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Comment by 627467 | Hacker News Reader

Companies (apple included) can invest all they want in features and press releases claiming that said features are to ensure customer privacy but - unless these features are open sourced and subject to public and recurrent scrutiny - it is just faith that they expect from customers.

If you care deeply about the privacy of you data, don't hand your data on a physical device to anyone.

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I disagree. Hype matters. If companies are advertising themselves on privacy then that makes the average person concerned about safety. It then makes it when privacy concerned techies sound less like conspiracy theorists and creates some feedback. I wouldn't be surprised if there's been an uptick in Signal downloads due to Apple and Samsung advertising.

Something is better than nothing. And the smoke and mirrors can still help. I agree OSS would be better, but I'll take what I can get. Even if that is just a moving ecosystem.

You don't need open source. Just look at the business incentives. Samsung has no incentive at all to give 3rd party repair workers access to your private data. Even if the feature isn't bullet proof, its going to be a whole lot better than the current situation where you hand your phone and password over and come back later to pick up the phone.

National Security Letters or their equivalent in other jurisdictions render the "no business incentive" argument to be moot.

That is completely useless in the context of this feature. National security letters go direct to Samsung who already have full access. This feature is relating to creeps at 3rd party repair stores stealing your nudes.

Anything's possible will be exploited.

It's hard for phone these days, but my PC's security model is I can easily lock myself out of it permanently.

Are you sure you 100% knowledgeable of a conglomerate's business incentives?

There are other practical indicators of how good things are. Apple, for instance, demonstrated that the iphone was sufficiently secure to provoke some novel legal maneuvering during the San Bernardino situation.

Which was then circumvented by a third party. The legal maneuvering wasn't that novel: despite what Apple advertised, Apple could obtain the data off the device, and the FBI simply asked Apple to do it for them.

The point is that apple wouldn't do it. Anyone can buy a 0-day.

It was not even a sure thing that apple could do it.

It was a sure thing that Apple could do it — the FBI clearly explained how. It was such a sure thing that Apple stopped advertising it couldn't do it after the FBI showed how it could, with the quoted wording in https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/ios-8-even-apple-cant-... disappearing from Apple's website (but not from IA).

The only reason Apple wouldn't do it was that it was such an embarrassment for its marketing to be shown to be a lie by something that had made national headlines.

As far as anybody being able to buy a 0-day, the price for such a 0-day is much higher for competitors' phones with better security.

I'll be sure to read up on the latest regarding that matter. I could be outdated. I don't think it was something like apple has a key escrow.

Regarding the price of a 0-day, it is clear that the fbi bought it. (maybe it wasn't 0d at the time but it was an exploit.) The cost is irrelevant considering it was a state actor. In context of this discussion, apple resisted.

I'm all for more security and will take your recommendation for a vendor with more integrity. I think we have to weigh integrity vs capability, though. Good intentions don't confound tough adversaries.

Apple had already provided all of the data from the phone to the FBI via the iCloud Backup that is readable by Apple.

The rest was media posturing.

Also, we know that if you use icloud, Apple saves a copy of your encryption key ...

That's true with iCloud Backup specifically, not iCloud. But unsecured notes and photos don't fall under the encryption umbrella, so syncing those means you lose privacy. Even syncing messages is safe, since messages are shared with your private encryption key. iCloud Backup and photo syncing are pretty much the bones thrown to US law enforcement.

iCloud Backup is on by default. Approximately nobody uses iCloud without using iCloud Backup.

Approximately plenty of people use the free plan that has nowhere near enough space for backing up a modern phone.

> Even syncing messages is safe, since messages are shared with your private encryption key.

Do you mean the syncing of messages between logged in devices via the normal iMessage delivery mechanism (which I know is encrypted), or the "Messages in iCloud" feature?

> it is just faith that they expect from customers

You know independent infosec reviews are a thing, right?

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