Programming

17484 readers

86 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Follow the programming.dev instance rules
Keep content related to programming in some way
If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

snowe@programming.dev

Ategon@programming.dev

MaungaHikoi@lemmy.nz

iCloud: Who holds the key? (2012) (blog.cryptographyengineering.com)

submitted 2 months ago by lysdexic@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] ilega_dh@feddit.nl 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That’s not true. Apple does not have a master key for iPhones. IIRC the FBI wanted Apple to help by providing custom firmware that allowed them to do unlimited attempts on the passcode.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 2 points 2 months ago

https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

This is a letter from Tim Cook himself in 2016, regarding this topic. I might be wrong, but remember those articles talking about this subject and the master key for the iPhone. I've not read this document yet (just found it when researching to refresh memories).

The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.

So without having full understanding whats going on, it looks like Tim was talking about an equivalent effect of a master key, when using such a tool (the firmware?). Maybe there comes this misconception in the media?