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How law enforcement is trying to avoid disabling Face ID
- andyv 8y agoI'm reminded of the scene in "The Return of the King" where Gandalf wraps the palantir in a cloth because he's afraid Sauron might be on the other end. New step one when seizing an iphone: wrap it in something opaque...
- craftyguy 8y agoNew counter to step one: don't allow unlocking the device if no photons are hitting the camera.
- walrus01 8y agoSerious answer, small faraday cage bags with velcro+zippers are already sold to law enforcement who need to seize a powered-on phone.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoHow have network dead man switches not become popular? "If this phone has had no network access for 4 hours, power off" (assuming encrypted storage).
- Marsymars 8y agoYou wouldn't even need to power off, just require passcode. You'd also need to require passcode to enter airplane mode. Passcode requirements are pretty opaque though - as is, my Android and iOS devices ask for passcode (vs biometrics) randomly (from my perspective). Would be nice to have proper documentation of all the conditions that force passcode entry.
- BoorishBears 8y ago>You must enter your passcode or password for additional security validation: - after you restart your iPhone, iPad, or Mac; - when more than 48 hours have passed from the last time you unlocked your device; to add or delete a fingerprint to use with Touch ID; - to change the iPhone or iPad passcode or Mac system password, and for other security settings like FileVault on your Mac; - when there have been more than five unrecognized Touch ID authorization attempts in a row; - after you log out of your Mac. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587 Face ID has the same document: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108
- Marsymars 8y agoCool, thanks. Seems the Android heuristics for requiring passcode entry are fuzzier.
- donarb 8y agoOr maybe they can just place their thumb over the sensor.
- joering2 8y agoCorrect me if Im wrong but FaceID will not work when Im dead right? The underlining software detects temperature similar to thermal detector and thats the way it builds an image of your face no?
- k_sh 8y agoAs I understand it, you'd need to: - open the deceased's eyes - position the eyes so that Face ID thinks the eyes are "looking into" the iPhone - pump warm blood/liquid into the deceased's face in order to fool the infrared temperate monitoring Seems possible, but sounds like an awful lot of work unless you did something that law enforcement really wants to look into.
- sbr464 8y agoThe former user could of potentially enabled the iOS setting to not require attention for faceID. And from my spy movie expertise: Turn the heater in the room full blast to achieve the needed thermal level (The Saint, Sneakers)
- kakarot 8y agoThis discussion arises because we collectively wish for a completely secure (as in does not unlock unless you want it to) yet near-instant unlock mechanism. It's not that OP worries they might be doing something sketchy enough that law enforcement would go through those lengths. The issue is that Face ID's difficulty to crack is a function of time, not knowledge. Thus, it is not the holy grail we seek, and if you have anything of interest on your phone, whether political, corporate or just illegal, it's not even an option if you wish to secure your system.
- chrismeller 8y agoI’ll be honest, if I’m dead... you’re welcome to it all. I’m much more worried about a court compelling me, while alive, to provide my face or fingerprint. They can easily force biometrics out of me, but they’d have to torture a passcode out. Even if I have nothing to hide and/or give it up in the first five minutes at least that was my choice and not one made for me.
- 14 8y agoPerhaps the software is already advance enough that a user could use a more complex input into the facial recognition system. For example left eye closed. Or nose scrunched. A pout face. And so on. That way the odds of someone forcing the correct input in the limited allowed attempts greatly diminishes.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoI think maybe a mixture of facial and a pattern for things you specify would work wonders... Like you can unlock with just your face but not all apps should be available. To open apps not safe listed you need to put in a pattern / pin / vocal password based on your own voice or fingerprint or the inverse to open protected apps you need further authorization via other authentication approaches
- harshreality 8y agoApple just had another ios lock screen bypass (for accessing contacts). Do you really want to encourage them to make the app/data access state machine more complex?
- blueprint 8y agoThat's like saying they're capable of making an extremely complicated system work but not one that is only an epsilon slightly more complicated...
