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Apple fights FBI demand to unlock an iPhone in Boston gang case

The Globe reports on a case involving a phone belonging to an alleged member of the Columbia Point Dawgs, indicted last year with 47 other people.

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Comments

This phone cracking trend went from pedophiles and terrorists (paraphrasing the President's comments) to practically anybody pretty fast.

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I'd assumed they'd at least wait until the San Bernardino "just this one case, it's really important and we won't ask again" ruling went in the govt's favor before every other "just this one case, it's really important and we won't ask again" case queued up.

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I'm pretty sure my wife is cheating on me, can you crack her iPhone just this one time? Great, thanks.

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Get a search warrant signed by a judge like these federal agents had, and we will then decide whether or not we want to give you that information.

Thanks,

Apple

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It went from, "Hey Apple, remove the limits on the password input then destroy the software" to "just one more time."

Is Apple supposed to destroy the software a dozen times a week?

If the don't destroy it, it will get out, then every iPhone is backdoored. In other words, paperweights.
If it can be done, it will be done.

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About the government's case is that they want to compel Apple to develop software to un-encrypt the phone! IT's not like Apple has the key and just won't turn it over. Encryption doesn't work like that.

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The government is asking Apple to create a custom version of the OS which allows them to use a brute force method of unlocking the phone. In essence this involves trying every numeric combination between 0000-9999, assuming the passcode is four digits. In an automated way this can be done in a matter of minutes. Right now the phone will auto-erase after 10 tries so this method won't work without updating the OS to remove this feature.

The government might have programmers on the payroll who are able to modify the software this way themselves but the phone is programmed to not allow updates unless the files are signed with a key only Apple controls. It's possible the courts will make apple turn over the signing key without offering the additional code.

I don't think Apple should help the government however it would be hard to belive the NSA doesn't already have a copy of the signing key and/or a direct way into the phone. (They also might have a copy of all the files sent to/from the phone and decrypting the memory is irreverent.)

If you disassemble the phone you can make a copy of the memory which at least prevents it from being erased. This is only half the solution as the memory is encrypted but at least it won't be erased.

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The San Bernardino issue was one thing, but now I definitely stand with Apple in wanting to protect their reputation and more importantly people's privacy. I mean it's not even like this was a Mafia family in New York.....just a street gang in Boston...

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That murdered people.

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Good job, Apple. Very rare nowadays to see major corporations standing up for people's rights.

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They'd do it for China.

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Apple claims they haven't. Who knows.

Given the NSA's claws into every IT industry it would seem surprising if that agency doesn't have some way into the phone, perhaps through a alternate channel like sniffing all the traffic sent to/from the phone or setting up a bogus sync server. The NSA isn't supposed to help the FBI when the suspects are US citizens.

The NSA might be happy for the public to think iPhones are some ultra-secure locked box they can store all their secrets.

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