9 ms·

Apple’s Commitment to Customer Privacy

148 points by nier 13y ago

esolyt 13y ago
I was really hoping not to see the phrase "direct access" this time.
- pilif 13y ago
  But we get another statement that iMessages is end-to-end encrypted. Apple continues to state that, but there's also some evidence to the contrary. Like newly authorized devices being able to somehow retrieve the chat history. Someone more capable than I should really investigate iMessages.
  - r3m6 13y ago
    "Apple can not decrypt it" - does it mean somebody else can? Or is it encrypted at a level that is virtually unencryptable with today's technology?
    - ParkerK 13y ago
      It means Apple doesn't have access to the encryption keys, as it's done peer to peer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Protocol
    - natch 13y ago
      It could mean somebody else can, because of key escrow and partial key escrow. Even if the key is generated on the device and stays on the device, you have to look at how the key is generated. With key escrow, the messages can be secure against attacks by everyone except those who have the escrowed portion of the key.
      - szc 13y ago
        And to do that you must also transmit the escrowed part of the key in the protocol -- which is 100% detectable as a blob of "extra but seemingly unnecessary data". Do you see that? Does anybody see that? Has anybody seen that?
  - quaunaut 13y ago
    Why is that so suspect? That's just TNO-style encryption- as in, you encrypt it going up, and download the encrypted chat history, before decrypting it using your login information. Now, if they're sending it back to you as plaintext? Sure okay, that's reason to be concerned. But simply getting back your chat history isn't any reason to doubt the end-to-end encryption.
    - comex 13y ago
      I think that chat history is actually only retrieved when you restore from an iCloud backup (which backs up everything on the phone, and can be disabled), not when a new device signs in.
      - nudded 13y ago
        I can confirm this, as I just did a clean install and set it up as a new iPhone.
  - ParkerK 13y ago
    >Like newly authorized devices being able to somehow retrieve the chat history. That's like saying it's suspicious that I can make an encrypted backup of my laptop, and then "magically" get that data unencypted on my new laptop. There's nothing weird about being to access your own data, even on a different device.
evadne 13y ago
> For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. I don’t know, then, why when I do an iCloud restore on a brand new device, all existing messages are recovered. Is this a way to recover all past messages that’s not really addressed, if I can still recover all historical messages after replacing all devices connected to an iCloud account at once? Cursory links: http://security.blogoverflow.com/2012/09/qotw-34-imessage-what-security-features-are-present/ http://security.blogoverflow.com/2012/09/qotw-34-imessage-wh... https://github.com/meeee/pushproxy https://github.com/meeee/pushproxy http://imfreedom.org/wiki/IMessage http://imfreedom.org/wiki/IMessage
- atirip 13y ago
  Hmm, if they are encrypted with your password and Apple does only store hash of that password for login and encrupted messages then everything is ok? I assume that when you change your iCloud password, the old messages are not visible anymore. Anybody to verify that?
  - __alexs 13y ago
    Given that you send your password in platin text to Apple whenever you login this does not seem like a particularly interception resistant protocol. Apple just need to wait until you login again and then send the encrypted data, and your password to the intelligence services?
    - morgante 13y ago
      Do we know that they send your password in plain text?
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        For all intents and purposes, they must, at least when you login via a web browser.
djf1 13y ago
"The most common form of request comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide." Such a broad range of things included in 'the most common form of request' really reduces the power of the statement.
- gkoberger 13y ago
  On the contrary, I think the point is that they're all relatively mundane compared to "uncovering terrorist plots!", which has been the alleged motivating factor behind this whole situation.
mr_spothawk 13y ago
"We don't offer backdoor access for our hardware either." whew... so glad to see that in there :)
- brisance 13y ago
  "You'll have to find it yourself or get a court order." :)
quaunaut 13y ago
Okay, a few things I'm just plainly getting pissed off about every time I see these threads. * Bitching about the words "direct access": Guess what, these are words, they have a meaning. They're saying that the government can't view the database directly, they can't determine what they get to see, and they don't get to pull it up whenever the fuck they feel like it. And guess what? That means something. I swear, everyone obsessing over the words "direct access" goes on record as one of the most idiotic things a lot of really smart people get obsessed about. * Most of these companies are effectively saying they're agreeing to subpoenas, with the one difference being that NSA warrants can't be reported by the companies involved. This is still infinitely more tame than the previous claims that the Guardian has been walking back this last week(let alone the entirely ridiculous argument Snowden put out there saying they can 'watch your thoughts form as you type', which gets even more funny when you consider the only service listed that transmits your typed data is GMail). * There is a lot to be concerned about here- no mistake about it. But right now, there's a lot more holes in Snowden & Co's story than the opposite. It's still troubling, the attitude taken by some of those at the highest echelons of government, on the whole subject- but the accusers have a lot of explaining to do, if you've been paying attention.
- stiff 13y ago
  Ad. 1 I think you are missing the point - "not providing direct access" is a bit like Bill Clinton saying he did not have sex with Monica Levinsky, if some company sends some institution a complete database dump of all customer personal data it is not "direct access to the servers" but it is just as bad in terms of privacy implications, so the phrase means nothing in the end.
  - comex 13y ago
