I couldn't find anything that describes whether Apple can access your iCloud data in response to a law enforcement request. (I.e., whether it's encrypted in situ.) Does anyone know?
If I'm reading this correctly, it looks like most things are encrypted while on iCloud. Namely:
- Photost
- Documents
- Calendars
- Contacts
- iCloud Keychain
- Backup
- Bookmarks
- Reminders
- Find My iPhone
- Find My Friends
- Mail and Notes (Though they are encrypted in transit)
On another page it reads: On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode. Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data.
I read this to apply only to items stored on the device itself. Not on iCloud.
But I hope I'm reading this wrong, and Mail storage is indeed encrypted on iCloud.
If that list is accurate, that's great.
Here's a quote of his from the Charlie Rose interview: We’re not reading your email, we’re not reading your iMessages. If the government laid a subpoena on us to get your iMessages, we can’t provide it. It’s encrypted and we don’t have the key.
Perhaps that's not the case? Or rather, perhaps that's literally only the case with iMessage? I don't think iMessages are ever stored on iCloud, and instead only ever propagate from device to device...
All of which is moot since Apple can simply be ordered to write software to leak or capture passwords and decryption keys.
I'm not sure how anything could be safely stored on their cloud(or any cloud), given these features.
Similarly, you cannot be ordered to lie and say the NSA has not been given access to your servers, you can only be ordered not to discuss it if it has happened.
> Even if you choose to use a third-party application to access your iCloud data, your username and password are sent over an encrypted SSL connection.
So user/pass is sufficient to access cleartext of your data, and Apple definitely has that.
This should be obvious: If there is any way to recover your data when you lose your phone (without using a secret key that is never shared with Apple) then the security is broken.
So encrypt the iCloud backup with a password you say... Except you need a password to get in to iCloud already so how is that any different?
And for the record, Apple stores password hashes, so they don't have your password. Unless you think they are just lying repeatedly for no good reason.
When was the last time you verified the chip layouts for your CPUS to ensure there were no back doors? Didn't think so.
Private keys are different than passwords.
Password hashes are computed server side where the password can be trivially intercepted.
CPU backdoors are a security problem, that doesn't negate the existence of other security flaws. Moreover CPU backdoors are far more costly to implement and effort should be directed first at cheaper/easier weaknesses, like ineffective encryption of data.