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"Law enforcement agents around the country have already said they have hundreds of iPhones they want Apple to unlock if the FBI wins this case. In the physical

by dkopi 11y ago

"Law enforcement agents around the country have already said they have hundreds of iPhones they want Apple to unlock if the FBI wins this case. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks. " Actually - the master key, the backdoor, already exists. The master key is Apple's ability to sign a new version of IOS, and update the software on a locked phone. The Federal government isn't asking Apple to create a backdoor. Their asking apple to use the backdoor that already exists.

bad_user 11y ago
Actually that's irrelevant because the government can always coerce companies or individuals to introduce backdoors if there aren't any. Software developers have the arrogance to think that technology can solve political issues.
- interpol_p 11y ago
  The difference in this case is that a backdoor can be introduced after the fact. That is, it is possible to load a new version of iOS onto this locked phone with the backdoor in place. Ideally, one should not be able to update a locked phone in such a way as to introduce a backdoor to allow for brute force passcode attempts.
  - bad_user 11y ago
    First of all this isn't about brute forcing passcode attempts, it is about bypassing the passcode altogether. If the phone is open and can be made to automatically download and install a software upgrade, then this is possible, even if the storage is encrypted. Also, given that Apple is the phone maker, they can of course be coerced to produce phones with this capability, whether they want it or not. There is is no "ideally" ;-)
- matwood 11y ago
  > Actually that's irrelevant because the government can always coerce companies or individuals to introduce backdoors if there aren't any. The FBI is trying to do just that and Apple is fighting it. That is why this case is so important.
  - noelsusman 11y ago
    Except they're not. If the FBI was trying to force Apple to keep this avenue of attack open in all future versions of iOS then I would be 100% behind Apple, but that's not what's going on. The FBI is asking Apple to exploit an already existing vulnerability.
    - matwood 11y ago
      Do you not think this is where it is headed? The FBI has been complaining about device security for awhile. They finally have a 'terror' case to use in order to try and swing public opinion. To think that the FBI only wants a single phone (we have found out later they have many) unlocked, and only wants it to work until Apple closes the security hole is naive.
- sbov 11y ago
  Not that I agree with backdoors, but Congress should be able to. The courts shouldn't.
zaphar 11y ago
The key analogy starts to break down at some point. The "master key" as you put it is that Apple has the engineers, experience, and digital key that enables them to create a second key for any IPhone manufactured pre secure enclave. The argument here is that once Apple creates that second key the effort required to steal it is significantly lowered. You can't steal something that doesn't exist yet. It's more analogous to forcing everyone to use a shorter password composed of only numerical digits because it makes brute forcing easier. The mere existence of this new less secure IOS makes Apple even more of a target. The slightest chance that it could leak would render more than the hundreds of iPhones the FBI want's to unlock completely insecure.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  > The argument here is that once Apple creates that second key the effort required to steal it is significantly lowered. You can't steal something that doesn't exist yet. The key exists. If someone were to steal it, they could sign any version of iOS they want. I think the resources required to successfully steal Apple's private key for signing updates, which is presumably locked down very robustly, is an order of magnitude greater than the resources required to modify iOS to remove the erase and timeout features. The latter is very difficult especially without the source code, but it's hard for me to believe that it's harder than stealing Apple's key.
  - zaphar 11y ago
    Just having the key doesn't automatically make it easier for you to create the new IOS. That task is significantly easier for Apple to do than for you to do. Much of security is raising level of effort for an exploit to a high enough level that it's not worth the investment required to create it. If Apple creates the new IOS for you though and all you have to do is get your hands on it then the investment required just got smaller. Any reduction in the investment required for an exploit should be very carefully evaluated. Saying things like "This can't possibly be used by someone else." is either disingenuous or signifies that you don't adequately understand the issues, or you are lying to yourself. Whichever one of those that it is. It's in Apple's and frankly my best interest that someone highlight the truth of the situation. [EDIT]: The below is more hyperbolic than I intended after a second reading. I'm leaving it since I already hit submit but I wanted to apologize for going there. :-( This is like saying Look... We'll create a nuclear bomb but it's okay we're the only ones who will have it and nobody else is going to be able to get one. Maybe you can guarantee that no one else get's enough information from you to build one. However once you've built one the chance that someone could get the information from someone involved in your project to accelerate their creation of a nuclear bomb just increased by a non-trivial amount. And the potential risks are really high. Pretending otherwise would be foolish.
zaroth 11y ago
