Quote:
Originally Posted by PatNY
Since what you quoted at the end was from someone else, I assumed you were replying to someone else, so I didn't pay much attention to it.
At any rate, it appears then that you are agreeing with me? Correct? And that you agree it is untrue or doubtful the government can extract the data, unharmed, without Apple's help.
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Actually, I am very much disagreeing with you.
Extracting data from a device, be it a computer or smartphone, isn't fundamentally difficult. (It might take expensive equipment only the government is likely to have, it might take a ridiculously long time, but it can be done.)
It is amazing how many people think their laptop is just as secure as their iPhone, because they have a
login password on it.
Not true at all. You can just boot from a USB drive and view all the files in plaintext. Or if they locked the BIOS, pull out the hard drive and plug it into your own computer.
And that is the most basic, kindergarten-level data attack.
Once the enemy owns the hardware (and can afford to make noticeable changes like taking apart the device) they can do anything.
The FBI is under no obligation to run the brute-force attack against the password, on the iPhone itself.
AS THE QUOTE I QUOTED SAID, peel open the iPhone, insert probes into the disassembled bits and pieces, extract the hardware key using an electron microscope, dump the data that you wish to decrypt onto the banks of supercomputers they keep around for exactly this reason, and initiate a bog-standard brute force attack on the data.
Why on earth would a sufficiently determined foe bother following silly rules like using the officially sanctioned iPhone software just because the data
started off on an iPhone?
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The data will be unharmed. Although there is no guarantee that the brute force attack will succeed -- even without iOS wiping the data after x failed attempts, even when millions of attacks in parallel on banks of FBI supercomputers, a sufficiently complex password could take millions of years to crack. (A sufficiently
stupid average one could take days or even hours.)
The iPhone itself will be a pile of scrap, yes.