    To be clear, while I'm not disagreeing with you about the meaning of "direct access", in this case, the rest of the statement clearly states that Apple is not doing that: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities."
Sealy 13y ago
I read that as. "The US government told us to say this (in order to reassure our customers...)"
- speeq 13y ago
  Me too. Every statement I've read from various companies seem to be the same.
nwh 13y ago
> For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. I don't see how this can possibly be true. I can sign into iMessage on my MacBook, and then into the same account on my iPhone and see the same messages. The only shared secret between the devices is my password, which means that the private keys must be derived directly from them. As Apple sees my password in plaintext fairly regularly, this is almost next to useless in situation where they are forced to reveal private messages by a government. Given that the client still can't even keep messages in chronological order (even after the update), I severely doubt their encryption is implemented correctly either.
- danielsju6 13y ago
  Actually the devices share a key bag, the popup notifying you when other devices are using your iMessage information comes up during this exchange. The fact that the messages don't immediately show up on other devices and can be out of order speaks to this P2P cryptographic style. You can search for analysis of their protocol, I've done some dissection and it's pretty solid.
  - smackfu 13y ago
    How does this address the concern though? Since a user only needs a password to access past sent messages, the security is only as strong as that password... and Apple can pretty easily circumvent any password related security since they are the ones verifying it.
    - danielsju6 13y ago
      True, you only need your password to issue a new key set to the keybag; you can actually monitor the protocol for devices that are distributed your decryption keys (including Apple if they were spying) and you get a popup on each device alerting you to this. It is possible Apple could create a back door for them to issue a certificate set to your keybag without your permission but that would be a can of worms for them, I'm actually comforted by the fact that they'd much prefer to keep end-to-end encryption for their own liability.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
doctorpangloss 13y ago
Apple's statement about iMessage security is inaccurate. Apple signs your device's certificate used for secure iMessage communications. Apple can always generate a new certificate for you and provide access to its root keys to impersonate you and read subsequent messages. While it has forward secrecy, iMessage, and indeed no PKI encryption system, is secure from a rogue root authority.
- szc 13y ago
  I think you misunderstand asymmetric encryption. you have also confused the two uses of asymmetric encryption; (a) to prove identity -- a digital signature (b) to provide confidentiality -- encryption If the secret part of an asymmetric key is generated on a device and it lives and dies on that device, Apple doesn't have it -- the device does. Messages encrypted using the public part of that key can only be decrypted with a device that has the key. Your augment regarding PKI encryption systems is flawed. You don't need or care about a "root authority" to provide confidentiality. If your assertion is/was true, how can or does PGP work? (Hint: signing only affects identification and authenticity of a message)
  - defap 13y ago
    If the secret part of an asymmetric key is generated on a device and it lives and dies on that device, Apple doesn't have it -- the device does. Messages encrypted using the public part of that key can only be decrypted with a device that has the key. But he wasn't describing a technique for decoding messages that have already been sent. He's only claiming an attack on future messages. With control of the CA, the attacker can just advertise a bogus public key for the victim in the key server, giving him access to future messages. He can now intercept and relay.
    - cclogg 13y ago
      On the theme of iMessage, do you guys recommend using it over regular SMS? Are there pros/cons as far as privacy go? (genuinely wondering)
    - 13y ago
geuis 13y ago
All of your friends say to you, "Your girlfriend is cheating on you." Some of your friends you trust very deeply. Some only moderately so. But you love your girlfriend. You think about some inconsistencies in her behavior in the last few months which makes you suspicious. But on the other hand, her explanations make sense and have supporting evidence of their own. Do you choose to believe a group of your friends, or your significant other? We all guess how this story plays out, as it often has before. The friends are right. Some of the friends don't even know each other, so its confirmation from different points of origin. The girlfriend does something stupid and gets caught in her lie. You feel stupid for believing her, break up, move on with life, etc. But what about the cases where the opposite is true. It turns out that several of your friends actually have a few friends in common that they don't know about. One of them starts a rumor that gets slight confirmation by a couple of random events: The girlfriend is seen talking to a guy from college she was friends with. She is overheard on the subway late at night in a heated argument with someone about her boyfriend. Stuff like that. The same stories build up and mutual association of close friends tell you that she's up to no good. You choose to confront her, and in either situation you believe her explanations or you think she is lying, when in fact she is telling you the truth. I know this is an odd allegory. I think that what I'm trying to say is that we are now at a point where reasonable people will start making choices such as either "The government is watching everything I say online" or "The government is only doing routine requests for mostly good causes". People who are more conspiracy minded, myself included, start choosing the "watching everything I say" argument, while other folks take the "mostly good causes" approach. We've now seen at least 5-6 of these public announcements from companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google that more or less are saying the same thing. They respond to legitimate government requests but push back against seemingly illegitimate ones. And on