ACLU: FBI is not being honest about technology behind iPhone demand

Rss@dailykos.com (joan Mccarter) · Thursday, March 10, 2016, 7:35 pm

The ACLU is arguing, convincingly, that the FBI is not being entirely honest with the public about why Apple must create a security breach into an iPhone so that they can access its data. There are plenty of reasons to believe that the FBI is not just talking about one phone, but that they are trying to create a precedent so they can ultimately access any manufacturer's device. But in this case, their contention that the auto-erase security feature on the iPhone must be disabled is, well, technological bunk.

This feature (which is not enabled by default on most iPhones) protects user data on a device from would-be snoops by wiping the phone after 10 failed passcode attempts. This protects you and me from thieves trying to guess our passcodes and access our data for identify theft, for example.

But the truth is that even if this feature is enabled on the device in question, the FBI doesn't need to worry about it, because they can already bypass it by backing up part of the phone (called the “Effaceable Storage”) before attempting to guess the passcode.

The effaceable storage chip in an iPhone can actually be removed, backed up externally, and returned to the phone, and then there's no danger in passcode testing. That should be technical capacity the FBI has—and if they don't, the ACLU points them to YouTube clips that will show them how to do it. Because it's a thing that people have figured out how to do. So then, what's the point in this demand?

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