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I know my opinion is probably not popular, but if there was a way for Apple to physically install a firmware on a single device to allow for brute-forcing and i

by pilif 11y ago

I know my opinion is probably not popular, but if there was a way for Apple to physically install a firmware on a single device to allow for brute-forcing and if Apple did that in response to a direct court order, then this is probably the best compromise we can get. I really believe that there should be a way for law-enforcement to get access to specific devices in response to a court order as long as the solution doesn't involve weakening the encryption for everybody else. I'm absolutely against backdoors, secret* keys or similar crap. But physically access a single device in order to make brute-forcing it possible, that seems acceptable to me as that won't affect any other device. That would be similar to a court order allowing law enforcement to enter your premises and take out the safe in order to pry it open at some other location where specialised equipment is available. If this is all law enforcement wants, then maybe it's time to hand this over before law enforcement wants even more which will doubtless pave the way for mass surveillance of devices. * until they leak. Then everybody has access.

Spoom 11y ago
The FBI's backup in this case to Apple agreeing to work with them might just be to force Apple to disclose their signing key for iOS disk images, which could potentially be worse since it would enable the FBI and not Apple to control on which device(s) the image was installed. From a PR standpoint, that might be better for Apple since they could argue that they did not cooperate in creating a bypass, but from a technical perspective, it would be much worse. Were I in Apple's position, I would probably do what Apple is doing here... but it's a harder question than just "should we cooperate?" They have to ask, "what if we don't?"
- pilif 11y ago
  I was of the opinion that apple is actually signing individual OS installs (using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHSH_blob https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHSH_blob), so ultimately, apple would still be very much aware, if not totally in control of what firmware is installed where.
bjacobel 11y ago
> maybe it's time to hand this over before law enforcement wants even more which will doubtless pave the way for mass surveillance of devices. The FBI is already paving that way with this case. They don't overly care about access to this particular iPhone. They're taking this case through the courts so that they can establish a precedent that allows them to force manufacturer cooperation to unlock any phone. Edit: If they really cared about access to this individual phone, they wouldn't be going through the courts to get it; they'd be talking to the NSA TAO or other LEO with advanced forensic capability. As several people have pointed out, this iPhone 5C does not have a Secure Enclave and probably does not present a significant challenge to forensically analyze, to people that know what they're doing. They're going through the courts on this so they can get carte blanche to access iPhones 5S and above, which no LEO currently has capabilities to inspect. Further edit: This is Farook's work phone. His main, personal phone was found destroyed in a dumpster near the site of the attacks. I find it incredibly unlikely the FBI really cares much about the contents of this individual phone, they just want a high-profile test case to expand their surveillance capabilities.
- delroth 11y ago
  Maybe that would force manufacturers to be in a position where they can truthfully say "we can't do that". I'd prefer that to the current situation where Apple basically has a backdoor they're just trying to keep for themselves.
  - zaphoyd 11y ago
    As the original article mentions, it sounds like Apple has already engineered a situation where they can't get into their own phones. This Apple only backdoor option exists only in equipment that predates the secure enclave hardware (such as the phone in this case).
    - venomsnake 11y ago
      They always can. Microcode updates come to mind. While apple have the ability to keep their ecosystems locked, they also have the capability to unlock them. Probably not easy and not on mass scale. It may even need to have to see inside the silicone itself. Which is expensive and hard. But as long as the keys are on the device or in possession of apple - they can be extracted.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- delroth 11y ago
  The FBI explicitly requested a firmware image that is bound to a specific device (by checking a unique ID -- read the court order please). That signed image would not be usable on other devices without going through Apple again.
  - koenigdavidmj 11y ago
    And then they know that this is a simple change to an if statement the next time they want to do this.
    - yorwba 11y ago
      Presumably that change would invalidate the signature.
      - st3v3r 11y ago
        So? They'd compel Apple to resign the firmware.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    So what? How would Apple be able to say yes in this case, but no in the next case? Developing such a system when none exists is effectively creating a back door for every iOS device out there.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      > How would Apple be able to say yes in this case, but no in the next case? Well, because an actual judge would be required to make such a decision, and in each case, the merits would be assessed separately. So Apple could say no, and a judge might agree with them "right, the government has no grounds here". (IANAL, and IANEAA - I am not even an American).
the8472 11y ago
> But physically access a single device in order to make brute-forcing it possible, that seems acceptable to me as that won't affect any other device. Sure, they can try brute-forceing it, or even break open the chips and try to extract keys with an electron microscope. That's all within their domain. But why should anyone be forced to assist them?