top of that, the requests are small in number in the 10-20k range. We can either say that a) the NSA/FBI are only doing moderate numbers of requests and not wholesale collecting and monitoring us like 1984 on steroids, or that b) they're collecting more information about us than they care to let on and all of our worst 1984-esque fears are coming to pass. To any readers of this that read anything else I write, I'll say this: I lean towards the latter. I am an admitted layman (don't ask me to do advanced math), but I try to stay informed about the directions that technology is leading us and its effects on society. I'm what you might loosely call a "Singulitarian" in that I feel justified in stating the transformative effects of technology over the next 20-100 years will be far different than anything we've ever experienced before. We're already in the low end of the hockey stick. I see that right now, including the last few years and a few years into the future, we are living in the 1984 Orwellian state. A little bit gentler and a lot shinier, but basically 1984. But this won't last. Right now the NSA is building a massive data center in Utah, http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56461026-90/nsa-data-utah-center.html.csp http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56461026-90/nsa-data-u.... That gives them the ability to capture and store more data than there are stars in the sky. But this is only temporary. As with all technology, this eventually will scale out to be accessible to all of us. What is 1984 like when its 2084 but the State is everyone you know and possibly everyone in the world? So it summarizes like this (note my distaste for TLDR): Many large companies are spouting the same line right now. We only cooperate with legal government requests, and there aren't that many requests. This has been going on for two weeks and like all humans, we're getting burned out. Most of us will decide one way or another that the government is spying on us and move on. We'll either not care of be slightly more cautious of what we say/do online. Not that it will help. Either way, your next paycheck is coming, rent is due, oh a bachelor party!, look at the shiny Google/Apple thing! I don't claim to have an answer. I'm not going to change much of what I do online. I'm not a violent revolutionary, though I'm beginning to think its time for US Govt 2.0 through more peaceful means. Anyway, if you made it to the end of this congratulations. If you're in SF, buy me a beer and I'll continue at length.
beloch 13y ago
Apple, Jobs especially, has historically been somewhat cozy with Washington. For the sake of argument, let's say that, hypothetically, Apple is doing work for the NSA beyond what they've admitted to. 1. Apple is a famously compartmentalized and secretive organization. If Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. could keep what they were doing a secret until the whistle was blown on them, Apple can too. 2. So far, the whistle has not been specifically blown on Apple. 3. The worse it is, the less likely Snowden had access to it. 4. An admission of guilt would shake trust in Apple as badly as being exposed by a whistle blower, so there's no motivation to do the former in order to prevent the latter. If Apple's gotten their hands dirty, they're not going to admit to it. I'm not accusing Apple of anything. I'm just pointing out that this press release is utterly and totally meaningless unless you trust the NSA and people working with them not to lie to you. I may sound paranoid but, in a country where the government has given itself the power to coerce companies into spying and legally prevent them or their employees from revealing the truth, there is no room for trust. It is not possible to trust the statements of any U.S. corporation as long as the U.S. government clings to this power. Obama may be trying to sell the U.S. public on the idea that the safety gained is worth the privacy lost, but the real issue is the death of trust.
- lukifer 13y ago
  I think it's a lot more likely that these companies are compromised from the bottom rather than from the top: moles who have spent years deep undercover as network admins at relevant data centers, either quietly installing backdoors, or physically walking data out the door.
- amirmc 13y ago
  "For the sake of argument, let's say that, hypothetically, Apple is doing work for the NSA beyond what they've admitted to." If this were the case, why bother with end-to-end encryption in iMessage and Facetime (both fairly recent products)? It's not as though Apple trumpeted this aspect when they announced the products even though it's extra engineering effort. I'm not sure that even BBM is properly end-to-end encrypted outside of a corporate environment.
- rdouble 13y ago
natch 13y ago
"Apple cannot decrypt that data" Right. No doubt true. But there is a catch... and this is a big catch. Even if the key generated on a device lives and dies on a device, it can still be an insecure key if it is generated by an insecure process like concatenating a well-generated but short (low number of bits) key with an escrowed, possibly public-key encrypted, "LEA" (law enforcement access) key.
- szc 13y ago
  Skipjack is dead, extinct. If this were true, it would be possible to find it by disassembling iOS. There would also be a suspicious "unexplained" payload that accompanied anything that was encrypted with a symmetric key.
  - acqq 13y ago
    Interestingly enough, famous "_NSAKEY" was found only after Microsoft forgot to remove the symbolic debug info of the internal code of the DLLs: http://web.archive.org/web/20000617163417/http://www.cryptonym.com/hottopics/msft-nsa/msft-nsa.html http://web.archive.org/web/20000617163417/http://www.crypton... I believe the second key remained to exist, only as "KEY2"
eightyone 13y ago
Why are these companies only publishing requests from the last six months? That seems like a rather short time span.
- throwaway10001 13y ago
  Simple, because if they published for a year they'd have say 10,000 requests, which seems a lot more than 5000 for six months. $4.99 vs $5
- smackfu 13y ago
  Presumably because that's all the government authorized them to say.
eightyone 13y ago
Don't we already know that Yahoo fought hard against PRISM? Why are all of these companies lying so blatantly by saying they've never heard of it?
- brown9-2 13y ago
