The "funny" thing is that anybody thinking that a mere 5 years ago would have been deemed a conspiracy nutter.

They did that, twice. Even got a trial and 34 felonies. Repercussions? None. Honestly if you do your job and not only see nothing come of it but said felon has an impact on your job now I can sympathize a bit.

Always, always default to the simplest answer being the most likely to be true. In context, the government is too incompetent to manage such a thing.

It’s not like it was a press release, it was gleaned from a court document. I suppose they could be happy with what info they got off of it enough to let this prosecution fail if they can follow up the chain, but I’m still skeptical. Who knows, maybe they have a functional quantum computer they don’t want to advertise

You create a great story but violates K.i.S.S.

• not saying they got in means they can’t use it as evidence. Sometimes there’s still due process
• even if they can get into lockdown mode, it’s clearly harder than not lockdown. Why conspire to make it harder?

I don't think that's a rational line of thinking, because there are documented filings of attempted file access into FOSS programs that the FBI are unable to influence and are completely unable to access, such as Veracrypt/LUKS encrypted PCs and GrapheneOS in BFU/Duress password entry status.

Now, Apple is indeed a proprietary ecosystem, and as such unable to have community outside assurances that their system is completely trustworthy. However, Lockdown has now joined the ranks of other systems of data security that have been proven effective against a warrant, perpetuating the cycle in which nations such as the UK (and the US during the Crypto Wars) have tried to overtly undermine the technology through public actions after failures to covertly crack them. You cannot classify mathematics, physics, or cryptography, and there is no such thing as a perfect backdoor (despite some senators' opinions).

With all that being said, I still wouldn't trust an iPhone, but I don't think that proposed line of thinking meshes with the FBI.

“Can I cook mine?”

“No, you must eat it raw.”

They're not the same. Android lockdown is a temporary lock screen state. iOS lockdown is a full OS hardening, affects the way the phone operates full-time.

This is more of "disable face ID" type of thing rather than "lockdown"

Having it and it working as well are two different things. historically Apple has been ahead in security that can slow down or stop law enforcement. And before before you jump to the same conclusions as someone else, I never have owned an iPhone, nor wanted to.

joke on you! google's recent requirement is that all phone vendors make the power button open an AI menu instead of the shutdown menu! on most phones it can be fixed, but it's often hidden very deep in the settings.

Recommend Veracrypt.

Or Luks which is well integrated with Linux. Are there significant advantages with Veracrypt?

It depends on which cloud. US cloud services are inherently unsafe. Some other countries have more respect for privacy.

and even then, unless you unlock it for law enforcements upon request. you will serve lifetime in imprisonment or until you agree to unlock it and whatever if any crime is within the locker to continue imprisonment. so safeguarding data really doesn't matter in the end anyway because any sensitive data kept anywhere will be used against you either by the law or by criminals. which often times seems to be one and the same.

Any iPhone? Almost certainly.

Virtually any phone I would say, yeah. Either by rubberhose cryptanalysis or by sheer time, money, and tools, they most likely can.

The big claim is that they couldn't get into the reporter's iPhone. You are right to demand proof before believing something so obviously made up.

Big claims require big proof. But I bet all you have is a hunch.

I work alongside law enforcement. Part of my job involves helping detectives follow the instructions Apple/Google provide to them for downloading and unencrypting people's phone data once a judge has given permission for them to request it from Apple/Google.

Now, I'm not familiar with "Lockdown Mode". Maybe that uses separate encryption to encrypt data stored on your phone that ISN'T cloud synced data. But even then, if that Lockdown Mode is software created by the manufacturer, then they could have the decryption algorithm to decrypt it and I wouldn't trust it. I would only trust open-source encryption software, like Veracrypt.

Bottom line is I'm here to guarantee you that if the data is synced with a cloud, which most people's phone data is, it absolutely can be obtained by law enforcement.

Not that it's particularly relevant, but typically when law enforcement get into the data, it's usually because they have reasonable suspicion and it's usually kiddie porn or chat logs proving they were trying to meet up with underage individuals. And I'm here to tell you that shit is way more prevalent than I think most people realize.

I just got tired of everything being a hack. I simply need my phone to work and I also see a bit of irony installing play services just to receive proper notifications. I know I know the whole app sandboxing bit. But still, it seems counterintuitive I don't have to worry if my phone's going to let me down if I'm driving a need to download some obscure parking app or if I need tap to pay to function which in the United States I do. One time I was at Costco, renewing my membership, they needed me to download the app real quick to do something on the account. But because the app wouldn't function right, my wife had to do it.

I needed to buy some ribs the other day, but I forgot my wallet. If I had tapped to pay on my phone, that wouldn't have been an issue.