spdustin 11y ago
I don't think the safe analogy holds up, maybe someone can help me understand why it would, given: A safe is a container filled with physical objects: property. Property is subject to search and seizure with appropriate warrants, levies, writs, orders, wants, etc. A phone is a container filled with information. The only physical property relevant to evidence consists of the electromagnetic state of the memory on the device. This would be no different from the bioelectric state of the neurons in the human brain, which coincidentally, also is a container filled with information. In both cases, there seems to be easy precedent to state that the information in those containers represents protected information, as it pertains to the possibly incriminating testimony of that information. A safe can be physically removed and brought to a place where there are more specific tools available to access its physical contents. I stipulate to that. A phone can also be physically removed and brought to a place where ... What? What tools exist to interrogate the electromagnetic state of the phone that aren't already accessible? Asking Apple to create some software allowing them to unlock and read the information is tantamount to asking a neuroscientist to create software allowing them to unlock and read your mind. Not trolling, these are my sincere beliefs. Are they wrong?
- MatthewWilkes 11y ago
  Crucially, anyone with sufficient technical skill can open a safe, therefore the manufacturer offering that service isn't a violation of customer rights. Nobody can bypass the security on an iPhone but Apple, requiring them to do so isn't requiring a company to assist in a search, it's requiring a company to use its unique position as the manufacturer to damage their product.
  - evgen 11y ago
    And if I built a physical safe that was so complex that only I could safely open it and then sold the safe to an alleged criminal, would the court have the power to force me to reveal the secret to opening this safe? Sorry, but the law is not exactly on our side here. The courts have legitimately exercised such warrants before and will do so again, as is their right and authority. Unfortunately, I think this sort of example paints you into a corner. The court is not requiring the company to permenantly damage the product, any more than a locksmith who opens a locked door to assist in the execution of a warrant is damaging the door. Once the court has what it requests it is trivial to reinstall the original firmware. There is an old saying that hard cases make bad law. This is a hard case. The defendants are both heinous and deceased; they lack standing to resist and few will support such an effort. Apple is a third-party here and is on such shakey legal ground that they are left defending themselves in the court of public opinion because they know they are going to lose in an actual court. Bad things tend to come out of situations like this.
Natsu 11y ago
> I really believe that there should be a way for law-enforcement to get access to specific devices in response to a court order as long as the solution doesn't involve weakening the encryption for everybody else. This requirement is self-contradictory. The device has no way to determine whether the attacker trying to gain access is a good or bad guy, nor can it.
16bytes 11y ago
> That would be similar to a court order allowing law enforcement to enter your premises and take out the safe in order to pry it open at some other location where specialised equipment is available. I would think it's more similar to the following: the government has gone to the safe manufacturer to help it open a safe it has a warrant for, has access to and can move, but can't open. The government is asking to develop a method to modify the safe so that it can be opened. The safe manufacturer says that it they did so the same method would be able to be used on all of their safes, and thereby make all of their products less secure. I would imagine that a reasonable safe manufacturer would bring up the same objection.
- mikeash 11y ago
  The mere fact that the safe manufacturer is able to make such a modification already means the safe is not very secure. The development of the modification is almost incidental at that point. If the safe manufacturer doesn't want to be put in this position, it should make it so there is no such modification possible. Which as far as I understand it is what Apple did with their safes^H^H^H^H^Hphones starting with the A7 CPU, but this phone is older.
  - tobylane 11y ago
    The firmware for the Safe Enclave can be updated, but only with the Apple private key. Which is as secure as it's possible to get in a consumer product that gets improved upon after sale.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Merely requiring an Apple private key is insufficient. The OS as a whole requires that too, but as we see here that just puts Apple in the position of potentially being forced to sign an update which removes security. I'm guessing that the secure enclave not only requires a private key from Apple, but that it wipes the crypto keys it contains (effectively wiping the device) if it's updated without first being unlocked with the user's passcode. That would prevent even Apple from cracking it, barring an exploit of the secure enclave's software, or some sort of highly advanced attack on the physical hardware.
Zigurd 11y ago
>there should be a way for law-enforcement to get access to specific devices in response to a court order as long as the solution doesn't involve weakening the encryption for everybody else Which law enforcement? The FBI? Really? how about the DEA? TSA? How about the federal police in China? Venezuela? Saudi Arabia? Syria?
st3v3r 11y ago
Except that it isn't possible. Once it's done for one device, it can be done for all. If Apple caves in this one time, then there's no reason they shouldn't cave in (or be compelled to cave in) the second time, and the third time, and so on.