- dan-robertson 8y agoNo it’s like saying that they can nearly-just-about manage to keep things secure with two states but that they would fail to deal with the complexity of the number of states were increased 50%
- blueprint 8y agoOh yeah because the concept of abstraction breaks down where this specific feature begins…
- ams6110 8y agoAnother illustration that your face and/or your fingerprints are not passwords. You should disable all that and set a PIN of at least 6 digits.
- okket 8y agoIf you are famous or for other reasons often in the center of attention, this may not work well too. See a recent event with a popular musician.
- smartbit 8y agoAt least a password with alfa numercial characters according to https://www.tomsguide.com/us/ios11-iphone-lockscreen-woes,news-26211.html https://www.tomsguide.com/us/ios11-iphone-lockscreen-woes,ne...
- Aloisius 8y agoOr just flip on the wipe if 10 wrong passcodes are entered feature. I'm a little surprised that was mentioned in the article.
- jplayer01 8y agoAs a largely security-conscious person, I'd love to, but there's a non-zero chance I'll lose all my data since my last backup by being triggered accidentally in my pants pocket.
- caseysoftware 8y agoTouch ID is no better. There was recently a story of a married couple flying. The wife thought the husband was cheating, so after he fell asleep, she unlocked his phone right there and read everything. She didn't handle the news well.
- ddebernardy 8y agoDoesn't FaceID require you to actively watch the phone? That would seem a few notches above what you described... Either way if you're paranoid about security you should use a passcode on top to boot.
- philjohn 8y agoIt does. Eyes closed, or even eyes looking away, and it just doesn't unlock in my experience. The best advice if you think you're about to be stopped and have a digital device confiscated is to shut it down, requiring a passcode to open.
- voidmain 8y agoI think the future defense against this sort of thing is more situational awareness on the part of the phone. You won't just have to fool the biometrics, you'll have to do so without making the phone suspicious at any point. My guess is that phones already have enough sensory data to pretty reliably distinguish everyday usage from being stolen or confiscated, and it's "just" a matter of fitting a model. Nor does the phone have to ignore what happens to it after it's unlocked. No one tries this sort of thing on people or animals, and it's because they don't shut their perceptions off at all times except for a half second when they are authenticating someone.
- dogma1138 8y agoI wonder when the app that wipes your phone if the GPS shows it to be at a police station or an evidence lockup will come out and what are the repercussions of having such an app will be.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoThere was the guy who sold the "secure" phone (it was targeted at drug dealers and cartel members). He would remote wipe them if they were in police custody. He's now going to jail. Courts take an extremely dim view of the willful destruction of evidence.
- dogma1138 8y agoThat’s a bit different if he actively wipped them once he knew they were in police custody that is tampering with evidence. However a self destruct mechanism that is either on a rolling timer or event driven for which you don’t need to take an action to initiate it but must take an action to stop it could be a legal loophole but it sure won’t look good in court.
- cdubzzz 8y ago> Apple makes it very easy to quickly disable Face ID [...] simply press and hold the side button and either power button for several seconds. It would be nice if it were even easier. E.g a triple click of the power button — something that you could do with one hand in your pocket in less than a second.
- arkadiyt 8y agoThat's what it used to be (5 power clicks) before the iPhone X/XS - shame that they changed it.
- kkielhofner 8y agoIt's still five on my iPhone X. It defaults to going into some sort of emergency alarm with a blaring horn but that can be disabled in settings.
- Operyl 8y agoNot changed, still works on my Xs
- ryanmonroe 8y agoI don't think it's actually any more effort than a triple-click. "Several seconds" actually means 2 seconds, so you can basically grab your phone and squeeze for two seconds to disable Face ID. It's probably less obvious than a triple-click too, because there's no repeated clicking noise. Whether you're attempting to triple-click or hold volume + power you'll need a good grip either way, and you may be able to triple click in one second vs. a two-second hold, but I think the probability a literal second would make a difference is pretty low.