  Because the government doesn't tell companies required to provide them information under FISA what the NSA calls their in-house analysis software.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ForFreedom 13y ago
They should have a comment box for people to comment.
iandundas 13y ago
> Any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order This doesn't count for much given that they use secret courts, though.
josephlord 13y ago
"From December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters." This looks pretty good (assuming it is honest) with only one possibility for a big weasel worded escape which if they are using they might as well lie. It doesn't say "information was requested" or "information was provided" for only 9,000-10,000 devices but that only that number were specified. If there were orders that didn't specify devices and accounts (e.g. all messages globally). It might be that this is to cover the fact that those communicating with the specified devices would have some information revealed or it might be that the "specifed devices" figure is misleading. If anything these numbers are suspiciously small (once the local police department regular investigations are removed). Unless there is a significant breadth to the requests you have to wonder if the FBI (and NSA/CIA for non-citizens) are doing enough targeted requests to track real suspects. Following this line of reasoning you could conclude that they don't need to!
- Zr40 13y ago
  > It doesn't say "information was requested" or "information was provided" for only 9,000-10,000 devices but that only that number were specified. Actually, it does say that: "were specified in those requests".
  - josephlord 13y ago
    I don't think that I explained well enough. The number "specified" may be less than those information is provided on in the resulting report. "All devices in the US" does not specify any devices but it includes rather a lot. In a more limited way a request for a specific users details could also include traffic information about first level contacts (and possibly more - try seven degrees and see how few requests you can make to get all the company's details). Now a plain reading of "all the devices in America" would suggest that it specified millions of devices but the NSA like their wordplay and they might only mean when specific devices are requested rather than included in another request. Note that Yahoo doesn't mention the number of accounts specified. Possibly they thought that might be too misleading. [1] http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/53243441454/our-commitment-to-our-users-privacy http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/53243441454/our-commitment-to-o...
throwaway10001 13y ago
Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers’ personal data, and we don’t collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place. There are certain categories of information which we do not provide to law enforcement or any other group because we choose not to retain it. This is why Facebook and Google are a nightmare scenario for privacy, they retain everything and then some to profit from it. If they have it (and boy do they have info on users,) NSA and FBI can easily obtain it, all in one place.
- RexRollman 13y ago
  That is because, at the end of the day, Facebook and Google are advertising companies and Apple is not.
oleganza 13y ago
I'll put this note here. If you are being angry at Apple, Google, Microsoft and others for being dishonest about managing your data, you are being dishonest yourself. Apple does not have army of policemen, courts, flying drones, space programs, military operations all over the world and monopoly on finance, education, roads, telecommunications and other important areas. Government has. Whatever shit government forces other people to do to you is entirely government responsibility. Apple can and will happily operate and be nice to privacy without NSA intrusion. But the nature of NSA is that Apple must comply under threat of violent coercion and also must play whatever game NSA makes them to play (e.g. maintain secrecy of the warrants). If you are angry, your entire anger should be forwarded towards the government — the monopoly of violence masking itself with a "common good" and "social contract" and making nasty things all over the world at your expense. If you are angry at your fellow citizens because of that kind of shit, you are being manipulated into a civil war by people with power.
- snitko 13y ago
  You libertarians are making me sick, you are so naive thinking the world is black and white. Just because governments kill and torture people, just because they lie to everyone and never keep their promises, just because they put people in jail for victimless crimes and conscript them to be part time accountants while taxing the shit out of them, just because they coerce businesses to cooperate on illegal activities, just because they do all that, doesn't really mean governments can't do nice things. We still need a government, so the only thing we can realistically do is vote better next time and hope the next guy in office is going to be better.
- josteink 13y ago
  If you are being angry at Apple, Google, Microsoft and others for being dishonest about managing your data, you are being dishonest yourself. I'll admit to being disappointed, but I will say this: I'm not angry. What it all boils down to is trust. Do I trust you to keep my sensitive data secure? Given the recent events and disclosures we've had regarding the exteme over-reach of the US intelligence agencies, it's very easy for me to say: No, I don't. Not anymore. I cannot trust any US-based, US-operated or operated-elsewhere-US-owned subsidiary to keep my data secure. That's not your fault, but it is your problem, because I will be taking my data and business elsewhere. And you cannot regain my trust until your country improves its privacy outlook, so for your own sake, I would start lobbying if you already haven't.
andrewljohnson 13y ago
Notice how Apple's PR strategy always involves waiting. They never speak up until after the main fury has died down. It's like when a person is being yelled at, sucks it up, waits 20 seconds, and then calmly responds. It worked in Antennagate, and they are catching a lot less flak for their statement than Google and Facebook, who stepped into the melee right away.
quantumpotato_ 13y ago
"Between X and X+N" requests/devices".. why can't they say the exact amount?
aet 13y ago
Worthless statement...

