Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with search warrants with iOS8

Interesting. At a time when any were worried that the iPhone's were tracking us too much and using our fingerprints a surprise revelation comes from Cupertino.

Encryption will be implemented so that law enforcement cannot unlock content on your iPhones. Apple will still hand over information that may be stored in your iCloud service but stated the following.

“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” Apple said on its Web site. “So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.

Link to Story

This is coming on the heels of a ruling 5 months ago that police in 'most' circumstances need a warrant to collect information on your phone. Remember that the next time a cop asks for your phone if you are recording, etc. If you have done nothing wrong it will hold up in court.

Also, make sure to remember your password. Part of this action means that they cannot help you get back into your phone either.

I see some pros, some cons and some outside influence as to why...what do you think ATS?

Makes me like apple phones even more. Now i have a reason to up grade to ios 8 on my 4s.
and now i want the new iphone 6 plus even more.
Atleast one company is trying to protect our privacy a little.

a reply to: matafuchs

This will only work 100% if you disable the auto iCloud storage. Otherwise, ALL your crap will still be up in the cloud. And the random apps you use technically can be used to get 'into' your phone when open.

Blackberry still reigns supreme in security. Don't know why this is such a big deal, if people just took the right steps and actually read the fine print and gone through their phone to see what is enabled and what is not, then it would be no problem.

a reply to: pez1975

makes me love my $4.99 flip phone...

Probably because the government doesnt need to unlock your phone, they will just sit back and wait on You to unlock it for them. Then when your phone starts looking for a cell tower, the Sting Ray 2, fools your phone into thinking its a cell tower, and thats that, no warrant, no idea it even happened.

I am not under the impression that if the government or someone else nefarious wants to see it all they cannot. This was interesting as it is law enforcement. Many times they will try to take phones and look at them, hunt for pics or videos, etc.

Also, backing anything up to a 'cloud', whether Apple or not is just not smart.

originally posted by: matafuchs
Interesting. At a time when any were worried that the iPhone's were tracking us too much and using our fingerprints a surprise revelation comes from Cupertino.

Encryption will be implemented so that law enforcement cannot unlock content on your iPhones. Apple will still hand over information that may be stored in your iCloud service but stated the following.

“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” Apple said on its Web site. “So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.

Link to Story

This is coming on the heels of a ruling 5 months ago that police in 'most' circumstances need a warrant to collect information on your phone. Remember that the next time a cop asks for your phone if you are recording, etc. If you have done nothing wrong it will hold up in court.

Also, make sure to remember your password. Part of this action means that they cannot help you get back into your phone either.

I see some pros, some cons and some outside influence as to why...what do you think ATS?

Little off topic, but I still don't get why iPhones are so popular. All you're paying for is a name. For one I hate anything proprietary. Two, they are so dumbed down you can't really do anything cool with them. Same for macs. I guess I'm just an open source geek and don't need my hand held when using my technology.

originally posted by: Glassbender777
Probably because the government doesnt need to unlock your phone, they will just sit back and wait on You to unlock it for them. Then when your phone starts looking for a cell tower, the Sting Ray 2, fools your phone into thinking its a cell tower, and thats that, no warrant, no idea it even happened.

Apple is just using this as a selling point. Most of the snooping that goes one is in transit. It turns out anyone with the skills can get data off the cell network. (See SS7).

I might help in some of those nude selfies cases if they are looking for a photo.

Cute. I still miss my iPhone sometimes (got mugged a few months ago), but still have an iPad to get my Apple fix. Now... cute that they are pretending to respect and protect their customers, right after the iCloud leak of all those celebrities... and even funnier that they won't let the police get into your phone, but U2 gets a free pass.

Oh, marketing. Never change.

Little off topic, but I still don't get why iPhones are so popular. All you're paying for is a name.

It's a statement about the American general public.

Yes, but people that store things to iCloud are still vulnerable.

DON'T USE CLOUD BASED BACKUPS!

Sure, it's nifty and convenient, but so is having an external hard drive and syncing/backing up your phone every now and then.

If your job requires you to share things to the cloud, that's cool -- It's just work-related stuff anyway. Your data should be your own, and who knows what happens when it gets stored on some nebulous server "out there".

Apple is "Americas phone" maker and has been protected by the white house in court decisions favouring Samsung. This is not what it sounds like. Apple is not protecting its customers from government spying. They know that the gov. can get what they want anyway without even asking.

originally posted by: CardiffGiant
a reply to: pez1975

makes me love my $4.99 flip phone...

I hear ya brother. Mine does nothing except make phone calls. No internet, no irritating texts. None of that other crap.

Just the way I like it. Sure, they can still track me anywhere but I have way less headaches. Not that I agree with them searching phones but they can search mine for days and not find anything as there's nothing there. They would see who I have called but I don't know if that matters as I'd bet Verizon would give them that info anyway.

I call BS, unless Apple shutsdown.

Lavabit and silent email were approached by an alpha soup agency to comply or dismiss. Lavabit initially lawyered up and quickly came to the realization and discovery of laws that are classified and held in a secret courts which are fruitless to fight.

lavabit.com...

I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise.

All form of encryption that is commercially available is compromised. I know that Apple has more resources than lavabit, but not more than the gov't .

