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Comment by SideburnsOfDoom | Hacker News Reader

> The fact that they can create this backdoor, doesn't that mean it already exists?

Quite likely.

As I posted on the other discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11116343

> If it's possible to make such a "backdoored" build of iOS, then there are state actors who will be throwing $Millions at doing it already, with or without any willing help from Apple.

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The security here is Apple's signing key that is used to sign updates. If you believe RSA is safe (which I assume is being used) and the key has a reasonable length, throwing a couple of millions at it won't bring you much.

I guess what the FBI wants is a backdoored iOS version and to have Apple sign it with their signing key (which means that the FBI can use it over and over again).

That is hard, we know. But it is not impossible for those with time, resources and willingness to think outside the box.

For instance, signing keys can and have been stolen, on the principle of "if you can't brute-force it, hack in and take it".

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/02/cooks-steal-security...

http://blogs.adobe.com/security/2012/09/inappropriate-use-of...

http://www.androidauthority.com/ssl-added-removed-google-moc...

http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/02/its-legal-for-g...

That is hard, we know. But it is not impossible for those with time, resources and willingness to think outside the box.

I assume that Apple has a hardware security module for key generation and storage, perhaps even custom-designed and built, to prevent key extraction/copying.

Of course, in the end you have to trust Apple that only a limited number of employees have access to such hardware, that they have proper auditing procedures, etc.

But the probability of a compromise can never be 0, unless you design and produce your hardware yourself, write all code that this hardware runs yourself, and never leave your computing device unattended. Since that is not practical for most people, you have to put trust in some third party.

If there's one thing that we have learned over the last few years from Snowden et al, we have learned that it is safe to assume that these state actors will be trying all the avenues that you or I can think of, and spend years discovering new ones that we have not thought of.

I have trouble understanding your point. What's the alternative to trying to minimize the probability of crypto system compromises?

That is worth doing; but I still find it quite likely that such a backdoor is existent or doable.

You make a good case that Apple are far ahead as industry leaders here; that seems solid. It's less solid that this means they are impervious, or that the thinking "I can't see any holes in this process, therefore there are no holes in it" is sound.

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