Did Apple lose?

[shockmonster]

Did law enforcement breakApple's encryption code? It appears that Apple lawyers now want to know how they did it? Does this undermine Apples argument?

[wu_shizzle]

Did law enforcement break Apple's encryption code? It appears that Apple lawyers now want to know how they did it? Does this undermine Apples argument?

I guess you can look at either way.

You could say that Apple won because they did not give into the government's overreaching demands.

[SB Shock]

Did law enforcement breakApple's encryption code? It appears that Apple lawyers now want to know how they did it? Does this undermine Apples argument?

Yes they did break their code. Anybody thinking it couldn't be broken is foolish.

Apple did not think this through. They now have lost control of the narrative and have no legal right to the information of how law enforcement achieved it. I doubt the FBI will be sharing this information since they will be able to use it in other cases.

[MoValley John]

Both sides won.

[Cdizzle]

Does any of this mean that I get a free iPhone?

[ShockdaWorld]

Does any of this mean that my Apple stock is going to come the rest of the way out of the toilet?

[wu_shizzle]

Does any of this mean that my Apple stock is going to come the rest of the way out of the toilet?

When did you buy, May 2015?

[ShockdaWorld]

I don't remember. I'd have to go look, but yes, it was fairly recently. Probably right at the top of their range. lol

[wsushox1]

Buy into companies invested in Machine Learning.

[shocka khan]

Yes they did break their code. Anybody thinking it couldn't be broken is foolish.

Apple did not think this through. They now have lost control of the narrative and have no legal right to the information of how law enforcement achieved it. I doubt the FBI will be sharing this information since they will be able to use it in other cases.

The method of compromise will get out eventually. We developed (and used) the Stuxnet virus on Iran. It did a helluva' job of burning their centrafuges up and it set back their plutonium enrichment program. It eventually got out into the 'wild' variants were used by hackers.

That being said, I would expect it to take a year or two, which gives Apple enough time to close whatever door their coders left open.

Of course, Apple would have a head start if they knew how the FBI developed and used the exploit. I applaud the FBI for not telling them. Let Apple figure it out. I also did not think it was a good idea for Apple to share their encryption techniques with the FBI, just so there's full disclosure.

My only question would be more around whether Apple was already required to put a back door in their phones, as the Chinese have a law that requires all encryption on computers in their country to be 'approved' (i.e. give the state a backdoor into the encryption). I would expect that this law would extend to mobile devices as well.

[DwShock]

I'd guess apple already knows how security was broken and is already working on a patch. It's kinda the thing to do with tech companies.

[Kung Wu]

The hole may not be a hole at all.

Assuming the FBI's computing resources are extensive (and you know they are), this could have been a hardware level hack followed by a software level attack on the unlock PIN on a supercomputer. In other words, don't hack the phone. Copy the contents of the phone's memory to a super computer running an emulator. Then brute force the password for ten attempts, then reset the emulated phone (which is simply a memory copy operation) and repeat trying the next 10 over and over until you succeed.

That's how I would have done it, assuming they have the resources I believe they do. Well I would run a simple calc to make sure that's feasible first.

[Kung Wu]

Yeah, assuming the FBI has a supercomputer running at 10 gigaflops or better (late 90s/early 00s supercomputing speed), then they could crack an 8 character or smaller password in under 12 days, once they get the emulator working. It would take time to get the emulator working and the memory from the device copied over.

[jdshock]

The hole may not be a hole at all.

Assuming the FBI's computing resources are extensive (and you know they are), this could have been a hardware level hack followed by a software level attack on the unlock PIN on a supercomputer. In other words, don't hack the phone. Copy the contents of the phone's memory to a super computer running an emulator. Then brute force the password for ten attempts, then reset the emulated phone (which is simply a memory copy operation) and repeat trying the next 10 over and over until you succeed.

That's how I would have done it, assuming they have the resources I believe they do. Well I would run a simple calc to make sure that's feasible first.

If I remember right, that's what McAfee suggested a month ago. He said it should only take a day or so with that procedure.

[Kung Wu]

If I remember right, that's what McAfee suggested a month ago. He said it should only take a day or so with that procedure.

Makes sense. Would take far longer to port the emulator to the desired supercomputer platform and add in a brute force algorithm, than it would to run the program itself. But by far longer, we're still only talking weeks or months to port the emulator and write the brute force algorithm.