Somehow I find it hard to believe that a company that has no problems making money on the backs of slave child labor in china would really care about your privacy rights.

Why are you people complaining? Companies are competitive and any little thing could lead to competitiveness in security and privacy for companies to make more money beating out competitors. If you demand it by requirement, they will supply it. The police can still get things and probe your life sure but anything helps some.

Whether iOS or Android, don't believe the hype.

You could unlock your bootloader, install a custom rom (Android) or jailbreak the iOS (Apple) and STILL have these types of problems. Any FBI agent with a little training in penetration testing could intercept your phone with Backtrack in relative ease.

People need to stop relying on the "super cool brand name here" phone and go back to basic flip/candybar. But that isn't going to happen now, since they have convinced the young its hip to have a 800 dollar piece of chinese junk in your pocket that literally is outdated every six months or so.

Ignorance knows no bounds.

This is good news from Apple but in terms of privacy it means nothing. I suspect there's even some fine print on their announcement.

For those who don't remember, Lavabit was an email service that was shut down a bit over a year ago and the owner was sued for this very thing. Lavabit was an encrypted email service, they stored the emails encrypted and the company couldn't access the contents. The only way to access the encrypted information was to use the users password, which again the company didn't have. It was revealed that Snowden used Lavabit in order to communicate with journalists, Lavabit didn't cooperate with the warrants because it couldn't. They were given a secret indictment to hand over all of their information including anything that would help the government break the encryption. The secret indictment included a gag order which went so far as to say the owner couldn't even tell his lawyer why he needed legal help in the first place, thereby ensuring there was no legal defense possible.

The service was eventually shut down rather than hand over information, and as a result the owner was given a trial where he couldn't even hear the evidence against him and he wasn't allowed legal representation. An appeal was made saying that it wasn't a fair trial, and the man was convicted of contempt of court for making the appeal in the first place... apparently it went against the court for him to even suggest he wasn't given a fair trial.

Here's a story all about it: en.wikipedia.org...

In short, Apple, Apple's board, and Apple's lawyers are all going to be very aware of this story. Do not believe any claims about them being unable or unwilling to hand over data. The truth of the matter is that any data storage company in the US must ultimately comply.

originally posted by: Aazadan
This is good news from Apple but in terms of privacy it means nothing. I suspect there's even some fine print on their announcement.

For those who don't remember, Lavabit was an email service that was shut down a bit over a year ago and the owner was sued for this very thing. Lavabit was an encrypted email service, they stored the emails encrypted and the company couldn't access the contents. The only way to access the encrypted information was to use the users password, which again the company didn't have. It was revealed that Snowden used Lavabit in order to communicate with journalists, Lavabit didn't cooperate with the warrants because it couldn't. They were given a secret indictment to hand over all of their information including anything that would help the government break the encryption. The secret indictment included a gag order which went so far as to say the owner couldn't even tell his lawyer why he needed legal help in the first place, thereby ensuring there was no legal defense possible.

The service was eventually shut down rather than hand over information, and as a result the owner was given a trial where he couldn't even hear the evidence against him and he wasn't allowed legal representation. An appeal was made saying that it wasn't a fair trial, and the man was convicted of contempt of court for making the appeal in the first place... apparently it went against the court for him to even suggest he wasn't given a fair trial.

Here's a story all about it: en.wikipedia.org...

In short, Apple, Apple's board, and Apple's lawyers are all going to be very aware of this story. Do not believe any claims about them being unable or unwilling to hand over data. The truth of the matter is that any data storage company in the US must ultimately comply.

Who replaced lavabit? Will there be any replacements?

originally posted by: ArchPlayer
Who replaced lavabit? Will there be any replacements?

There's many overseas email companies that offer secure services, I use one for some Tor related stuff. Any company that is subject to US law however has to have some sort of backdoor for the feds to get in whenever they want, warrant or not. If you want to be sure that your email data is secure treat it as if it's publicly visible and encrypt the contents yourself with PGP, then paste the encrypted contents into the email.

One other thing you have to keep in mind with Apples solution here is that it's essentially using your passcode as the encryption/decryption key. Not only do most people choose weak passwords but part of these legal rulings state that the government can request the company builds a custom interface for rapidly testing passkeys. The input on your phone may leave you relatively secure in day to day tasks or even low budget police offices due to slow input times but the feds will still be able to request the ability to rapidly test passwords and brute force it. If they're requesting this sort of input on you, chances are they've got your other data and are trying variants on your most used passwords as well which will usually work.

So basically, what Apple is saying here sounds good in theory but in practice doesn't do anything. In short don't trust their encryption. If you really care about keeping the contents secret encrypt it yourself (better yet double encryption) and then put it in the email. Lavabit has proven that encrypted email services are not safe.

a reply to: matafuchs

I don't believe it.

I think it's a way for Apple to increase sales with all the "Don't update your iPhone 4s with IOS 8" information going around. People with the older 4s will have trouble running IOS 8, therefore the solution for "security" is to buy a new iPhone.

Apple may not give your data to police, they didn't say anything about the NSA or CIA who don't use warrants. And I have no doubt if they haven't already given the algorithm to the NSA it's just providing the NSA code breakers with a new puzzle.