Here’s a link to Apple’s original Message to Our Customers.
This FAQ provides more detail on Apple’s position. It is really well written and clearly lays out Apple’s issues with doing what the government asks.
Here’s just a taste, well worth reading the whole thing:
The government asked a court to order Apple to create a unique version of iOS that would bypass security protections on the iPhone Lock screen. It would also add a completely new capability so that passcode tries could be entered electronically.
This has two important and dangerous implications:
First, the government would have us write an entirely new operating system for their use. They are asking Apple to remove security features and add a new ability to the operating system to attack iPhone encryption, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.
There are many ways to build a backdoor. Creating a version of iOS that makes a specific iPhone easier to crack is one way. But, as this cartoon suggests, creating a toolchain that would allow that weakened version of iOS to be injected into any modern iPhone is a much more frightening backdoor. Breaking into a single iPhone is a privacy issue. Forcing Apple to create an iPhone-cracker is a security issue. Both count.
Second, the order would set a legal precedent that would expand the powers of the government and we simply don’t know where that would lead us. Should the government be allowed to order us to create other capabilities for surveillance purposes, such as recording conversations or location tracking? This would set a very dangerous precedent.
Amen. This needs to be reasoned through. We can’t make this decision based on politics.
In response to the question: Has Apple unlocked iPhones for law enforcement in the past?
No.
We regularly receive law enforcement requests for information about our customers and their Apple devices. In fact, we have a dedicated team that responds to these requests 24/7. We also provide guidelines on our website for law enforcement agencies so they know exactly what we are able to access and what legal authority we need to see before we can help them.
For devices running the iPhone operating systems prior to iOS 8 and under a lawful court order, we have extracted data from an iPhone.
And on how Apple has helped the FBI:
We have done everything that’s both within our power and within the law to help in this case. As we’ve said, we have no sympathy for terrorists.
We provided all the information about the phone that we possessed. We also proactively offered advice on obtaining additional information. Even since the government’s order was issued, we are providing further suggestions after learning new information from the Justice Department’s filings.
One of the strongest suggestions we offered was that they pair the phone to a previously joined network, which would allow them to back up the phone and get the data they are now asking for. Unfortunately, we learned that while the attacker’s iPhone was in FBI custody the Apple ID password associated with the phone was changed. Changing this password meant the phone could no longer access iCloud services.
As the government has confirmed, we’ve handed over all the data we have, including a backup of the iPhone in question. But now they have asked us for information we simply do not have.
These are interesting times.
A question I have, based on that:
Can Apple revert this account’s password so it can backup again?
I’m sure the phone’s owner (San Bernardino County) could do that, the same way they originally changed it — if they knew the original password. But if they knew that, they wouldn’t have needed to change it.
great FAQ
My understanding is that it’s the iCloud password that was changed, which resides on Apple’s server, not the phone’s. They’ve never got past the phone’s lock code.
If the iPhone is still trying the old password AND Apple has a record of whatever Apple stored for the old password (custom salt, hash?), they should be able to replace the record on their servers and the iPhone will reconnect to iCloud. Essentially, undoing the password change on the server only.
Of course, it’s been many months so they may not have backups that far back. Or there might be something else that prevents it from working.
“There are many ways to build a backdoor. Creating a version of iOS that makes a specific iPhone easier to crack is one way.”
No, a thousand nos. There is no way to make a crack that applies to just one iPhone. That is Tim Cook’s entire point, and you are refuting it here.
The cartoon applies to all backdoors. There is not one backdoor that can open one phone and one backdoor that can open all phones.
Key point: all backdoors of any conceivable description and construction open up all iPhones.
It is the point that the government seeks to obfuscate and Apple seeks to educate everyone about.
That is the “Pandora’s iPhone” part. Open the box just once, all the bad things happen to everyone. Everyone suffers if any backdoor is created. Any backdoor made in any of the various ways.
An analogy would be if FBI asked Genentech to create a virus that when administered to a person, caused the person to be unable to resist interrogation and therefore tell everything they know. FBI would say “we are only going to use it on this one very bad person right here, right now.”
Many problems: 1) FBI will be back with another person to interrogate later, causing the virus to apply to every American, because you could be the next “one person,” 2) that makes Genentech a de facto interrogation arm of FBI, which they likely do not want to be, 3) the Chinese FBI will also require Genentech China to perform this service, and so will law enforcement all around the world, making everyone in the world subject to being injected with this virus, 4) first it will be terrorists but soon it will be people like the veteran in Kansas who was preparing to move his family to Colorado so he could treat his PTSD with legal marijuana so the state of Kansas took his kids away, 5) it is a virus that will naturally replicate unexpectedly out of official hands into the world like viruses and iPhone hacks naturally do. Drug cartels will get it. ISIS will get it. Therefore millions of people will be injected with this virus, generation after generation. Bank robbers will inject the virus into bank managers to get them to give up the safe combination. Spouses will use it to get their spouse to tell them if they are cheating, just like NSA agents used their illegal database (that Snowden revealed to the world) to spy on their girlfriends.
It doesn’t matter how the theoretical Genentech interrogation virus actually works. There are many ways to make such a backdoor into a person’s brain. But because we all have brains, it works on all of us. We are in this together. All backdoors of any kind of construction open up all iPhones.
No. You can’t “revert” a password. If it was “monkey” and you change it to “bear” and then change it to “monkey” that is just two password changes, not one change and one change back. The fact that the first and third password are the same is irrelevant. They are still two separate passwords.
My understanding is that when the phone failed to be able to login to iCloud, it became disconnected from iCloud and backups stopped unless the phone is logged in again to iCloud manually. The phone won’t just keep hammering on iCloud with the failed password.
I’m not sure. Considering how many times I’ve been prompted for my password after changing my password, I’m both afraid to try and suspect it keeps hammering… it just throttles it.
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