5 ms·

I suspect that Apple sent them the iCloud backup contents, not the iPhone contents, and that this article reports this story poorly.

kovrik 8y ago
So iCloud Backup is not encrypted then?
- travbrack 8y ago
  If it is, Apple has the key.
  - shawnz 8y ago
    They seem to imply otherwise on this page: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202303 EDIT: On a second reading it looks like there's a difference between the "on server" encrypted data and the "end to end" encrypted data. Backups are covered under the former but not the latter. Shame.
    - rickycook 8y ago
      ...or the article is misleading
      - shawnz 8y ago
        I agree. I am just trying to provide evidence of Apple being misleading about this issue.
        pvg 8y ago
        It doesn't seem misleading at all, though. The entire support article is about what kind of data they can and cannot access.
        dmix 8y ago
        It's hard to communicate this stuff TBH The fact people don't appreciate what Snowden leaked and infosec in general is as much a result of that as it is negligence or humans being 'bad'.
- Crontab 8y ago
  IIRC, only iCloud Keychain is encrypted in such a way that Apple's can't access it.
  - eugeniub 8y ago
    There are a few more things end-to-end encrypted these days: Health app data, payment information, etc (see https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202303). However, I am really curious about whether or not using iCloud Backup negates these protections. For iMessages, Apple specifically says that it does: "If you have iCloud Backup turned on, your backup includes a copy of the key protecting your Messages." In other words, if you use iCloud Backup, Apple specifically holds a key allowing them to decrypt your messages in your iCloud backup.
  - auslander 8y ago
    100% correct. iCloud data is recoverable by apple without passcode, except keychain and phone backups, if i'm not mistaken.
- mygo 8y ago
  it’s encrypted but they have the keys. you can access iCloud data via web, so they definitely have the capabilities to decrypt it before sending it to your browser.
  - kovrik 8y ago
    'Encrypted, but _they_ have the keys' means 'not encrypted'
    - chasontherobot 8y ago
      Does the fact that my landlord has a copy of my front door key mean that my locked door is "not locked"?
      - glibgil 8y ago
        > Does the fact that my landlord has a copy of my front door key mean that my locked door is "not locked"? Yes, you can never be sure that your landlord has not let other people into your house. Your landlord could let the police into your house
        vageli 8y ago
        What is your definition of "locked", then?
        glibgil 8y ago
        > What is your definition of "locked", then? "Did you lock the house?" "Yes" "Good because I left secrets on the kitchen table" "Oh, the landlord has a key. But it's locked" "Um, ok. It's sort of locked. It's locked, but other people can get in. All I really care about is my secrets so I guess I'll just go back and get them and find someplace else to leave them that's more 'locked'"
        jplayer01 8y ago
amaccuish 8y ago
I hope they start encrypting them properly at some point, on device, key derived from Apple ID password etc.
- Osyris 8y ago
  Would that work? I'm not an iPhone user but I thought a big part of iCloud backups were for restoring a backup onto a new device.
  - eugeniub 8y ago
    I think they could pull it off in a way that would result in few inaccessible backups. The decryption keys could be stored on your iCloud Keychain, so if you lose one iOS device, the backup can be decrypted with another iOS device you own. And maybe the encryption key could itself be derived from your device's passcode in some asymmetric way.
- dannyw 8y ago
  They can’t because it’s obvious they have a secret FISA order preventing them to. The recent iMessages in the Cloud shows this: messages are end to end encrypted in iCloud using a separate, unique key that is only stored on your devices... and this key is uploaded to your iCloud account if you have backup enabled. No choice. This is after the original version, got pulled from the beta suddenly with no reason and no widely reported bugs. The design of this irrational system only makes sense when a 3 letter agency saw it, and got FISA to compel Apple to key escrow.
  - macspoofing 8y ago
    You don't actually have any proof for anything you just wrote ... and you're making very specific assertions with full confidence.
  - pvg 8y ago
    it’s obvious they have a secret FISA order preventing them to. How is that obvious? And how a court do this? What would be the legal basis?
thinkling 8y ago
Law enforcement officials could, until recent iOS updates, unlock iPhones by brute-forcing passcodes with a device attached to the Lightning port. The phone was likely not updated to the latest iOS builds. So wouldn't Apple be able to do the same?
- eli 8y ago
  The implication is that the police device uses a flaw unknown to Apple (lest they fix it). It is not normally supposed to be possible to brute force passcodes like that.
- cc-d 8y ago
  What measures are in place to prevent the FBI from imaging a phone, and then brute forcing every possible pin combination? Would these measures be able to stand up against a team of reverse engineers, with near unlimited resources, which I assume the FBI would be able to find for the task? Other avenues of gaining potentially useful data will be utilized as well. Does the FBI have access to data stored on Apple's cloud servers? What about the fingerprints of the suspect, or other methods of bioidentification?
  - thisacctforreal 8y ago
    The pin code gets entagled with a unique per-device key Apple calls the UID, the combination is what encrypts the data on-device. Only the Secure Enclave has access to the UID, but only through silicon, it can't read the key bytes. The Cellebrite rigs do use the Secure Enclave to brute force, but they're acheiving roughly 1s/guess, and the theoretical fastest is 80ms because the Secure Enclave uses PBKDF2 iterations tuned for that time. If you have a long numeric passcode or an alphanumeric passphrase you can be confident your iPhone is secure when it's off.
  - eugeniub 8y ago
    As thisacctforreal mentioned, both the PIN and the device UID are used to generate the actual encryption key. Even if someone were to get access to the UID, the amount of processing to generate an encryption key for each PIN possibility would be costly, so it may be the case that simply bruteforcing would take prohibitively long. I know that on an iOS device itself, if passcode attempt limits didn't exist, it takes a whole 90 milliseconds to check each passcode. That's only 10 passcode attempts a second, and if the passcode is sufficiently long, it could take years.

