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Comment by vectorjohn | Hacker News Reader

You are making that up. Of course there is such a mechanism. What do you think software signing is but a way for the good guys and only the good guys to run code on your device? It's exactly the same. All Apple has to do is make a piece of software that only runs on this phone and sign it. Then nobody can be attacked except this one phone. And it had to go through a warrant and all!

And to your last point: this software is not secure. That's why we have this backdoor option.

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The problem with that thinking is that there is no firm definition of the "Good Guys", and the guys you think are good today, may not be so good tomorrow.

> this software is not secure. That's why we have this backdoor option.

It's not perfectly secure, but still awfully secure if even the US Government can't break it themselves.

> still awfully secure

I believe they were just sloppy:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/san-bernardino-shooters-apple-id-pa...

"San Bernardino Shooter's iCloud Password Changed While iPhone was in Government Possession"

The information wasn't "awfully" secured.

After watching this whole thing play out, I'm seriously wondering whether 'sloppy' was actually 'on purpose because this is a great chance to establish precedent'.

Now wait. If the passcode is complex then it is secure, which is a very typical requirement for security.

Which doesn't change regardless of the outcome of this FBI case.

Indeed, people who valued their security highly, like terrorists, would still have security, but the common person would not.

> All Apple has to do is make a piece of software that only runs on this phone and sign it.

(Emphasis added)

Just wondering how they can manage to produce something that will only run on this phone?

Easy. Since iOS software must be signed by Apple they could simply hard code a check for a specific device ID, and immediately exit if it doesn't match. Then they sign that specific binary.

That isn't really easy.

99% of the phone can be tampered with when running, after the signature is checked at install. They'd need to put that check in the secure enclave to make sure that it wasn't simply bypassed. That might not even be possible on that model.

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