The Apple ID password linked to the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino terrorists was changed less than 24 hours after the government took possession of the device, senior Apple executives said Friday. If that hadn’t happened, Apple said, a backup of the information the government was seeking may have been accessible.
Apple Inc. has hired legal heavyweights Theodore Olson and Theodore Boutrous to fight a court order that it assist the Federal Bureau of Investigation in unlocking an iPhone as part of the investigation into the San Bernardino, Calif., terror attack.
Mr. Olson, a former Solicitor General, is best known for representing George W. Bush in the contested 2000 election against former Vice President Al Gore that was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. In 2009, Mr. Olson, a conservative, joined with with his opposing counsel in Bush v. Gore, David Boies, to challenge a California ban on gay marriage.
But the legal precedent that may be set here matters. By using All Writs, the government is attempting to circumvent the constitutionally serious character of the many questions about encryption and privacy. It is demanding, in effect, that the courts build a back door to the back-door debate.
Not only is Apple being ordered to compromise their own devices; they’re being ordered to give that golden key to the government, in a very roundabout sneaky way. What FBI has requested will inevitably force Apple’s methods out into the open, where they can be ingested by government agencies looking to do the same thing. They will also be exposed to private forensics companies, who are notorious for reverse engineering and stealing other people’s intellectual property. Should Apple comply in providing a tool, it will inevitably end up abused and in the wrong hands.
But will this case ever need to see a court room? Absolutely, they’ve already admitted they’re following leads and looking at (or at lest for) other people. If a relative or anyone else involved is prosecuted, these tools will come up in court. Outside of this one case, you’re no doubt aware of the precedent this sets, and the likelihood this tool won’t be used once, but many times, each having to establish courtroom acceptance in different jurisdictions, different defense challenges, giving the software to more parties for analysis and reproducible results, and so on.
The Secure Enclave adds an additional line of defense against attacks by implementing core security and cryptography features in a separate CPU within Apple's hardware. This separate CPU runs special software and is walled off from the rest of the system, placing it outside the control of the main OS, including the kernel. The Secure Enclave implements device passcode verification, file encryption, Touch ID recognition, and Apple Pay, and enforces security restrictions such as the escalating delays applied after excessive incorrect passcode attempts.
Playlists are one of iTunes’ most useful features, but they can be confounding. In this week’s column, I look at three questions about playlists. I discuss why playlists in folders are suddenly not staying in alphabetical order; I explain how to make a playlist to find all the songs and albums that you have “love” in iTunes; and I show how you can add the same song more than once to a playlist, to hear your favorites more often.
The highlights of the new version include 3D Touch features, Spotlight search support, and an actual password manager.
Ever been annoyed by one Mac app blurting out sound at a volume that’s too low, while the next is too high? Well, shocker! There’s an app for that.
For iOS users with lots of photo/video content, it is an easy way to expand storage and/or backup on the go. I often buy Apple's minimum memory devices because of the irritating storage pricing.
Apparently, only a small percentage of all of the MacBook Pros made during that period are affected with the problem, which manifests itself as distorted or missing video and random restarts. The devices include 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pros manufactured in 2011, and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros from mid 2012 to early 2013.
But while the popularity of podcasts is on the rise, many big-name advertisers are still wary about committing serious portions of their marketing budgets toward the medium.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view,” Atticus Finch tells his daughter, Scout, in one of the most memorable passages of the classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” — “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Few people in the world could claim to really understand Harper Lee, the novel’s elusive author, who died Feb. 19 at 89 in Monroeville, Ala.
Why can't I back up my iPhone directly to Time Capsules?
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Thanks for reading.