Apple Is Said to Be Trying to Make It Harder to Hack iPhones

[KamaAina]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/technology/apple-is-said-to-be-working-on-an-iphone-even-it-cant-hack.html

Apple engineers have already begun developing new security measures that would make it impossible for the government to break into a locked iPhone using methods similar to those now at the center of a court fight in California, according to people close to the company and security experts.

If Apple succeeds in upgrading its security — and experts say it almost surely will — the company would create a significant technical challenge for law enforcement agencies, even if the Obama administration wins its fight over access to data stored on an iPhone used by one of the killers in last year’s San Bernardino, Calif., rampage. The F.B.I. would then have to find another way to defeat Apple security, setting up a new cycle of court fights and, yet again, more technical fixes by Apple.

The only way out of this back-and-forth, experts say, is for Congress to get involved. Federal wiretapping laws require traditional phone carriers to make their data accessible to law enforcement agencies. But tech companies like Apple and Google are not covered, and they have strongly resisted legislation that would place similar requirements on them.

“We are in for an arms race unless and until Congress decides to clarify who has what obligations in situations like this,” said Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

[onehandle]

1. iPhone 7 Plus for me this Fall. nt

[Ed Suspicious]

2. Shouldn't they always be trying to make it harder to hack into their product? I'm carrying a lot of

info about my life on this thing. Lets make it so that security isn't a news event.

[RKP5637]

4. I would think so. Once the snooping begins, there will be no end to it, that's the problem.

It's getting so everything one does in life is under some type of surveillance and/or data collection. For example, I don't see why the private details of my house purchase and everything needs to be widespread across the universe.

[RKP5637]

3. I don't think I would want a Donald Trump led regime with free access to my personal life. n/t

[longship]

5. Good. It is the only responsible position to take.

Any computer company who says otherwise is dead within the hour.

It is like an investment bank responding to their stock falling by saying that they have plenty of capital. How'd that work out for you, Bear Stearns? Hello? Hello, Bear Stearns!!!!!?

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Good.