Well we do know you can copy anything, if you have physical access to hardware, and we do know apple bakes in a unique 256 bit key into every cpu, and we do know that all the other hardware has to be digitally signed by apple to work together, and we do know that appled can sign code with their own master key that any phone will accept as original and legit.
It doesn’t meave many possibilities.
1/ The FBI can’t crack the phone, but the NSA can, and they aren’t saying anything or sharing anything with the FBI.
2/ The FBI has a device that will brute force the passkey, provided the ten tries and you are either out, or no more tries for 1 hour, device is desabled.
3/ Apple is not stating that what the FBI wants is *technically* impossible, therefore it is technically possible.
4/ The FBI can write the code it needs to break the device, it just lacks the apple master key signing bit, can apple please digitally sign the FBI code as authentic apple code so the phone will accept it…
5/ Nobody who is silent, eg NSA CIA et al, eg everyone except apple and the FBI, has the ability to do this, eg they already have a backdoor or a secret copy of the apple master key.
6/ Many of those who are silent *can* do this, but pretend ignorance to preserve an asset ability.
7/ The FBI is lying, and since apple are not outing the lie, if there is one, the FBI and Apple are in cahoots to bolster apple stock and reputation.
It gets better.
Apple do not ever sell a single device, they basically never have, what they do is licence it’s use to you.
Assuming that it is possible with the newer crapple phones, creating a user encryption key that NOBODY could bypass, not even apple, is effectively making that licence null and void… I’m not talking about bricking the device and still be paying the monthly fees, I’m talking about using the device *exclusively* to create and distribute kiddie porn, and the device works, and *nobody* but the owner can get into it…. fully functioning no backdoor no workaround no fail encryption.
Bear with me here.
We now have (in theory) a device that I shall call the Seekrit Skwirrel Safe ™ hereafter referred to by the acronym SSS.
Only the owner of each SSS can open it, no exceptions, not the NSA, FBI, Disney, TSA, Crapple, nobody but the owner can open it.
SSS’s become a huge hit, and some very small number will be used by persons hiding detailed plans on how to fly a space shuttle into the eiffel tower, and some very small number of persons to stash pictures and videos of themselves fucking very small children, but 99.99% of SSS’s will be used by everyone else.
They will hold the duplicate set of books that the tax man doesn’t know about, the details of the boyfriend/gilrfriend/spare property/stocks/bank account that the wife/husband/tax man doesn’t know about, and so on and so forth.
The argument goes, that should anyone, say the FBI, use the information contained in the SSS to convict you, then the cat is out of the bag and everyone will know that the unbreakable encryption of the SSS has a secret big brother back door.
For the feeble minded, sure, this is an argument that will stand all of ten seconds, give me ANY of the scenarios detailed above, let’s say the fact that you, one Fred Smith, owns a lockup in Sadville with a classic 67 vette inside, that your wife Wilma knows nothing about (and maybe the tax man) and I can go from that hard factual data to create a trail off to some other place, that I can then follow back to you, without you ever suspecting that your SSS had a backdoor.
What’s that, gas leak from the lockup next to yours, authorities called, they check the properties either side, follow that lease agrement (or the vehicle licence) back through a bank account to an Aunti Sue who gets a visist who… whatever… you get the picture.
You’ll never suspect that that is all bullshit and the state had the backdoor keys to your SSS, especially since you have that *other* shit in there too….
Meanwhile every paedo / terrist bust is excused by the fact that the swat team just happened to kick down the door while the perp had the virtual door of the SSS left open, no private key needed, and the perp is full of lead now anyway, fucking paedo terrist…
BUT EVEN THAT ISN’T THE KICKER
By definition, since SSS is unbreakable, if the state says Fred Smith’s SSS was full of kiddie porn, then the only person who can say different is someone who has access to Fred Smith’s SSS, which is Fred Smith and anyone Fred Smith was foolish enough, or CONSPIRING WITH, to share his private key with, and I’m lookin at you Joe Brown, you telling me Fred Smith was innocent??? hmm???
My Mistake Officer, says Joe Brown, after all, he was a neighbour for four years and always seemed like such a quiet unassuming guy.
SSS is inviolate.
It also means Fred Smith could not possibly have been a genuinely innocent man, because they encryption is inviolate, by definition, nobody but Fred Smith had access, therefore Fred Smith is the guilty dead perp.
Because if you DID have backdoor access to all the SSS on the planet, well, *that* is a secret several orders of magnitude greater in value and importance than Apple’s master code signing key.
And in 2016AD there are still people out there who believe that something so easy to compromise via humint as a corporate master code signing key has not already been compromised, by a company allegedly headed by an english fag with vague historical ties with GCHQ, who has absolutely no faggy/pervy skeletons in his closet, oh no sir, nothing to see here but purest driven snow.
No, let’s all obsess about stupid courts and stupid FBI and noble apple resisting efforts by big daddy state to force them under amendment 13 to perform slave labour on behalf of the state and decrypt one lousy raghead terrist padeo scum iphone…