It's sloppy to call a vulnerability a backdoor. Yes, Apple failed to fully secure the 5c and may even possibly have failed to fully secure the 6s against this attack. So it is vulnerable to this attack, but the backdoor doesn't currently exist. Also, I would expect if it is technically possible, that Apple will be pushing an iOS update which closes this particular vulnerability going forward. Obviously not an update the FBI will be installing on this particular phone! I believe their intent is to make iOS secure even against an adversary that has physical possession of the phone and even against an adversary with the ability to sign custom builds.
- teacup50 11y ago
  In cryptography and computer security, a vulnerability (a backdoor) exists whether or not an exploit exists.
  - peeters 11y ago
    Your reply does nothing to justify why "backdoor" and "vulnerability" should be considered synonyms. What you say is true of "vulnerability", I've never heard someone call a buffer overflow vulnerability a "backdoor".
    - teacup50 11y ago
      A vulnerability is a backdoor if it's placed there intentionally. That's what Apple has done.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    >vulnerability (a backdoor) This is at best imprecise. The HN privacy advocates have taken to calling all vulnerabilities backdoors on the (not insane) belief that manufacturers are out to get them, but there is a distinction. Backdoors are a special case of vulnerabilities inserted intentionally by an attacker into ostensibly secure designs to allow the attacker back in once the device has left his control. For example, if Apple configured iPhones to accept two PINs, one set by the user and the other set by Apple at manufacturing time, we could say the iPhone is backdoored. If some engineer went rouge and marked his own code signing key as trusted, that's a backdoor. When you say something is a backdoor, you assign blame for its actively malicious and undisclosed insertion. Either the organization is evil or someone subverted the organization, and this person must be caught and punished. Most vulnerabilities happen because their creators didn't know better, or found mitigation to be not worth the cost. Apple is a little bit extraordinary in considering "itself, under legal coercion" under its threat model at all. You might disguise a backdoor as an ordinary accidental vulnerability, and this is a reasonable assertion to throw around when someone who should have known better, whose peers were doing better chose an insecure design. i.e. Juniper switching their design to use known-broken cryptography. The signs here certainly point to a vulnerability that ought to be mitigated (and possibly has been under the Secure Element system), but not a deliberate flaw in iOS's design. Vulnerability, not backdoor.
zepto 11y ago
Are you supportive of the government's position in this? There is clearly a vulnerability on top of which a backdoor could be built. But equating the two seems to be interpreting things in favor of the government.
- otterley 11y ago
  Are you saying the Government has no legitimate interest in the contents of a suspect's or deceased's mobile phone?
  - zepto 11y ago
    I believe that police forces have an interest in using whatever resources are legally available to them to pursue their inquiries, and as such, the FBI is acting according to its mission. My position is that the government as a whole - including the legislative, executive, and Supreme Court, have a duty to national security and civil liberties that would be severely compromised if the FBI prevails here. I agree with the ex director of the NSA, that strong encryption and secure devices are good for national security, and protect us against cyberterrorism, and that this is far more important than this individual case, and so the FBI should not be allowed to prevail.
WireWrap 11y ago
> The Federal government isn't asking Apple to create a backdoor. Their asking apple to use the backdoor that already exists. Basically. Unfortunately, most of the reporting is focused on the payload Apple is being asked to create and doesn't draw enough attention to that "existing backdoor" that will allow such a payload to be successfully installed. Eliminating that "existing backdoor" should be a priority. I see some, here, expressing the thought that Apple might be working on that. I think Apple needs to be pressed, hard, on that very subject.
- chiph 11y ago
  Is this the same key that Apple uses to publish updates to iOS?
- icebraining 11y ago
  Supposedly, the backdoor has already been fixed by the Secure Enclave, which was included in newer models of the iPhone.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Supposedly, and also supposedly the Secure Enclave doesn't defend against this, depending on who you ask and how they're speculating. I've yet to see anything authoritative on this from someone in a position to know for sure. The good news is that if you have a good password, not just a simple numeric passcode, you should be safe against this sort of thing regardless, unless the authorities can coerce or trick you into revealing your password.
- GBond 11y ago
  Apple is reframing it this way to the media but not technically untrue.
btreesOfSpring 11y ago
Tom Cross[0] in this tweet[1] was the first person I saw with the distinction in calling the FBI request an exploit rather than backdoor. This Vectra Networks blog post[2] explains this distinction in better technical detail. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cross_%28computer_security%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cross_%28computer_security... [1] https://twitter.com/_decius_/status/699932604737417216 https://twitter.com/_decius_/status/699932604737417216 [2] http://blog.vectranetworks.com/blog/apple-vs-the-fbi-some-points-to-consider http://blog.vectranetworks.com/blog/apple-vs-the-fbi-some-po...

