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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-your-data-are-belong-to-us dept.

Two years ago, Apple dropped a plan that would have made it impossible for the company to decrypt iPhone and iPad backups for law enforcement, according to a Reuters report today. Reuters wrote that "six sources familiar with the matter" confirmed that Apple dropped the end-to-end encryption plan for iCloud Backup "after the FBI complained that the move would harm investigations."

[...] "Under that plan, primarily designed to thwart hackers, Apple would no longer have a key to unlock the encrypted data, meaning it would not be able to turn material over to authorities in a readable form even under court order," the report continued.

[...] Apple had "10 or so experts" working on the end-to-end encryption plan, "variously code-named Plesio and KeyDrop," but told them to stop work on the project once the decision was made, according to Reuters' sources.

[...] Messages is a special case. Messages itself has end-to-end encryption, but iCloud Backup "includes a copy of the key protecting your Messages." If you want full protection for Messages, you'd want to disable iCloud Backup and back your iOS devices up to iTunes on your computer instead.

iCloud Backup's inclusion of a copy of the Messages key "ensures you can recover your Messages if you lose access to iCloud Keychain and your trusted devices," Apple explains. "When you turn off iCloud Backup, a new key is generated on your device to protect future messages and isn't stored by Apple."

[...] President Trump blasted Apple on Twitter last week, writing that Apple "refuse[s] to unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements."

Apple countered that it gave the FBI "gigabytes of information" including "iCloud backups, account information and transactional data for multiple accounts."

Apple may be unable to unlock the phones since it hasn't granted the government's request for a backdoor—and continues to argue that encryption backdoors would harm security for all users.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/01/apple-reportedly-nixed-plan-for-end-to-end-encryption-in


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:02PM (#946824)

    The nail is not enough. You must also decapitate them for the ritual to be complete.