148 points by nier 13y ago

esolyt 13y ago

I was really hoping not to see the phrase "direct access" this time.

pilif 13y ago
But we get another statement that iMessages is end-to-end encrypted. Apple continues to state that, but there's also some evidence to the contrary. Like newly authorized devices being able to somehow retrieve the chat history. Someone more capable than I should really investigate iMessages.
- r3m6 13y ago
  "Apple can not decrypt it" - does it mean somebody else can? Or is it encrypted at a level that is virtually unencryptable with today's technology?
  - ParkerK 13y ago
    It means Apple doesn't have access to the encryption keys, as it's done peer to peer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Protocol
  - natch 13y ago
    It could mean somebody else can, because of key escrow and partial key escrow. Even if the key is generated on the device and stays on the device, you have to look at how the key is generated. With key escrow, the messages can be secure against attacks by everyone except those who have the escrowed portion of the key.
    - szc 13y ago
      And to do that you must also transmit the escrowed part of the key in the protocol -- which is 100% detectable as a blob of "extra but seemingly unnecessary data". Do you see that? Does anybody see that? Has anybody seen that?
- quaunaut 13y ago
  Why is that so suspect? That's just TNO-style encryption- as in, you encrypt it going up, and download the encrypted chat history, before decrypting it using your login information. Now, if they're sending it back to you as plaintext? Sure okay, that's reason to be concerned. But simply getting back your chat history isn't any reason to doubt the end-to-end encryption.
  - comex 13y ago
    I think that chat history is actually only retrieved when you restore from an iCloud backup (which backs up everything on the phone, and can be disabled), not when a new device signs in.
    - nudded 13y ago
      I can confirm this, as I just did a clean install and set it up as a new iPhone.
- ParkerK 13y ago
  >Like newly authorized devices being able to somehow retrieve the chat history. That's like saying it's suspicious that I can make an encrypted backup of my laptop, and then "magically" get that data unencypted on my new laptop. There's nothing weird about being to access your own data, even on a different device.

evadne 13y ago

> For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. I don’t know, then, why when I do an iCloud restore on a brand new device, all existing messages are recovered. Is this a way to recover all past messages that’s not really addressed, if I can still recover all historical messages after replacing all devices connected to an iCloud account at once? Cursory links: http://security.blogoverflow.com/2012/09/qotw-34-imessage-what-security-features-are-present/ http://security.blogoverflow.com/2012/09/qotw-34-imessage-wh... https://github.com/meeee/pushproxy https://github.com/meeee/pushproxy http://imfreedom.org/wiki/IMessage http://imfreedom.org/wiki/IMessage

atirip 13y ago
Hmm, if they are encrypted with your password and Apple does only store hash of that password for login and encrupted messages then everything is ok? I assume that when you change your iCloud password, the old messages are not visible anymore. Anybody to verify that?
- __alexs 13y ago
  Given that you send your password in platin text to Apple whenever you login this does not seem like a particularly interception resistant protocol. Apple just need to wait until you login again and then send the encrypted data, and your password to the intelligence services?
  - morgante 13y ago
    Do we know that they send your password in plain text?
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      For all intents and purposes, they must, at least when you login via a web browser.

djf1 13y ago

"The most common form of request comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide." Such a broad range of things included in 'the most common form of request' really reduces the power of the statement.

gkoberger 13y ago
On the contrary, I think the point is that they're all relatively mundane compared to "uncovering terrorist plots!", which has been the alleged motivating factor behind this whole situation.

mr_spothawk 13y ago

"We don't offer backdoor access for our hardware either." whew... so glad to see that in there :)

brisance 13y ago
"You'll have to find it yourself or get a court order." :)

quaunaut 13y ago

Okay, a few things I'm just plainly getting pissed off about every time I see these threads. * Bitching about the words "direct access": Guess what, these are words, they have a meaning. They're saying that the government can't view the database directly, they can't determine what they get to see, and they don't get to pull it up whenever the fuck they feel like it. And guess what? That means something. I swear, everyone obsessing over the words "direct access" goes on record as one of the most idiotic things a lot of really smart people get obsessed about. * Most of these companies are effectively saying they're agreeing to subpoenas, with the one difference being that NSA warrants can't be reported by the companies involved. This is still infinitely more tame than the previous claims that the Guardian has been walking back this last week(let alone the entirely ridiculous argument Snowden put out there saying they can 'watch your thoughts form as you type', which gets even more funny when you consider the only service listed that transmits your typed data is GMail). * There is a lot to be concerned about here- no mistake about it. But right now, there's a lot more holes in Snowden & Co's story than the opposite. It's still troubling, the attitude taken by some of those at the highest echelons of government, on the whole subject- but the accusers have a lot of explaining to do, if you've been paying attention.

stiff 13y ago
Ad. 1 I think you are missing the point - "not providing direct access" is a bit like Bill Clinton saying he did not have sex with Monica Levinsky, if some company sends some institution a complete database dump of all customer personal data it is not "direct access to the servers" but it is just as bad in terms of privacy implications, so the phrase means nothing in the end.
- comex 13y ago
  To be clear, while I'm not disagreeing with you about the meaning of "direct access", in this case, the rest of the statement clearly states that Apple is not doing that: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities."

