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It's funny to me that Apple and the FBI coordinated to spin the whole iPhone decryption thing in the media after the San Bernardino shooting as Apple vs FBI (wh

by sneak 3y ago

It's funny to me that Apple and the FBI coordinated to spin the whole iPhone decryption thing in the media after the San Bernardino shooting as Apple vs FBI (while in reality the FBI had all the access to all the data they wanted, via iCloud, via an encryption backdoor that Apple explicitly preserved for them). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... Now Apple no doubt would love to do some RE on these devices to identify and patch any exploits they use, and many of the local PDs that can get Cellebrite to sell them these boxes probably will abide by these terms, having previously been convinced via Apple/FBI propaganda that Apple is opposed to cooperating with law enforcement. It's a little bit funny, but I think Apple security will win out in the long run as it only takes one instance of a leak for Apple to patch a vulnerability, and they do have a lot of money (and the cooperation of the FBI/DHS et al). The text of the training quoted in the article makes it seem that Cellebrite knows they are fighting an ultimately losing battle there, as information never becomes more secret over time, only less so.

kanbara 3y ago
except apple now has e2ee for iCloud, and apple still doesnt want others to get into their firmware and secure enclaves
- sneak 3y ago
  e2ee for iCloud is opt in (ie disabled by default) so approximately 0% of iCloud users use it. Until it's on by default for new iCloud accounts and previous non-e2ee iCloud accounts get automatically upgraded to use it, the fact that it is offered is basically irrelevant. Additionally if you are using it to protect your iMessages, it's ineffective, as your iMessages are stored on Apple servers twice: once for each end of the conversation. Unless both you and the other end of your conversation have both explicitly opted in to e2ee for iCloud, a single party enabling the setting does nothing for the security of iMessage, given that approximately nobody uses the feature today.
  - mr_toad 3y ago
    If you’re that paranoid, maybe don’t send super sensitive information using a chat application.
    - sneak 3y ago
      This has nothing to do with "paranoid", or with me personally. I don't use iMessage at all. I also didn't live in Nazi Germany under the SS and Gestapo but I can still recognize and identify that police surveillance over the private communications of all (or even a significant fraction of all) members of society silently and discreetly creates a world which sucks for everyone in it, as things like new political parties or new labor unions (or any other threat to the status quo) will be detected and defeated before they ever gain popular attention or critical mass. Did we already forget OWS and the tea party? How about MLK? Please stop using defined psychological disease terms to describe people who seek basic human rights to privacy from corporations and the state. It's disrespectful to both people who suffer from paranoid delusions as well as sane people who desire human rights.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  The fact that we have to call it "their firmware and secure enclaves" is a bit telling, though. The majority of consumer-facing devices today have a layer of inscrutability that we leave up to the manufacturer to implement properly. For instance, Microsoft has Bitlocker, but I couldn't confidently say that isn't backdoored either. Apple has whitepapers, but they're about as verifiable as LK-99 in-practice. Their security model entirely revolves around the Apple-issued root of trust, and if you can't trust them then you have to hit the bricks. If you don't own both ends, the end-to-end encryption shtick is a theatrical farce.
  - gochi 3y ago
    It can potentially be a theatrical farce, but you've only created hypothetical scenarios in your mind for why that might be the case. Even if you did "own both ends", you still have to rely on other parties to contribute the pieces that you don't watch over, unless you're going to be E2EE from scratch (again, because you can hypothetically just say "well what if the encryption scheme itself is backdoored").
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      Both of those conceits apply to Apple's scheme as well, though. Transparency enforces accountability, Apple themselves wouldn't be using things like OpenSSL and bash if they weren't open enough to scrutinize and modify.
  - kanbara 3y ago
    sure, all clouds are other people’s computers; laypeople just want things to work and don’t really care about whose root of trust they use. living in a world where you run everything yourself sounds good in practice but then you can’t communicate with anyone else. i’d like for the firmware to be open source and for the cloud to be federated, but it’s a pipe dream and i’m busy so i just gotta trust apple in the end
  - zirgs 3y ago
    If Bitlocker had a backdoor it would have leaked by now. I don't believe that they could keep an "alphabet boys only" backdoor secret for that long. How would that backdoor even look like? A some sort of master key that can decrypt every Bitlocker encrypted drive? Imagine if something like THAT got leaked. Who would have access to that key? Microsoft themselves? NSA? FBI? What about the UK, Australia or other US allies? Do their alphabet boys also get access to this? Do small town cops also get access? And I'm pretty sure lots of security researchers have tried to find vulnerabilities of Bitlocker. If there was something fishy going on - they would have noticed.
saagarjha 3y ago
Cellebrite keeps the good stuff on their premises. You send the phone to them and they crack it for you.
- bombcar 3y ago
  So all apple needs to do is enable a gps that destroys the Secure Enclave if it detects that it is on a cellebrite campus.
  - saagarjha 3y ago
    I’m sure Cellebrite never buys new real estate.
    - flangola7 3y ago
      You don't believe Apple would find out about them? They could know before the lease is signed.
      - saagarjha 3y ago
        Where would they put the code to do this? How would it function if Cellebrite put devices in a Faraday cage before transport?
        minitoar 3y ago
        Indeed you can’t rely on GPS. But…the absence of GPS for more than a few hours is pretty weird. An automatic reboot and maybe nuke could be appropriate for some users. I guess then the faraday cage also needs a fake gps signal to defeat this.
        flangola7 3y ago
        Apple also has their tracking network. Airtags + every Apple device
dcastonguay 3y ago
IIRC that's not how any of it went down. The authorities wanted access to the device itself and were asking for a "good guys only" backdoor into the device to obtain anything that might not have been in the iCloud backup; Apple refused to do this and that is where the controversy / news story came from. Apple was very open about the fact that law enforcement would have access to the iCloud backup, which is even mentioned in the article you provided. And there was no "backdoor explicitly preserved" for the FBI, the iCloud backup was just not e2ee. This was also (somewhat) common knowledge at the time and what was often suggested was to do backups through iTunes because there was still an option available to encrypt the backup.