by pilif 11y ago

Spoom 11y ago

The FBI's backup in this case to Apple agreeing to work with them might just be to force Apple to disclose their signing key for iOS disk images, which could potentially be worse since it would enable the FBI and not Apple to control on which device(s) the image was installed. From a PR standpoint, that might be better for Apple since they could argue that they did not cooperate in creating a bypass, but from a technical perspective, it would be much worse. Were I in Apple's position, I would probably do what Apple is doing here... but it's a harder question than just "should we cooperate?" They have to ask, "what if we don't?"

pilif 11y ago
I was of the opinion that apple is actually signing individual OS installs (using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHSH_blob https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHSH_blob), so ultimately, apple would still be very much aware, if not totally in control of what firmware is installed where.

bjacobel 11y ago

> maybe it's time to hand this over before law enforcement wants even more which will doubtless pave the way for mass surveillance of devices. The FBI is already paving that way with this case. They don't overly care about access to this particular iPhone. They're taking this case through the courts so that they can establish a precedent that allows them to force manufacturer cooperation to unlock any phone. Edit: If they really cared about access to this individual phone, they wouldn't be going through the courts to get it; they'd be talking to the NSA TAO or other LEO with advanced forensic capability. As several people have pointed out, this iPhone 5C does not have a Secure Enclave and probably does not present a significant challenge to forensically analyze, to people that know what they're doing. They're going through the courts on this so they can get carte blanche to access iPhones 5S and above, which no LEO currently has capabilities to inspect. Further edit: This is Farook's work phone. His main, personal phone was found destroyed in a dumpster near the site of the attacks. I find it incredibly unlikely the FBI really cares much about the contents of this individual phone, they just want a high-profile test case to expand their surveillance capabilities.

delroth 11y ago
Maybe that would force manufacturers to be in a position where they can truthfully say "we can't do that". I'd prefer that to the current situation where Apple basically has a backdoor they're just trying to keep for themselves.
- zaphoyd 11y ago
  As the original article mentions, it sounds like Apple has already engineered a situation where they can't get into their own phones. This Apple only backdoor option exists only in equipment that predates the secure enclave hardware (such as the phone in this case).
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    They always can. Microcode updates come to mind. While apple have the ability to keep their ecosystems locked, they also have the capability to unlock them. Probably not easy and not on mass scale. It may even need to have to see inside the silicone itself. Which is expensive and hard. But as long as the keys are on the device or in possession of apple - they can be extracted.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

delroth 11y ago
The FBI explicitly requested a firmware image that is bound to a specific device (by checking a unique ID -- read the court order please). That signed image would not be usable on other devices without going through Apple again.
- koenigdavidmj 11y ago
  And then they know that this is a simple change to an if statement the next time they want to do this.
  - yorwba 11y ago
    Presumably that change would invalidate the signature.
    - st3v3r 11y ago
      So? They'd compel Apple to resign the firmware.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  So what? How would Apple be able to say yes in this case, but no in the next case? Developing such a system when none exists is effectively creating a back door for every iOS device out there.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    > How would Apple be able to say yes in this case, but no in the next case? Well, because an actual judge would be required to make such a decision, and in each case, the merits would be assessed separately. So Apple could say no, and a judge might agree with them "right, the government has no grounds here". (IANAL, and IANEAA - I am not even an American).

the8472 11y ago

> But physically access a single device in order to make brute-forcing it possible, that seems acceptable to me as that won't affect any other device. Sure, they can try brute-forceing it, or even break open the chips and try to extract keys with an electron microscope. That's all within their domain. But why should anyone be forced to assist them?