Sealy 13y ago

I read that as. "The US government told us to say this (in order to reassure our customers...)"

speeq 13y ago
Me too. Every statement I've read from various companies seem to be the same.

nwh 13y ago

> For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. I don't see how this can possibly be true. I can sign into iMessage on my MacBook, and then into the same account on my iPhone and see the same messages. The only shared secret between the devices is my password, which means that the private keys must be derived directly from them. As Apple sees my password in plaintext fairly regularly, this is almost next to useless in situation where they are forced to reveal private messages by a government. Given that the client still can't even keep messages in chronological order (even after the update), I severely doubt their encryption is implemented correctly either.

danielsju6 13y ago
Actually the devices share a key bag, the popup notifying you when other devices are using your iMessage information comes up during this exchange. The fact that the messages don't immediately show up on other devices and can be out of order speaks to this P2P cryptographic style. You can search for analysis of their protocol, I've done some dissection and it's pretty solid.
- smackfu 13y ago
  How does this address the concern though? Since a user only needs a password to access past sent messages, the security is only as strong as that password... and Apple can pretty easily circumvent any password related security since they are the ones verifying it.
  - danielsju6 13y ago
    True, you only need your password to issue a new key set to the keybag; you can actually monitor the protocol for devices that are distributed your decryption keys (including Apple if they were spying) and you get a popup on each device alerting you to this. It is possible Apple could create a back door for them to issue a certificate set to your keybag without your permission but that would be a can of worms for them, I'm actually comforted by the fact that they'd much prefer to keep end-to-end encryption for their own liability.

deleted 13y ago

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doctorpangloss 13y ago

Apple's statement about iMessage security is inaccurate. Apple signs your device's certificate used for secure iMessage communications. Apple can always generate a new certificate for you and provide access to its root keys to impersonate you and read subsequent messages. While it has forward secrecy, iMessage, and indeed no PKI encryption system, is secure from a rogue root authority.

szc 13y ago
I think you misunderstand asymmetric encryption. you have also confused the two uses of asymmetric encryption; (a) to prove identity -- a digital signature (b) to provide confidentiality -- encryption If the secret part of an asymmetric key is generated on a device and it lives and dies on that device, Apple doesn't have it -- the device does. Messages encrypted using the public part of that key can only be decrypted with a device that has the key. Your augment regarding PKI encryption systems is flawed. You don't need or care about a "root authority" to provide confidentiality. If your assertion is/was true, how can or does PGP work? (Hint: signing only affects identification and authenticity of a message)
- defap 13y ago
  If the secret part of an asymmetric key is generated on a device and it lives and dies on that device, Apple doesn't have it -- the device does. Messages encrypted using the public part of that key can only be decrypted with a device that has the key. But he wasn't describing a technique for decoding messages that have already been sent. He's only claiming an attack on future messages. With control of the CA, the attacker can just advertise a bogus public key for the victim in the key server, giving him access to future messages. He can now intercept and relay.
  - cclogg 13y ago
    On the theme of iMessage, do you guys recommend using it over regular SMS? Are there pros/cons as far as privacy go? (genuinely wondering)
  - 13y ago