by sneak 3y ago

kanbara 3y ago

except apple now has e2ee for iCloud, and apple still doesnt want others to get into their firmware and secure enclaves

sneak 3y ago
e2ee for iCloud is opt in (ie disabled by default) so approximately 0% of iCloud users use it. Until it's on by default for new iCloud accounts and previous non-e2ee iCloud accounts get automatically upgraded to use it, the fact that it is offered is basically irrelevant. Additionally if you are using it to protect your iMessages, it's ineffective, as your iMessages are stored on Apple servers twice: once for each end of the conversation. Unless both you and the other end of your conversation have both explicitly opted in to e2ee for iCloud, a single party enabling the setting does nothing for the security of iMessage, given that approximately nobody uses the feature today.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  If you’re that paranoid, maybe don’t send super sensitive information using a chat application.
  - sneak 3y ago
    This has nothing to do with "paranoid", or with me personally. I don't use iMessage at all. I also didn't live in Nazi Germany under the SS and Gestapo but I can still recognize and identify that police surveillance over the private communications of all (or even a significant fraction of all) members of society silently and discreetly creates a world which sucks for everyone in it, as things like new political parties or new labor unions (or any other threat to the status quo) will be detected and defeated before they ever gain popular attention or critical mass. Did we already forget OWS and the tea party? How about MLK? Please stop using defined psychological disease terms to describe people who seek basic human rights to privacy from corporations and the state. It's disrespectful to both people who suffer from paranoid delusions as well as sane people who desire human rights.
smoldesu 3y ago
The fact that we have to call it "their firmware and secure enclaves" is a bit telling, though. The majority of consumer-facing devices today have a layer of inscrutability that we leave up to the manufacturer to implement properly. For instance, Microsoft has Bitlocker, but I couldn't confidently say that isn't backdoored either. Apple has whitepapers, but they're about as verifiable as LK-99 in-practice. Their security model entirely revolves around the Apple-issued root of trust, and if you can't trust them then you have to hit the bricks. If you don't own both ends, the end-to-end encryption shtick is a theatrical farce.
- gochi 3y ago
  It can potentially be a theatrical farce, but you've only created hypothetical scenarios in your mind for why that might be the case. Even if you did "own both ends", you still have to rely on other parties to contribute the pieces that you don't watch over, unless you're going to be E2EE from scratch (again, because you can hypothetically just say "well what if the encryption scheme itself is backdoored").
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    Both of those conceits apply to Apple's scheme as well, though. Transparency enforces accountability, Apple themselves wouldn't be using things like OpenSSL and bash if they weren't open enough to scrutinize and modify.
- kanbara 3y ago
  sure, all clouds are other people’s computers; laypeople just want things to work and don’t really care about whose root of trust they use. living in a world where you run everything yourself sounds good in practice but then you can’t communicate with anyone else. i’d like for the firmware to be open source and for the cloud to be federated, but it’s a pipe dream and i’m busy so i just gotta trust apple in the end
- zirgs 3y ago
  If Bitlocker had a backdoor it would have leaked by now. I don't believe that they could keep an "alphabet boys only" backdoor secret for that long. How would that backdoor even look like? A some sort of master key that can decrypt every Bitlocker encrypted drive? Imagine if something like THAT got leaked. Who would have access to that key? Microsoft themselves? NSA? FBI? What about the UK, Australia or other US allies? Do their alphabet boys also get access to this? Do small town cops also get access? And I'm pretty sure lots of security researchers have tried to find vulnerabilities of Bitlocker. If there was something fishy going on - they would have noticed.

saagarjha 3y ago

Cellebrite keeps the good stuff on their premises. You send the phone to them and they crack it for you.

bombcar 3y ago
So all apple needs to do is enable a gps that destroys the Secure Enclave if it detects that it is on a cellebrite campus.
- saagarjha 3y ago
  I’m sure Cellebrite never buys new real estate.
  - flangola7 3y ago
    You don't believe Apple would find out about them? They could know before the lease is signed.
    - saagarjha 3y ago
      Where would they put the code to do this? How would it function if Cellebrite put devices in a Faraday cage before transport?
      - minitoar 3y ago
        Indeed you can’t rely on GPS. But…the absence of GPS for more than a few hours is pretty weird. An automatic reboot and maybe nuke could be appropriate for some users. I guess then the faraday cage also needs a fake gps signal to defeat this.
        flangola7 3y ago
        Apple also has their tracking network. Airtags + every Apple device

dcastonguay 3y ago

IIRC that's not how any of it went down. The authorities wanted access to the device itself and were asking for a "good guys only" backdoor into the device to obtain anything that might not have been in the iCloud backup; Apple refused to do this and that is where the controversy / news story came from. Apple was very open about the fact that law enforcement would have access to the iCloud backup, which is even mentioned in the article you provided. And there was no "backdoor explicitly preserved" for the FBI, the iCloud backup was just not e2ee. This was also (somewhat) common knowledge at the time and what was often suggested was to do backups through iTunes because there was still an option available to encrypt the backup.