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Comment by CiPHPerCoder | Hacker News Reader

What makes you think the government couldn't demand the maker of the neural connectors exfiltrate the neural password?

The fact that this is already a solved problem for iPhones via the Secure Enclave?

I'm not convinced it is entirely solved though. Didn't the FBI drop their request to Apple because they found a loophole or security vulnerability that allowed them to accomplish what they wanted?

I think at the end of the day, software has bugs. And if you have an extremely well funded and intelligent group (e.g. Equation Group) looking for these holes and keeping them secret for personal use and exploitation rather than fixing them, there are going to be ways for your data to be compromised.

> Didn't the FBI drop their request to Apple because they found a loophole or security vulnerability that allowed them to accomplish what they wanted?

The phone in the San Bernardino case was an iPhone 5C, with the A6 processor. Secure Enclave was introduced in the A7.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/07/fbi-iphone-hack-method-secure...

Ah yes, I forgot this detail. Thanks!

No, the model of the iPhone the FBI wanted to access didn't have the Secure Enclave.

I agree with you, although you were wrong about that specific Apple case. I don't trust "secure enclave" because it would be too easy for a TLA to infiltrate the chip foundry and backdoor the silicon. they can literally print money, circumvent the constitution using secret courts/NSL's, their resources are infinite. what would stop them from doing this ?

Even if you couldn't infiltrate the chip foundry, you could order a bunch of the chips, reverse engineer them, and in a few months, ship a duplicate with a neutered "enclave". Then interdict the shipment to the phone manufacturer (this isn't tinfoil, it's been done) and "supply" them with your version of the "secure enclave". There's no limit to this cat and mouse game.

That's not really an argument against a neural lace, though. You're just as fucked if you don't get one - they drop child porn on your laptop, or just disappear you.

There is a even easier way to get somebody finished off.. drop a noisy true crypt container on there cellphone or notebook - if they get searched- they will be held in contempt indefinably for a white noise treasure trove they can not open.

Easy to defend, they have to prove you created said file consciously if the device was ever in the possession of someone else other than police. If they are likely to break the law to tamper with evidence, you've already lost.

It's a solved problem the way the laws are currently written. It's not a solved problem if the laws are rewritten to require manufacturers to support a backdoor.

How would the maker of the neural connectors get your neural password?

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