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Only Apple is able to sign iOS updates. The FBI wants Apple to make an Evil Update and sign it with their key so the phone will accept the update. Apple has to
by roywiggins 11y ago
Only Apple is able to sign iOS updates. The FBI wants Apple to make an Evil Update and sign it with their key so the phone will accept the update. Apple has to hold the signing key so the phone can reject Evil Updates in general.
Does this count as a "backdoor"? It's built into the way signed updates work. Nobody stole Sony's master signing key for the PS4, even when their entire network was pwned. They're probably stored offline in specialized hardware.
(as I understand it, newer iPhones use crypto magic + special hardware to make it arguably impossible to update the phone while it's locked, so they're more secure against Evil Updates, even ones signed by Apple)
- yhager 11y agoCan't the FBI then subpoena the signing key?
- Zigurd 11y agoMostly because they would need Apple source code and toolchain, too, and dozens of coders willing to make evil updates. Of course they could get those, too. But imagine what an expensive botch some "security contractor" would make of the project of crafting evil updates for the FBI. They would probably be found out and publicly humiliated, and there would be a terrible trust hit to the whole tech industry.
- zkhalique 11y agoSo, they always bounce back from it, it's not as if they haven't botched things before.
- DominikR 11y agoWhy don't they also design the iPhone 7 when they are already at it?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]