Breaking the iPhone's encryption

For the last few days the internetz has been in an uproar. If you haven't heard then have a look at this:
Apple ordered to help the US government. For the TL;DR folks out there:

• some terrorist killers in the USA used an iPhone 5C
• the FBI want to know what was on the phone
• the phone has that lock where 10 incorrect pins wipes it
• a judge has ordered our old mates at Apple to disable the wipe function so the FBI can break in
• Apple have told them to go away and refused to do it

So, gentle reader, why do we care about this? A bit of backstory might be useful...

The iPhone has quite solid built in encryption. Check out the Apple Privacy policy here for all the goods (PDF download) https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf - lots of goodies in there. From iOS 8 onwards, the basic iPhone data was heavily encrypted, and Apple have always claimed they don't access passcodes or data. Here is their privacy policy if you'd like to have a read: Apple's Privacy Policy

Bottom line: Apple have long claimed that without the passcode an iPhone is basically inaccessible and now the FBI have a judge ordered Apple to disable this protection. This is a pretty full on hack. In his open letter, Tim Cook, the Apple CEO basically said we'll have to rewrite the code, install it on this iPhone and then let the FBI in. Oh and now that's out in the open, welcome thieves, pirates and governments who want access to iPhones! Prior to iOS 8, Apple had assisted law enforcement with access to iPhones in the past, but now they're saying we can't do this anymore. Tim Cook's letter is here: Apple Letter to our Customers and all the details are here. 

My analysis of what this means for us, the consumer, is that once again law enforcement and government have requested the capabilities to break through our privacy. At the moment, Apple users are reasonably confident of the privacy of their devices. If you lose it then best of luck to anyone try to break into it. Different to an Android device with an SD card in it - where you could pinch the SD card and get whatever you want, unless it's encrypted. The iPhone does this already. I was looking the other day at the security of Apple Notes. It's encrypted on the device, in iCloud (if you use it) and in transit between the two. I'm not sure it's encrypted on your Mac though - something to check. My point is that the security is pretty good out of the box. Not being a chap involved in dodgy behaviour I've never had a real need to have heavy protection on my iPhone but I was certainly pleased to see that I had decent encryption on the device. 

I think there's a parallel here between Pandora's Box and introducing a back door into iOS. When Pandora opened the box and let evil into the world the big corporations were born (yes I have a hate for them and yes I'm aware of the inherent irony of using Blogger to write this - a part of the biggest corporation Google!), in this instance, once the iPhone's security is broken to allow law enforcement  a backdoor in, that's a genie that doesn't go back into the bottle. From there, it's relatively easy to see how the police or feds get compromised and that backdoor gets into the wild. Voila! No security any more for people's devices and anything you put on them might as well be in the public domain. Apple have said they won't comply with the order and that it's technically very difficult. I believe them. Encryption is tricky at the best of times and getting it right is hard. Breaking back into it, once you've worked so hard to establish it isn't easy. 

This story has garnered a lot of press in the last few days and there are plenty of people talking about it which is important. The right to privacy, which I think is closely linked to the core desire for security of oneself is critical. I hope that Apple fight this one hard and/or make it incredibly difficult for the hack to be repeated. I understand law enforcement need access to stuff to prosecute etc. I do understand that. But with so much warrantless invasion of privacy I'm not inclined to be a huge supporter. In a small scale this probably seems callous - those poor people murdered by the crazies and I don't want to know the truth about it all! Shame on you ryv! But in the broader scope, this affects all iPhone user's security and I'm concerned about that too. 

I'll be keeping an eye on this issue as it develops - if you're an iPhone user, you should too.

Things I'd like to see on the iPhone

The number one thing I'd like to see on the iPhone is to be able to turn push mail on and off according to time automatically. My venerable e66 had this - it would check my mail faithfully throughout the day between 8am and 6pm and then stop. It did wonders for the battery life and for my sleep patterns. If I inadvertantly forget to disable this when I go to bed, nagios wakes me up as it's monitoring failing servers or systems.

In fact, the ability to have auto on/off dependent on time is something that the iPhone could apply to a bunch more things too - like changes of ringtones etc. It's probably too hard to do for Apple so as my old dad says - wish in one hand and pee in the other and see which hand fills up the quickest!

The other thing I'd like is for a slightly more robust design, but hey - you can't have everything. My Motorola Backflip (MB300) is more rugged and seems to go pretty well.

Review: Motorola Backflip - an update

So after having used the Backflip for a while now I can offer some insights.

Firstly I have had to reset it to factory default and re-install everything. The reason was simple - the damn phone was resetting at random intervals and when I need to make a call... an urgent call to Police, the bastard thing wouldn't work and reset twice before I was able to get through. Completely unacceptable and I was ready to throw it out the bloody window and stamp on it. After recovering from my hissy fit, I reset it on advice from my local Optus dealer and re-installed some of the applications. One of the most commonly installed apps - Advanced Task Killer lite - was causing all of the grief. I paid for it and have had no problems since then so I'm happier.

