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Comment by codemac | Hacker News Reader

If you turn on iCloud, it's theater.

Android with syncing enabled does much better in real world tests. Notably in hong kong, they were able to crack the iPhones, but not the Pixels[0]

I'm pretty sure without iCloud and a long enough password (or fast enough self destruct mode) iPhones could be as secure, but I don't know anyone that uses an iPhone and does not use iCloud in any way.

[0]: https://qz.com/1844937/hong-kongs-mass-arrests-give-police-a...

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This is true of your primary worry is nation states. If your primary worry is criminals/domestic partners/employers, this isn't the case. You can't give security advice without considering what you're protecting against.

Edit: your linked article says nothing about icloud

What part of iCloud is the problem?

The part where it backs up all your messages without using a device specific key.

The only things end to end encrypted are listed on this page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

If you turn on iCloud syncing, basically you're falling back to simple "in transit" and "at rest" encryption.

A lot of iPhone cracks involve just attacking your iCloud account, and then reading all of your messages from backups. This is not possible on Pixel which encrypt your device backups with on-device hardware encryption.

> Pixel which encrypt your device backups with on-device hardware encryption.

Can you set up a new android phone from an old phone’s backup? If so, how could this work?

This is a standard way to set up a new iPhone: “restore” from a backup of your previous phone. Especially handy when your old phone is no longer available (lost/broken)

Yes, decryption requires the original device's unlock PIN/pattern/password:

https://security.googleblog.com/2018/10/google-and-android-h...

Not that I fully understand how hard it is to circumvent.

Oh, I see. Apple has done that since the original iPhone too, and I believe iPod before it. I thought you meant they used a hardware key.

For your backups - but once you use iCloud to sync devices in real time, they just use their service keys, and your iCloud credentials are enough to read your iMessage history.

Okay, so if I understand correctly, the data in those Apple products is not secured, but turning on iCloud on a device does not ruin encryption for other apps that take it seriously. So if I have an app that uses Keychain (end-to-end encrypted) and encrypts it's data properly, it is still secure.

Unless Apple is really bad and somehow collects my keys from keychain, or collects keys passed to CryptoKit, etc., straight out of RAM, and sends them to 3-letter agencies ... if I think that's happening, then I will look for new devices.

I'm not sure I understand your keychain point. With iMessage you can message others with just your iCloud credentials if you turn it on, and you have access to full conversation history - without needing any particular device keys.

The agencies are believed to have the iCloud decryption keys.

iCloud has always been suspicious: Apple cancelled end-to-end encryption on iCloud after a certain three-letter agency filed a complaint, saying that it would disrupt investigations and have a considerable impact on the law enforcement capabilities of our country. Not to mention, Apple's behavior has been decreasingly auspicious in places like Russia and China, where they've started preinstalling state-sponsored apps and relocating servers to government-controlled provinces, respectively.

> Apple's behavior has been decreasingly auspicious in places like Russia and China, where they've started preinstalling state-sponsored apps and relocating servers to government-controlled provinces, respectively.

This is a legal requirement to operate the service in China. Apple’s choice is between offering iCloud in China or not offering it at all in China, not between offering it with local servers or with out-of-country servers.

It is indeed a legal requirement, and both Google and Microsoft have chosen not to provide services in those areas for this exact reason. Apple is the only major tech company that still operates in China, and has become pretty politically passive in the region. I only bring this up because Apple claims that "privacy is a human right", which I suppose is pretty conditional to what kind of human you are.

> Apple is the only major tech company that still operates in China

This is not even remotely true, even if you define "major tech company" to mean "major US tech company".

Both AWS and Azure have actual cloud regions in China (delivered with a local JV partner just like Apple's cloud services are).

Even Google operates there in various ways - they have four offices there, they manufacture hardware there, and they sell tons of ads to Chinese companies via their local subsidiaries (for display outside of China obviously).

Apple isn‘t simply running iCloud locally as the law may require. They have transferred the operations of their entire iCloud service to a government owned company, including all keys.

What Apple does in China is more than complying with local laws. They appear to be exceptionally proactive in staying in the regime‘s good graces.

Running cloud services in China requires establishing a JV with a local partner. Look at AWS China as another example of this, but there are many.

Can you provide a reference for Apple's JV partners being government owned? Any company in China of course has to do as the Party tells them to, so I guess the difference is largely academic, but I haven't seen it mentioned before that Apple's China partners are government-owned.

This is what was reported at the time:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/17/apples-icloud-user-data-in...

There are conflicting reports and vague language around how exactly the keys are handled.

Thanks for the link, very interesting.

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