geuis 13y ago

All of your friends say to you, "Your girlfriend is cheating on you." Some of your friends you trust very deeply. Some only moderately so. But you love your girlfriend. You think about some inconsistencies in her behavior in the last few months which makes you suspicious. But on the other hand, her explanations make sense and have supporting evidence of their own. Do you choose to believe a group of your friends, or your significant other? We all guess how this story plays out, as it often has before. The friends are right. Some of the friends don't even know each other, so its confirmation from different points of origin. The girlfriend does something stupid and gets caught in her lie. You feel stupid for believing her, break up, move on with life, etc. But what about the cases where the opposite is true. It turns out that several of your friends actually have a few friends in common that they don't know about. One of them starts a rumor that gets slight confirmation by a couple of random events: The girlfriend is seen talking to a guy from college she was friends with. She is overheard on the subway late at night in a heated argument with someone about her boyfriend. Stuff like that. The same stories build up and mutual association of close friends tell you that she's up to no good. You choose to confront her, and in either situation you believe her explanations or you think she is lying, when in fact she is telling you the truth. I know this is an odd allegory. I think that what I'm trying to say is that we are now at a point where reasonable people will start making choices such as either "The government is watching everything I say online" or "The government is only doing routine requests for mostly good causes". People who are more conspiracy minded, myself included, start choosing the "watching everything I say" argument, while other folks take the "mostly good causes" approach. We've now seen at least 5-6 of these public announcements from companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google that more or less are saying the same thing. They respond to legitimate government requests but push back against seemingly illegitimate ones. And on top of that, the requests are small in number in the 10-20k range. We can either say that a) the NSA/FBI are only doing moderate numbers of requests and not wholesale collecting and monitoring us like 1984 on steroids, or that b) they're collecting more information about us than they care to let on and all of our worst 1984-esque fears are coming to pass. To any readers of this that read anything else I write, I'll say this: I lean towards the latter. I am an admitted layman (don't ask me to do advanced math), but I try to stay informed about the directions that technology is leading us and its effects on society. I'm what you might loosely call a "Singulitarian" in that I feel justified in stating the transformative effects of technology over the next 20-100 years will be far different than anything we've ever experienced before. We're already in the low end of the hockey stick. I see that right now, including the last few years and a few years into the future, we are living in the 1984 Orwellian state. A little bit gentler and a lot shinier, but basically 1984. But this won't last. Right now the NSA is building a massive data center in Utah, http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56461026-90/nsa-data-utah-center.html.csp http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56461026-90/nsa-data-u.... That gives them the ability to capture and store more data than there are stars in the sky. But this is only temporary. As with all technology, this eventually will scale out to be accessible to all of us. What is 1984 like when its 2084 but the State is everyone you know and possibly everyone in the world? So it summarizes like this (note my distaste for TLDR): Many large companies are spouting the same line right now. We only cooperate with legal government requests, and there aren't that many requests. This has been going on for two weeks and like all humans, we're getting burned out. Most of us will decide one way or another that the government is spying on us and move on. We'll either not care of be slightly more cautious of what we say/do online. Not that it will help. Either way, your next paycheck is coming, rent is due, oh a bachelor party!, look at the shiny Google/Apple thing! I don't claim to have an answer. I'm not going to change much of what I do online. I'm not a violent revolutionary, though I'm beginning to think its time for US Govt 2.0 through more peaceful means. Anyway, if you made it to the end of this congratulations. If you're in SF, buy me a beer and I'll continue at length.

beloch 13y ago

Apple, Jobs especially, has historically been somewhat cozy with Washington. For the sake of argument, let's say that, hypothetically, Apple is doing work for the NSA beyond what they've admitted to. 1. Apple is a famously compartmentalized and secretive organization. If Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. could keep what they were doing a secret until the whistle was blown on them, Apple can too. 2. So far, the whistle has not been specifically blown on Apple. 3. The worse it is, the less likely Snowden had access to it. 4. An admission of guilt would shake trust in Apple as badly as being exposed by a whistle blower, so there's no motivation to do the former in order to prevent the latter. If Apple's gotten their hands dirty, they're not going to admit to it. I'm not accusing Apple of anything. I'm just pointing out that this press release is utterly and totally meaningless unless you trust the NSA and people working with them not to lie to you. I may sound paranoid but, in a country where the government has given itself the power to coerce companies into spying and legally prevent them or their employees from revealing the truth, there is no room for trust. It is not possible to trust the statements of any U.S. corporation as long as the U.S. government clings to this power. Obama may be trying to sell the U.S. public on the idea that the safety gained is worth the privacy lost, but the real issue is the death of trust.

lukifer 13y ago
I think it's a lot more likely that these companies are compromised from the bottom rather than from the top: moles who have spent years deep undercover as network admins at relevant data centers, either quietly installing backdoors, or physically walking data out the door.
amirmc 13y ago
"For the sake of argument, let's say that, hypothetically, Apple is doing work for the NSA beyond what they've admitted to." If this were the case, why bother with end-to-end encryption in iMessage and Facetime (both fairly recent products)? It's not as though Apple trumpeted this aspect when they announced the products even though it's extra engineering effort. I'm not sure that even BBM is properly end-to-end encrypted outside of a corporate environment.
rdouble 13y ago

natch 13y ago

"Apple cannot decrypt that data" Right. No doubt true. But there is a catch... and this is a big catch. Even if the key generated on a device lives and dies on a device, it can still be an insecure key if it is generated by an insecure process like concatenating a well-generated but short (low number of bits) key with an escrowed, possibly public-key encrypted, "LEA" (law enforcement access) key.

szc 13y ago
Skipjack is dead, extinct. If this were true, it would be possible to find it by disassembling iOS. There would also be a suspicious "unexplained" payload that accompanied anything that was encrypted with a symmetric key.
- acqq 13y ago
  Interestingly enough, famous "_NSAKEY" was found only after Microsoft forgot to remove the symbolic debug info of the internal code of the DLLs: http://web.archive.org/web/20000617163417/http://www.cryptonym.com/hottopics/msft-nsa/msft-nsa.html http://web.archive.org/web/20000617163417/http://www.crypton... I believe the second key remained to exist, only as "KEY2"

eightyone 13y ago

Why are these companies only publishing requests from the last six months? That seems like a rather short time span.

throwaway10001 13y ago
Simple, because if they published for a year they'd have say 10,000 requests, which seems a lot more than 5000 for six months. $4.99 vs $5
smackfu 13y ago
Presumably because that's all the government authorized them to say.

