4 ms·

In the US, these are three distinctly different things: 1. A person's "papers," memories and life details typically lives as data on their personal smartphones

In the US, these are three distinctly different things: 1. A person's "papers," memories and life details typically lives as data on their personal smartphones and other devices. Currently, a phone/laptop seems to be treated as pocket lint and other personal property, so a warrant is typically not needed to access contents, i.e., airport enhanced security screening, traffic stop, etc. 2. Important papers may reside in a home in a safe or filing cabinet. A warrant or probable cause is needed to search a home. 3. A search warrant is not needed to search a vehicle, only probable cause. All kinds of road vehicles including van conversions and RVs are considered vehicles, not homes, even for the folks whom dwell in them, and so there is currently little protection. The fourth amendment needs an amendment to explicitly include one's personal electronic devices, hosted servers and cloud data in order to be congruent with the spirit of the law, because LEAs clearly do not respect sensible boundaries. Furthermore, the Apple refusal is mostly a protest stance but moot considering the offensive LE tools industry jumps with glee at every opportunity to provide solutions... if the 10x-wipe retries counter is unencrypted, it will be broken by third-parties. (I hope this is not the case, and that it is an encrypted token of some sort)

taneq 11y ago
This badly needs to change, now that your "pocket lint" can store more data than an entire house full of filing cabinets.
Laaw 11y ago
There's nothing that makes the digital data on a phone any different or more private than the physical data in a filing cabinet in a home or office, both which require the same level of judicial oversight to obtain (your first point is factually incorrect with regard to this case, as the FBI does have a warrant to search this phone).
mcv 11y ago
> if the 10x-wipe retries counter is unencrypted, it will be broken by third-parties It can't be encrypted with the same key as the rest of the harddisk, or it wouldn't be possible to increase it on a failed decryption attempt. But even if it is, you can always restore a previous state from backup. To be honest, I still don't understand who the FBI can't brute force it (other than the time it would take), and how Apple's assistance could possibly help, if the encryption was done well.

taneq 11y ago

This badly needs to change, now that your "pocket lint" can store more data than an entire house full of filing cabinets.

Laaw 11y ago

There's nothing that makes the digital data on a phone any different or more private than the physical data in a filing cabinet in a home or office, both which require the same level of judicial oversight to obtain (your first point is factually incorrect with regard to this case, as the FBI does have a warrant to search this phone).

mcv 11y ago

> if the 10x-wipe retries counter is unencrypted, it will be broken by third-parties It can't be encrypted with the same key as the rest of the harddisk, or it wouldn't be possible to increase it on a failed decryption attempt. But even if it is, you can always restore a previous state from backup. To be honest, I still don't understand who the FBI can't brute force it (other than the time it would take), and how Apple's assistance could possibly help, if the encryption was done well.