and Apple is resisting. My prosaic question is this: If the phone is encrypted, how could one load a new OS into it? And if the encryption only covers part of the phone, and you replace the OS (which is currently set up to wipe encrypted data after 10 incorrect passcode entries), doesn't the FBI still have to guess the passcode?


I'm assuming that the FBI doesn't see that (breaking encryption) as a problem given the short length of passcodes in iPhones.

I'm with Apple on this one. "F* the police"
else tomorrow, "terrorist" could be you or I for any reason they deem "necessary".

Stupid FBI. Needs to hire some real Linux users.
I'm with Habitual on this.
Law enforcement is known for being lazy and taking the easy way out.

That phone belonged to one of the terrorists who murdered 14 people. Naturally they need to know who his contacts may be. They'll have searched his home. Why shouldn't they search his computer and phone?

Policework was done before phone tracking was invented, introducing backdoors to our gadgets is the price too high to pay.

I'm rather surprised to see people condemning Apple here. Apple isn't resisting demands to search a terrorist's phone. What Apple is resisting is the demand to create a special version of iOS with a backdoor. Because Apple believes, quite wisely IMHO, that "create this for us and it will only be used this once, this one time" isn't a promise that the FBI can be trusted to keep or be able to keep.

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/
http://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/02/...i-court-order/

moxieman99: the second link should answer your technical questions.

Also, one reason I wouldn't want Apple to do this for the FBI, is because the wall between the FBI and the CIA (which pretty much exists exclusively to do illegal stuff) has been demolished by the Patriot Act.

I'm with dugan on this. I'm troubled by how what was asked for by the FBI is being described by the media. The headlines are all along the lines of "FBI wants Apple's help hacking a particular phone". That is not actually what the FBI has asked for. The FBI has asked Apple to develop an alternative iOS that can bypass iOS's security for ANY phone. That is substantially different from asking for assistance in brute-forcing a particular phone.

My even bigger concern is that Apple already has a backdoor iOS and would prefer not to acknowledge that fact.

I though the FBI had the resources to break or bypass any encryption as they claim in the pass, or ws that the NSA? Not sure, I guess they were lying through their teeth.

I'm with apple on this.

I will never buy mac, will they $py on you plus w\don't vote for people! I say bring on "gods eye." For me and mine nothing to hide and will be long gone before real change on dirt.

Do note that if the motive had actually been to get data off the phone, then the court order would just have been "get us the data off this phone." It would not have demanded (and certainly not in such detail) how Apple does it.

Is there any doubt that Apple could unlock that phone in less than a few minutes?

Yes.

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/700031374678499329

If there's always a way in, isn't it true there's always a way to block that new way in?

I think this article is relevant.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02...dvocates_view/

The short version is this: the FBI is not asking for a back door. They have a warrant and want Apple to open the front door.

Whether or not you agree with it, I think the writer's argument is worth taking into account. The concern is normally about "warrantless" searches, not "warrant-full" searches.

Please note that I am not taking a position; I've been too busy doing other things today to research this fully. I just happened to see this and thought it interesting.

Afterthought: Given that the person who owned the iJunk did indeed kill folks in the presence of witnesses, I think the authorities meet the test of "probably cause" for a warrant.

What I don't know is whether Apple could open that front door without giving away its encryption.