by dkopi 11y ago

bad_user 11y ago

Actually that's irrelevant because the government can always coerce companies or individuals to introduce backdoors if there aren't any. Software developers have the arrogance to think that technology can solve political issues.

interpol_p 11y ago
The difference in this case is that a backdoor can be introduced after the fact. That is, it is possible to load a new version of iOS onto this locked phone with the backdoor in place. Ideally, one should not be able to update a locked phone in such a way as to introduce a backdoor to allow for brute force passcode attempts.
- bad_user 11y ago
  First of all this isn't about brute forcing passcode attempts, it is about bypassing the passcode altogether. If the phone is open and can be made to automatically download and install a software upgrade, then this is possible, even if the storage is encrypted. Also, given that Apple is the phone maker, they can of course be coerced to produce phones with this capability, whether they want it or not. There is is no "ideally" ;-)
matwood 11y ago
> Actually that's irrelevant because the government can always coerce companies or individuals to introduce backdoors if there aren't any. The FBI is trying to do just that and Apple is fighting it. That is why this case is so important.
- noelsusman 11y ago
  Except they're not. If the FBI was trying to force Apple to keep this avenue of attack open in all future versions of iOS then I would be 100% behind Apple, but that's not what's going on. The FBI is asking Apple to exploit an already existing vulnerability.
  - matwood 11y ago
    Do you not think this is where it is headed? The FBI has been complaining about device security for awhile. They finally have a 'terror' case to use in order to try and swing public opinion. To think that the FBI only wants a single phone (we have found out later they have many) unlocked, and only wants it to work until Apple closes the security hole is naive.
sbov 11y ago
Not that I agree with backdoors, but Congress should be able to. The courts shouldn't.

zaphar 11y ago

The key analogy starts to break down at some point. The "master key" as you put it is that Apple has the engineers, experience, and digital key that enables them to create a second key for any IPhone manufactured pre secure enclave. The argument here is that once Apple creates that second key the effort required to steal it is significantly lowered. You can't steal something that doesn't exist yet. It's more analogous to forcing everyone to use a shorter password composed of only numerical digits because it makes brute forcing easier. The mere existence of this new less secure IOS makes Apple even more of a target. The slightest chance that it could leak would render more than the hundreds of iPhones the FBI want's to unlock completely insecure.

ikeboy 11y ago
> The argument here is that once Apple creates that second key the effort required to steal it is significantly lowered. You can't steal something that doesn't exist yet. The key exists. If someone were to steal it, they could sign any version of iOS they want. I think the resources required to successfully steal Apple's private key for signing updates, which is presumably locked down very robustly, is an order of magnitude greater than the resources required to modify iOS to remove the erase and timeout features. The latter is very difficult especially without the source code, but it's hard for me to believe that it's harder than stealing Apple's key.
- zaphar 11y ago
  Just having the key doesn't automatically make it easier for you to create the new IOS. That task is significantly easier for Apple to do than for you to do. Much of security is raising level of effort for an exploit to a high enough level that it's not worth the investment required to create it. If Apple creates the new IOS for you though and all you have to do is get your hands on it then the investment required just got smaller. Any reduction in the investment required for an exploit should be very carefully evaluated. Saying things like "This can't possibly be used by someone else." is either disingenuous or signifies that you don't adequately understand the issues, or you are lying to yourself. Whichever one of those that it is. It's in Apple's and frankly my best interest that someone highlight the truth of the situation. [EDIT]: The below is more hyperbolic than I intended after a second reading. I'm leaving it since I already hit submit but I wanted to apologize for going there. :-( This is like saying Look... We'll create a nuclear bomb but it's okay we're the only ones who will have it and nobody else is going to be able to get one. Maybe you can guarantee that no one else get's enough information from you to build one. However once you've built one the chance that someone could get the information from someone involved in your project to accelerate their creation of a nuclear bomb just increased by a non-trivial amount. And the potential risks are really high. Pretending otherwise would be foolish.

zaroth 11y ago

It's sloppy to call a vulnerability a backdoor. Yes, Apple failed to fully secure the 5c and may even possibly have failed to fully secure the 6s against this attack. So it is vulnerable to this attack, but the backdoor doesn't currently exist. Also, I would expect if it is technically possible, that Apple will be pushing an iOS update which closes this particular vulnerability going forward. Obviously not an update the FBI will be installing on this particular phone! I believe their intent is to make iOS secure even against an adversary that has physical possession of the phone and even against an adversary with the ability to sign custom builds.

