On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 04:21:53PM -0500, Christopher Nielsen wrote:

The comment about Apple is simply false. Apple does not have a key to FileVault2 unless you escrow your key with them. I know this because a dear friend recently passed, and his family was not able to gain access to his encrypted drives through Apple.

You may be right or may not, but I certainly have to think that if there is a backdoor password to Filevault2 it is quite likely that Apple would not choose to disclose that fact to just some random user who had lost files due to forgotten passwords. One imagines that unless Apple wants to declare their security breakable and presumably bear the burden of having every law enforcement agency, divorce attorney, corporate trial lawyer and government intelligence operation around the world - along with millions of users with various grades of good and bad stories about why they need Apple to break into Filevault2 partitions demanding help (often for much less than it costs Apple to provide it and handle the legal costs to validate the reasons for and authority of the requester to break in) that they would not wish to share the fact that there is a deliberate backdoor mechanism to break in or even a known bug that would allow it. And that of course begs the question of whether such a publicly announced backdoor could ever be kept secret and reserved for Apple alone as it would become an instant target for every hacker and spy and corporate espionage type to reverse engineer... or steal from inside Apple. On the other hand, given the right appeals to patriotism, and national security along with blackmail type arm twisting from certain governments, I'd not be sure they would not provide help or have not been forced to design things so they can. Only a few folks at Apple probably know the real truth about this... one way or the other. -- Dave Emery N1PRE/AE, die@dieconsulting.com DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493 "An empty zombie mind with a forlorn barely readable weatherbeaten 'For Rent' sign still vainly flapping outside on the weed encrusted pole - in celebration of what could have been, but wasn't and is not to be now either."