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Even without the Secure Enclave, is it even possible for Apple to do this? The article talks about how Apple could add a backdoor to the OS and update the softw
by eridius 11y ago
Even without the Secure Enclave, is it even possible for Apple to do this? The article talks about how Apple could add a backdoor to the OS and update the software on the device in order to break this, but I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to update the software on the device while it's locked, without erasing the device in the process (assuming of course that the iPhone is running a relatively recent version of the OS to begin with). AIUI Apple used to have the ability to backdoor phones for use in complying with law enforcement requests, but they removed that ability several years ago. And of course if they still had that capability with this phone nobody would need to order them to add a backdoor anyway since they could just bypass the passcode directly.
- nuxi7 11y agoThe court order refers to the need to load the custom OS image via DFU (device firmware upgrade) mode. I am not an iPhone user but I'm assuming that is exactly what the name implies. (some pre-boot recovery environment)
- eridius 11y agoIt's been a few years since I looked at DFU, but my impression was that installing a new OS via DFU would have the side-effect of erasing the device.
- muddi900 11y agoIn my jailbreak days, the DFU update did indeed wipe the device. I don't know how it works.
- bb88 11y agoDid it actually write zeros to the flash memory or did it leave the data sitting around somewhere?
- leonatan 11y agoThe encryption key is deleted. All data can remain on the flash for years, but it's useless.
- mywittyname 11y agoBut if you're planning on brute forcing the encryption key, this side-effect doesn't matter.
- muddi900 11y agoThe key is not the password. If that were the case, the phone would have to re-encrypt everything everytime you change the pin or password. The password unlocks the key. And if you brute force the key itself, it might take decades, maybe centuries.
- pixelcloud 11y agoYou could rewrite the bootloader and recovery firmware to really do anything. Resize some partitions and dual boot into a shell with some drivers for keyboard and wireless. Basically jailbreak..
- jon-wood 11y agoThat's probably the case for you and I, but I'm sure with sufficient knowledge of how DFU works (for example by employing the engineers who designed it) you can persuade it to only rewrite particular blocks, leaving the data intact.