Instead of Apple tasking a coder to work on cracking that iPhone...

Rayzer Rayzer@riseup.net
Wed Feb 24 16:06:27 PST 2016


FWIW I don't see how the feds can force Apple to assign an employee to
do anything not in their job description without violating that
employee's contract, or their civil rights, and writing code to crack
phones isn't in any Apple job description, but tightening phone security
is...

This is getting interesting.

-- 
RR
"Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble-makers ... And neutralize them, neutralize them, neutralize them"


Apple Is Said to Be Working on an iPhone Even It Can’t Hack

By MATT APUZZO and KATIE BENNER

FEB. 24, 2016

WASHINGTON — Apple engineers have already begun developing new security
measures that would make it impossible for the government to break into
a locked iPhone using methods similar to those now at the center of a
court fight in California, according to people close to the company and
security experts.

If Apple succeeds in upgrading its security — and experts say it almost
surely will — the company would create a significant technical challenge
for law enforcement agencies, even if the Obama administration wins its
fight over access to data stored on an iPhone used by one of the killers
in last year’s San Bernardino, Calif., rampage. The F.B.I. would then
have to find another way to defeat Apple security, setting up a new
cycle of court fights and, yet again, more technical fixes by Apple.

The only way out of this back-and-forth, experts say, is for Congress to
get involved. Federal wiretapping laws require traditional phone
carriers to make their data accessible to law enforcement agencies. But
tech companies like Apple and Google are not covered, and they have
strongly resisted legislation that would place similar requirements on them.

“We are in for an arms race unless and until Congress decides to clarify
who has what obligations in situations like this,” said Benjamin Wittes,
a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Companies have always searched for software bugs and patched holes to
keep their code secure from hackers. But since the revelations of
government surveillance made by Edward J. Snowden, companies have been
retooling their products to protect against government intrusion.

Apple built its recent operating systems to protect customer
information. As its chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, wrote in a recent
letter to customers, “We have even put that data out of our own reach,
because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.”

But there is a catch. Each iPhone has a built-in troubleshooting system
that lets the company update the system software without the need for a
user to enter a password. Apple designed that feature to make it easier
to repair malfunctioning phones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/technology/apple-is-said-to-be-working-on-an-iphone-even-it-cant-hack.html


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