- quickthrower2 8y agoMaybe it can be disabled when Siri hears you being read your rights. That way you won't appear to be "reaching for something"
- Operyl 8y ago5 power button pushes on iOS still works.
- subhro 8y agoAsk your phone: Hey Siri, whose phone is this? That disables biometrics at least on iPhone 7
- ryanmonroe 8y agoJust tried on iPhone X. It didn't disable FaceID.
- Operyl 8y agoContrary, from the lock screen it disabled biometrics. Your phone must be locked already.
- village-idiot 8y agoDoesn’t work on my iPhone 7+.
- function_seven 8y agoWow. Just tried this on my 6S (iOS 11). When asked from the lock screen, I was required to enter my passcode to unlock afterward.
- jeffhiggins 8y agoHold the lock button and one of the volume buttons for 3 seconds. This disables biometrics, and gives on-screen swipe options for MedicalID and Emergency SOS. Pressing the lock button 5 times also disables biometrics, begins a 3-second countdown to auto-call your Emergency SOS contacts and 911. One nice touch is that the language used to let you know Touch/FaceID are disabled doesn’t rat you out to the cops (just says that Touch/FaceID doesn’t recognize you, not that you intentionally disabled it). If these don’t work for you, there are options under Settings, Emergency SOS.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- badwolf 8y agoJust did this with my XS. It immediately disabled face unlock and required password. Neat.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y agoHonestly, despite the shortcut, you should not be using FaceID if you're worried about your phone being unlocked while you're under duress.
- tolmasky 8y agoI find it very strange that Apple is held as a champion of privacy while simultaneously creating a culture of incredibly poor passwords. Perhaps the problem is that there are “two” privacies - the everyday protections against, say, Facebook, and the more traditional worry of a journalist in a hostile country. Either way, I think we need to be taking this more seriously - most international borders require you now to take a picture. But forget countries, Disneyland now takes your picture by having an employee point an iPhone at you, a device equipped theoretically with the same technologies to reproduce whatever face data is necessary to get into your phone. To me, the “triumph” of FaceID and TouchID is analogous to Apple having “solved” the password problem by just auto-selecting “123” for everyone. Part of the responsibility of privacy protection is in the culture you build and how you implicitly educate your user through your designs. Apple bends over backwards telling everyone how crazy secure FaceID is, while potentially setting them up to have their data entered into incredibly easily when dealing with the most dangerous adversaries. There was a great opportunity here to make a great feature that also educated the user: FaceID could have for example been an Apple Wallet feature. Credit Cards are a system built to expect fraud. They are expected to be stolen, and that’s why they build in a system to reverse charges. Telling a user that an Apple Pay charge can be quick and painless with FaceID (and avoid a full phone unlock) since the danger is not permanent would have still been more convenient than before. At the same time, by requiring the user to type a full password to access their data, the user would implicitly be taught that data theft is for some reason more dangerous, and thus begin to build the same intuitions computer-literate users have. In fact, if all the user did was use FaceID for their credit cards and no password for their photos, it would account for most of “normal” people’s security concerns, without also inadvertently confusing the security conversation where activists may not know the proper way to secure their data.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- anon7429 8y agoRe rubberhose security: Face ID and Touch ID were both major security blunders by Apple because these enable security services and criminals to compel anyone to unlock their devices and incriminate/rob themselves. Only what someone knows, rather than what someone has, cannot be chopped off, presented or forcibly-applied to unlock a device... revealing information under duress is a choice, having a fingerprint taken to unlock a device is not a choice.
- yellow_postit 8y agoApple isn’t a security focused company though, its a consumer goods company where ease of use trumps most other things. With that in mind, biometric posing as security is great for their bottom line. Security or privacy is sometimes a nice byproduct of how they want to market devices.
- quickthrower2 8y agoYes good to have options. Be beaten up or reveal passcode.