spdustin 11y ago

I don't think the safe analogy holds up, maybe someone can help me understand why it would, given: A safe is a container filled with physical objects: property. Property is subject to search and seizure with appropriate warrants, levies, writs, orders, wants, etc. A phone is a container filled with information. The only physical property relevant to evidence consists of the electromagnetic state of the memory on the device. This would be no different from the bioelectric state of the neurons in the human brain, which coincidentally, also is a container filled with information. In both cases, there seems to be easy precedent to state that the information in those containers represents protected information, as it pertains to the possibly incriminating testimony of that information. A safe can be physically removed and brought to a place where there are more specific tools available to access its physical contents. I stipulate to that. A phone can also be physically removed and brought to a place where ... What? What tools exist to interrogate the electromagnetic state of the phone that aren't already accessible? Asking Apple to create some software allowing them to unlock and read the information is tantamount to asking a neuroscientist to create software allowing them to unlock and read your mind. Not trolling, these are my sincere beliefs. Are they wrong?

MatthewWilkes 11y ago
Crucially, anyone with sufficient technical skill can open a safe, therefore the manufacturer offering that service isn't a violation of customer rights. Nobody can bypass the security on an iPhone but Apple, requiring them to do so isn't requiring a company to assist in a search, it's requiring a company to use its unique position as the manufacturer to damage their product.
- evgen 11y ago
  And if I built a physical safe that was so complex that only I could safely open it and then sold the safe to an alleged criminal, would the court have the power to force me to reveal the secret to opening this safe? Sorry, but the law is not exactly on our side here. The courts have legitimately exercised such warrants before and will do so again, as is their right and authority. Unfortunately, I think this sort of example paints you into a corner. The court is not requiring the company to permenantly damage the product, any more than a locksmith who opens a locked door to assist in the execution of a warrant is damaging the door. Once the court has what it requests it is trivial to reinstall the original firmware. There is an old saying that hard cases make bad law. This is a hard case. The defendants are both heinous and deceased; they lack standing to resist and few will support such an effort. Apple is a third-party here and is on such shakey legal ground that they are left defending themselves in the court of public opinion because they know they are going to lose in an actual court. Bad things tend to come out of situations like this.

Natsu 11y ago

> I really believe that there should be a way for law-enforcement to get access to specific devices in response to a court order as long as the solution doesn't involve weakening the encryption for everybody else. This requirement is self-contradictory. The device has no way to determine whether the attacker trying to gain access is a good or bad guy, nor can it.

16bytes 11y ago

> That would be similar to a court order allowing law enforcement to enter your premises and take out the safe in order to pry it open at some other location where specialised equipment is available. I would think it's more similar to the following: the government has gone to the safe manufacturer to help it open a safe it has a warrant for, has access to and can move, but can't open. The government is asking to develop a method to modify the safe so that it can be opened. The safe manufacturer says that it they did so the same method would be able to be used on all of their safes, and thereby make all of their products less secure. I would imagine that a reasonable safe manufacturer would bring up the same objection.

mikeash 11y ago
The mere fact that the safe manufacturer is able to make such a modification already means the safe is not very secure. The development of the modification is almost incidental at that point. If the safe manufacturer doesn't want to be put in this position, it should make it so there is no such modification possible. Which as far as I understand it is what Apple did with their safes^H^H^H^H^Hphones starting with the A7 CPU, but this phone is older.
- tobylane 11y ago
  The firmware for the Safe Enclave can be updated, but only with the Apple private key. Which is as secure as it's possible to get in a consumer product that gets improved upon after sale.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Merely requiring an Apple private key is insufficient. The OS as a whole requires that too, but as we see here that just puts Apple in the position of potentially being forced to sign an update which removes security. I'm guessing that the secure enclave not only requires a private key from Apple, but that it wipes the crypto keys it contains (effectively wiping the device) if it's updated without first being unlocked with the user's passcode. That would prevent even Apple from cracking it, barring an exploit of the secure enclave's software, or some sort of highly advanced attack on the physical hardware.

Zigurd 11y ago

>there should be a way for law-enforcement to get access to specific devices in response to a court order as long as the solution doesn't involve weakening the encryption for everybody else Which law enforcement? The FBI? Really? how about the DEA? TSA? How about the federal police in China? Venezuela? Saudi Arabia? Syria?

st3v3r 11y ago

Except that it isn't possible. Once it's done for one device, it can be done for all. If Apple caves in this one time, then there's no reason they shouldn't cave in (or be compelled to cave in) the second time, and the third time, and so on.