geographomics

I think you are rather downplaying Apple's capabilities here.

Apple is the only entity who can reliably alter the firmware to remove the forensics-thwarting restrictions, due to updates requiring a chain of trust all the way up to Apple's root certificate.

The physical device may not be owned by Apple, but the firmware installed upon it certainly is, both legally (due to copyright law) and cryptographically.

Even if there's less likelihood of useful evidence on the suspect's work phone, it's still worth checking.

The FBI's request isn't too bad really. It's not like they are requesting Apple to build a new mass surveillance tool or anything similarly far-reaching. This is limited to the domain of digital forensics, and how best to extract data in a criminal investigation, against firmware that is hostile to cracking. Given that, by design, the phone has been locked down to only accept Apple-signed firmware, then Apple is really the most feasible choice to assist in bypassing this.

Snowden's analysis is rather lacking.

He claims that the FBI already has all of the suspect's communication records as retrieved via service providers, but ignores the important detail that iMessage uses end-to-end encryption, rendering any such records unobtainable by the service provider.

Yes, the last backup was six weeks prior to the phone being seized, but this only means that the phone may well include six weeks' worth of pertinent evidence. And there is nothing to suggest that the FBI is only interested in messages between co-workers.

Ultimately, the phone's data would need to be decrypted and analysed to see if the first four assumptions that Snowden makes are actually true.

The final assumption is that there are other feasible technical measures that could be taken to crack this phone. This would perhaps be the most interesting point, but Snowden chose to not expand upon it at all.

On Linux, you can use capabilities to avoid running as root. In the case of binding to ports lower than 1024, this would be by enabling the CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE capability.

Probably means that there is now a restriction on the firmware upload page of the router, so that it won't accept any arbitrary image, most likely implemented via signing.

Doesn't necessarily mean you can't load your own firmware in, but it would raise the difficulty of doing so. Finding a serial console on the board, vulnerabilities in the software, things like that - more akin to jailbreaking/rooting your phone.

If Apple can update the firmware of the Secure Enclave, could they not also write one that leaks out all the data contained within it?

Presumably this could then be used for offline attacks against the image dumped from the phone's flash memory.

It's happened with Bitcoin QR codes, to redirect payment to the attacker's wallet: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1wwzbf/psa_new_sca...

In a sense, publishing a research paper is part of an ongoing public discussion, in reply to all the other authors cited in your work.

Apart from that, there are talks at conferences which are open to discussion with the audience.

I suppose there's not really a need for much more than that, in the public sphere. There is plenty of private discussion amongst one's peers of course.

Seems rather impolite to be leaking all this data. Where's the benefit?

Ah, sorry for jumping to conclusions then.

I find it best to enjoy HN for the technical content and ignore the rather absurd cult-like startup worship.

Is it this course - https://www.udemy.com/php-programming-for-affiliate-marketer...? I can access it just fine.

Maybe it was spot checked because affiliate marketing is often so closely associated with spammers and scammers.

It sounds like you're being manipulated into providing your hard work for free. I suspect your boss is trying to take advantage of you, without providing anything at all in return.

Are you really willing to toil away without any income while he sits there comfortably, scheming away, trying to figure out the next best way to rip you off?

Please, don't be afraid to say no to this terrible offer.

The recovery password doesn't require anything stored in the TPM; if you just had an image of the disk and the recovery password, you could decrypt it.

I agree with everything else you stated though.

You can add multiple protection methods with BitLocker: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ff829848.aspx

This is also how they implement recovery passwords (as 'numerical passwords') by default.

Similarly in the UK: http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/legaldeposit/printedpubs/depositpri...

Why should your parents pay for your continuing education? Seems rather an unreasonable expectation.

After reaching adulthood you should be taking financial responsibility for yourself, rather than demanding to be bankrolled by your family.

Seems unlikely that Microsoft would try to slip such a backdoor in, given that this special governmental release would be under additional scrutiny from the Chinese state.

Only 256 colours per frame, but they don't have to be the same ones, and can be combined to use a wider palette - for example: http://notes.tweakblogs.net/blog/8712/high-color-gif-images....

No, what does it mean?

I've come across quite a lot of firmware on embedded Linux devices that uses LZMA (the xz compression algorithm) to compress the kernel, u-boot, and/or filesystems. One memory optimisation for these, as they are typically being decompressed straight into RAM, is for the decompressor to refer to its output as the dictionary rather than building a separate one, as would be the case in decompressing to the network or disk.

Most wifi networks are NATed, so this would only work if you could also reconfigure the router to forward the necessary ports to the device.

You could use it more easily for hosting hidden services though, as those only require an outbound connection to be made to the Tor network. Hidden services on a hidden device.

I agree. Resuscitation seems unlikely, given that the freezing process itself damages the tissues, as well as the degradation that has already happened post-mortem.

Sounds like a poor implementation. This problem is rare in the UK - the time from card entry to PIN entry, and PIN entry to completion, is typically near-instant on most terminals.

I had exactly that problem with a digital photo frame. Company went out of business a few months after purchase, leaving no way to update the displayed photos (at least, not without hacking the device) as they were all pulled from a remote server that no longer existed.

How peculiar. For the "med sangs", I wonder if the blood of other mammals would provide relief for their symptoms.

Why do you believe this to be true? Emojis convey meaning, often more concisely than other written language.

An additional complication is the role of the billions of glial cells that are present in the brain. Their function of supporting neurons is quite well characterised, but they can also more specifically modulate neuronal function, so their place in a comprehensive connectome model shouldn't be ignored.

Then there is the network of vasculature, the flow of cerebrospinal fluid, interactions with hormones, and just generally all the interfacing with other bodily systems. All this would have to measured and modelled somehow too, in addition to all the billions of neurons.

I agree with the author, there's no way all this is going to solved any time soon.

No, reducing the level of service (rather than maintaining it and increasing efficiency) has been part of the government's austerity measures.

Which 'undeserving' people are you talking about exactly?

I agree that Greece is another example of austerity, and one with more extreme measures than the UK.

The current UK government hasn't done anything substantial to improve the efficiency of public services. Instead they've generally reduced the level of service. It's not more efficient, just worse.