin counter so they can brute force the pin.
3, They have his iCloud backups already, the just want the most recent data.
4, The want to set a precedent.

[UtwigMU]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-19/it-just-occurred-me-trump-proposes-boycott-apple

"It Just Occurred To Me" - Trump Proposes Boycott Of Apple, While Tweeting From An iPhone

"Apple, this is one case, this is a case that certainly we should be able to get into the phone," he said. "And we should find out what happened, why it happened, and maybe there's other people involved and we have to do that."

Final proof Trump is an idiot.

[Belwarrior]

Another update http://www.wired.com/2016/02/apple-s...k-that-iphone/
Apple claim that even brute force cracking a well chosen password would take about 5 years to crack o_0

[Umfriend]

But, uhm, that means that if you use iCloud, your data belongs to the government... There is a reason I dislike the cloud and here we are.

[GT98]

Another update http://www.wired.com/2016/02/apple-s...k-that-iphone/
Apple claim that even brute force cracking a well chosen password would take about 5 years to crack o_0

Most people don't have well chosen passwords to start with....

[Umfriend]

The article says a 6-digit complex password. I have always wondered about that. Given that one can, apparantly, have a 6-digit complex password, isn't any 6-digit password equally complex? I mean, why would you need to have a capital in a password given that you can have one (or more)? In fact, any such requirement lowers the number of permutations given any lenght, no?

[Jammrock]

Statistically, yes. In reality, no.

Password crackers start with the most common number combinations first. Certain patterns that people prefer. Dates in the person's life. Phone number and address stuff. For a religious person such as this they may use combinations of scripture references too. This will actually crack a large number of devices rather quickly. People like numbers and shapes that are easy to remember, rather than a truly random set of digits.

From there you move to lists of commonly used pins from research. And finally, if all that fails, you move to actual brute force. Chances are the FBI and Homeland have the brute force thing down to a science. It wouldn't take nearly as long as Apple thinks, in most cases.