kovrik 8y ago

So iCloud Backup is not encrypted then?

travbrack 8y ago
If it is, Apple has the key.
- shawnz 8y ago
  They seem to imply otherwise on this page: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202303 EDIT: On a second reading it looks like there's a difference between the "on server" encrypted data and the "end to end" encrypted data. Backups are covered under the former but not the latter. Shame.
  - rickycook 8y ago
    ...or the article is misleading
    - shawnz 8y ago
      I agree. I am just trying to provide evidence of Apple being misleading about this issue.
      - pvg 8y ago
        It doesn't seem misleading at all, though. The entire support article is about what kind of data they can and cannot access.
        dmix 8y ago
        It's hard to communicate this stuff TBH The fact people don't appreciate what Snowden leaked and infosec in general is as much a result of that as it is negligence or humans being 'bad'.
Crontab 8y ago
IIRC, only iCloud Keychain is encrypted in such a way that Apple's can't access it.
- eugeniub 8y ago
  There are a few more things end-to-end encrypted these days: Health app data, payment information, etc (see https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202303). However, I am really curious about whether or not using iCloud Backup negates these protections. For iMessages, Apple specifically says that it does: "If you have iCloud Backup turned on, your backup includes a copy of the key protecting your Messages." In other words, if you use iCloud Backup, Apple specifically holds a key allowing them to decrypt your messages in your iCloud backup.
- auslander 8y ago
  100% correct. iCloud data is recoverable by apple without passcode, except keychain and phone backups, if i'm not mistaken.
mygo 8y ago
it’s encrypted but they have the keys. you can access iCloud data via web, so they definitely have the capabilities to decrypt it before sending it to your browser.
- kovrik 8y ago
  'Encrypted, but _they_ have the keys' means 'not encrypted'
  - chasontherobot 8y ago
    Does the fact that my landlord has a copy of my front door key mean that my locked door is "not locked"?
    - glibgil 8y ago
      > Does the fact that my landlord has a copy of my front door key mean that my locked door is "not locked"? Yes, you can never be sure that your landlord has not let other people into your house. Your landlord could let the police into your house
      - vageli 8y ago
        What is your definition of "locked", then?
        glibgil 8y ago
        > What is your definition of "locked", then? "Did you lock the house?" "Yes" "Good because I left secrets on the kitchen table" "Oh, the landlord has a key. But it's locked" "Um, ok. It's sort of locked. It's locked, but other people can get in. All I really care about is my secrets so I guess I'll just go back and get them and find someplace else to leave them that's more 'locked'"
        jplayer01 8y ago

amaccuish 8y ago

I hope they start encrypting them properly at some point, on device, key derived from Apple ID password etc.

Osyris 8y ago
Would that work? I'm not an iPhone user but I thought a big part of iCloud backups were for restoring a backup onto a new device.
- eugeniub 8y ago
  I think they could pull it off in a way that would result in few inaccessible backups. The decryption keys could be stored on your iCloud Keychain, so if you lose one iOS device, the backup can be decrypted with another iOS device you own. And maybe the encryption key could itself be derived from your device's passcode in some asymmetric way.
dannyw 8y ago
They can’t because it’s obvious they have a secret FISA order preventing them to. The recent iMessages in the Cloud shows this: messages are end to end encrypted in iCloud using a separate, unique key that is only stored on your devices... and this key is uploaded to your iCloud account if you have backup enabled. No choice. This is after the original version, got pulled from the beta suddenly with no reason and no widely reported bugs. The design of this irrational system only makes sense when a 3 letter agency saw it, and got FISA to compel Apple to key escrow.
- macspoofing 8y ago
  You don't actually have any proof for anything you just wrote ... and you're making very specific assertions with full confidence.
- pvg 8y ago
  it’s obvious they have a secret FISA order preventing them to. How is that obvious? And how a court do this? What would be the legal basis?

thinkling 8y ago

Law enforcement officials could, until recent iOS updates, unlock iPhones by brute-forcing passcodes with a device attached to the Lightning port. The phone was likely not updated to the latest iOS builds. So wouldn't Apple be able to do the same?

eli 8y ago
The implication is that the police device uses a flaw unknown to Apple (lest they fix it). It is not normally supposed to be possible to brute force passcodes like that.
cc-d 8y ago
What measures are in place to prevent the FBI from imaging a phone, and then brute forcing every possible pin combination? Would these measures be able to stand up against a team of reverse engineers, with near unlimited resources, which I assume the FBI would be able to find for the task? Other avenues of gaining potentially useful data will be utilized as well. Does the FBI have access to data stored on Apple's cloud servers? What about the fingerprints of the suspect, or other methods of bioidentification?
- thisacctforreal 8y ago
  The pin code gets entagled with a unique per-device key Apple calls the UID, the combination is what encrypts the data on-device. Only the Secure Enclave has access to the UID, but only through silicon, it can't read the key bytes. The Cellebrite rigs do use the Secure Enclave to brute force, but they're acheiving roughly 1s/guess, and the theoretical fastest is 80ms because the Secure Enclave uses PBKDF2 iterations tuned for that time. If you have a long numeric passcode or an alphanumeric passphrase you can be confident your iPhone is secure when it's off.
- eugeniub 8y ago
  As thisacctforreal mentioned, both the PIN and the device UID are used to generate the actual encryption key. Even if someone were to get access to the UID, the amount of processing to generate an encryption key for each PIN possibility would be costly, so it may be the case that simply bruteforcing would take prohibitively long. I know that on an iOS device itself, if passcode attempt limits didn't exist, it takes a whole 90 milliseconds to check each passcode. That's only 10 passcode attempts a second, and if the passcode is sufficiently long, it could take years.