eightyone 13y ago

Don't we already know that Yahoo fought hard against PRISM? Why are all of these companies lying so blatantly by saying they've never heard of it?

brown9-2 13y ago
Because the government doesn't tell companies required to provide them information under FISA what the NSA calls their in-house analysis software.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ForFreedom 13y ago

They should have a comment box for people to comment.

iandundas 13y ago

> Any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order This doesn't count for much given that they use secret courts, though.

josephlord 13y ago

"From December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters." This looks pretty good (assuming it is honest) with only one possibility for a big weasel worded escape which if they are using they might as well lie. It doesn't say "information was requested" or "information was provided" for only 9,000-10,000 devices but that only that number were specified. If there were orders that didn't specify devices and accounts (e.g. all messages globally). It might be that this is to cover the fact that those communicating with the specified devices would have some information revealed or it might be that the "specifed devices" figure is misleading. If anything these numbers are suspiciously small (once the local police department regular investigations are removed). Unless there is a significant breadth to the requests you have to wonder if the FBI (and NSA/CIA for non-citizens) are doing enough targeted requests to track real suspects. Following this line of reasoning you could conclude that they don't need to!

Zr40 13y ago
> It doesn't say "information was requested" or "information was provided" for only 9,000-10,000 devices but that only that number were specified. Actually, it does say that: "were specified in those requests".
- josephlord 13y ago
  I don't think that I explained well enough. The number "specified" may be less than those information is provided on in the resulting report. "All devices in the US" does not specify any devices but it includes rather a lot. In a more limited way a request for a specific users details could also include traffic information about first level contacts (and possibly more - try seven degrees and see how few requests you can make to get all the company's details). Now a plain reading of "all the devices in America" would suggest that it specified millions of devices but the NSA like their wordplay and they might only mean when specific devices are requested rather than included in another request. Note that Yahoo doesn't mention the number of accounts specified. Possibly they thought that might be too misleading. [1] http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/53243441454/our-commitment-to-our-users-privacy http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/53243441454/our-commitment-to-o...

throwaway10001 13y ago

Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers’ personal data, and we don’t collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place. There are certain categories of information which we do not provide to law enforcement or any other group because we choose not to retain it. This is why Facebook and Google are a nightmare scenario for privacy, they retain everything and then some to profit from it. If they have it (and boy do they have info on users,) NSA and FBI can easily obtain it, all in one place.

RexRollman 13y ago
That is because, at the end of the day, Facebook and Google are advertising companies and Apple is not.

oleganza 13y ago

I'll put this note here. If you are being angry at Apple, Google, Microsoft and others for being dishonest about managing your data, you are being dishonest yourself. Apple does not have army of policemen, courts, flying drones, space programs, military operations all over the world and monopoly on finance, education, roads, telecommunications and other important areas. Government has. Whatever shit government forces other people to do to you is entirely government responsibility. Apple can and will happily operate and be nice to privacy without NSA intrusion. But the nature of NSA is that Apple must comply under threat of violent coercion and also must play whatever game NSA makes them to play (e.g. maintain secrecy of the warrants). If you are angry, your entire anger should be forwarded towards the government — the monopoly of violence masking itself with a "common good" and "social contract" and making nasty things all over the world at your expense. If you are angry at your fellow citizens because of that kind of shit, you are being manipulated into a civil war by people with power.

snitko 13y ago
You libertarians are making me sick, you are so naive thinking the world is black and white. Just because governments kill and torture people, just because they lie to everyone and never keep their promises, just because they put people in jail for victimless crimes and conscript them to be part time accountants while taxing the shit out of them, just because they coerce businesses to cooperate on illegal activities, just because they do all that, doesn't really mean governments can't do nice things. We still need a government, so the only thing we can realistically do is vote better next time and hope the next guy in office is going to be better.
josteink 13y ago
If you are being angry at Apple, Google, Microsoft and others for being dishonest about managing your data, you are being dishonest yourself. I'll admit to being disappointed, but I will say this: I'm not angry. What it all boils down to is trust. Do I trust you to keep my sensitive data secure? Given the recent events and disclosures we've had regarding the exteme over-reach of the US intelligence agencies, it's very easy for me to say: No, I don't. Not anymore. I cannot trust any US-based, US-operated or operated-elsewhere-US-owned subsidiary to keep my data secure. That's not your fault, but it is your problem, because I will be taking my data and business elsewhere. And you cannot regain my trust until your country improves its privacy outlook, so for your own sake, I would start lobbying if you already haven't.

andrewljohnson 13y ago

Notice how Apple's PR strategy always involves waiting. They never speak up until after the main fury has died down. It's like when a person is being yelled at, sucks it up, waits 20 seconds, and then calmly responds. It worked in Antennagate, and they are catching a lot less flak for their statement than Google and Facebook, who stepped into the melee right away.

quantumpotato_ 13y ago

"Between X and X+N" requests/devices".. why can't they say the exact amount?

aet 13y ago

Worthless statement...