teacup50 11y ago
In cryptography and computer security, a vulnerability (a backdoor) exists whether or not an exploit exists.
- peeters 11y ago
  Your reply does nothing to justify why "backdoor" and "vulnerability" should be considered synonyms. What you say is true of "vulnerability", I've never heard someone call a buffer overflow vulnerability a "backdoor".
  - teacup50 11y ago
    A vulnerability is a backdoor if it's placed there intentionally. That's what Apple has done.
- superuser2 11y ago
  >vulnerability (a backdoor) This is at best imprecise. The HN privacy advocates have taken to calling all vulnerabilities backdoors on the (not insane) belief that manufacturers are out to get them, but there is a distinction. Backdoors are a special case of vulnerabilities inserted intentionally by an attacker into ostensibly secure designs to allow the attacker back in once the device has left his control. For example, if Apple configured iPhones to accept two PINs, one set by the user and the other set by Apple at manufacturing time, we could say the iPhone is backdoored. If some engineer went rouge and marked his own code signing key as trusted, that's a backdoor. When you say something is a backdoor, you assign blame for its actively malicious and undisclosed insertion. Either the organization is evil or someone subverted the organization, and this person must be caught and punished. Most vulnerabilities happen because their creators didn't know better, or found mitigation to be not worth the cost. Apple is a little bit extraordinary in considering "itself, under legal coercion" under its threat model at all. You might disguise a backdoor as an ordinary accidental vulnerability, and this is a reasonable assertion to throw around when someone who should have known better, whose peers were doing better chose an insecure design. i.e. Juniper switching their design to use known-broken cryptography. The signs here certainly point to a vulnerability that ought to be mitigated (and possibly has been under the Secure Element system), but not a deliberate flaw in iOS's design. Vulnerability, not backdoor.

zepto 11y ago

Are you supportive of the government's position in this? There is clearly a vulnerability on top of which a backdoor could be built. But equating the two seems to be interpreting things in favor of the government.

otterley 11y ago
Are you saying the Government has no legitimate interest in the contents of a suspect's or deceased's mobile phone?
- zepto 11y ago
  I believe that police forces have an interest in using whatever resources are legally available to them to pursue their inquiries, and as such, the FBI is acting according to its mission. My position is that the government as a whole - including the legislative, executive, and Supreme Court, have a duty to national security and civil liberties that would be severely compromised if the FBI prevails here. I agree with the ex director of the NSA, that strong encryption and secure devices are good for national security, and protect us against cyberterrorism, and that this is far more important than this individual case, and so the FBI should not be allowed to prevail.

WireWrap 11y ago

> The Federal government isn't asking Apple to create a backdoor. Their asking apple to use the backdoor that already exists. Basically. Unfortunately, most of the reporting is focused on the payload Apple is being asked to create and doesn't draw enough attention to that "existing backdoor" that will allow such a payload to be successfully installed. Eliminating that "existing backdoor" should be a priority. I see some, here, expressing the thought that Apple might be working on that. I think Apple needs to be pressed, hard, on that very subject.

chiph 11y ago
Is this the same key that Apple uses to publish updates to iOS?
icebraining 11y ago
Supposedly, the backdoor has already been fixed by the Secure Enclave, which was included in newer models of the iPhone.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Supposedly, and also supposedly the Secure Enclave doesn't defend against this, depending on who you ask and how they're speculating. I've yet to see anything authoritative on this from someone in a position to know for sure. The good news is that if you have a good password, not just a simple numeric passcode, you should be safe against this sort of thing regardless, unless the authorities can coerce or trick you into revealing your password.
GBond 11y ago
Apple is reframing it this way to the media but not technically untrue.

btreesOfSpring 11y ago

Tom Cross[0] in this tweet[1] was the first person I saw with the distinction in calling the FBI request an exploit rather than backdoor. This Vectra Networks blog post[2] explains this distinction in better technical detail. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cross_%28computer_security%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cross_%28computer_security... [1] https://twitter.com/_decius_/status/699932604737417216 https://twitter.com/_decius_/status/699932604737417216 [2] http://blog.vectranetworks.com/blog/apple-vs-the-fbi-some-points-to-consider http://blog.vectranetworks.com/blog/apple-vs-the-fbi-some-po...