I've played with lots of widgets and things and found that once the phone's uptime reaches about 400 hours, it needs a reset. If you aren't making a lot of changes it's settled and you can leave it for longer without any problems. Current uptime on my phone is 450 hours plus. Battery life can be affected by some of the crap you install on it, so be wary about what you do install and what you've got enabled on it. I found with bluetooth and wifi enabled the battery lasted about a day. Without those two added I got 3 days out of it which is quite acceptable (especially with the number of calls I made during those days). GPS also seems to impact battery life significantly.

Generally I've found the phone functions to be good, texting to be acceptable and email to be acceptable. The Gmail sync has been very good so that's all very nice. The touch screen is quite good and the keyboard is also pretty good although I find the tactile response from it somewhat lacking at times. I wouldn't want to write an essay on it for example. I've been using the "Beautiful Widgets" set and find the weather is excellent. I've also got various other things running like System Info and System Panel. I don't mind spending a little bit on these things and find the application support better on the Backflip than on my iPhone 3GS. Performance on both is much the same.

I really like Android though. There is something about the interface options, the many applications and the performance with such moderate specs that appeals to me. I find the Apple way to be a more difficult way to understand and since upgrading (forced to) to iOS 4, my iPhone is slower and has demonstrated more problems. It won't unlock at times which I find exceedingly frustrating. In conclusion, I am now much happier with my Backflip than I was - trial and error getting the right software has become an interesting exercise rather than a frustrating one.

Review: Motorola Backflip

Just recently my beloved Nokia e66 passed away in a freak water related accident (read: it fell in the loo). I was far enough through my contract that I was able to update to the Backflip. I'd been looking at Android mobile phones for a while now to see if I could find one that would be suitable for what I do and the Backflip looked like it fit the bill. I want a phone that does the following:

• email
• texting
• simple games
• WiFi
• good application support

The Backflip specs didn't fill me with excitement initially but it does have something I really like - a full QWERTY keyboard. Although the onscreen keyboard of the device is pretty good and the screen is big enough I can drive it easily, I like the tactile feedback of real keys. My iPhone drives me crazy periodically with typing difficulties and so the Backflip came into it's own with this.

Prior to purchasing the Backflip I noted that there were quite a few reviews out there that paid out on the phone for it's lack of application support - that it wasn't able to deploy 3rd party apps and you were restricted to Motorola applications that work with it's specialised user interface called MotoBlur. I found this to be inaccurate and that you are able to install 3rd party apps, without any fancy hacking or anything else. The number of apps available is immense and certainly as large as the Apple iTunes store. Motoblur is a specialised interface designed by Motorola and it is this which is currently holding the Backflip at Android 1.5. Apparently in the next quarter it's designed to be upgraded to Android 2.1.

The phone is very usable - as both a phone (!) and as a mobile email/texting device. I don't use Facebook or Twitter or MySpace so I don't have all the feeds coming in - but that's what this device is geared for. It's supposed to be able to keep you up to date with all the trivia of your friends' lives and so forth. For me, that just makes life more complex and kills your battery! After a full days use of email/text and voice calls, I still have 70% battery life at the end of the day. Given that the Backflip as a USB port it's easy to charge it from laptop or desktop PCs. I like the flip of the keyboard too - it's a nice little keyboard to use and provides reasonable tactile feedback. The screen flip works well too and the screen itself is bright and easy to read.

Although the phone is sometimes a bit slow to do things this is generally because I'll leave a lot of apps open. The memory management is pretty good though and sorts itself out relatively quickly. I use a task management app to clean the RAM up periodically and get it working happily again.

As a phone, the speaker is clear and it generally has good reception. It's a light phone and it's comfortable on the ear when I'm in a call. Even one call lasting 45 minutes didn't leave me with a numb ear as sometimes happens with my iPhone.

All in all I find the Backflip to be a good phone and I'm happy to have it. I'm very much looking forward to the upgrade to Android 2.1 which should be soon.

iPhone App store compared to Nokia Ovi Store

Recently I was given an iPhone for work. Given that I use an e66 Nokia for my personal stuff I thought I'd compare and contrast the two devices' application stores. Ovi vs iTunes. Clearly the base operating systems are significantly different - Symbian S60 3rd Edition (e66) vs iPhone OS (iPhone (naturally)). Clearly given the differences in the OSes, the iPhone seems to lead itself to better application support. This, plus Apple getting in first, have given the iPhone a significantly better application store, variety and apparent implementation of user provided applications. I'm quite sure that Nokia wanted to get on board with this, but given that Apple got there first I'm not sure they'll catch them. The Ovi store is still developing from what I can tell and the phone based interface to it is not terribly impressive. Taking into account the difference in the user interface (non-touch phone vs touch phone), the iPhone is still better. Navigating the Nokia Ovi menu is poor and at times damn confusing. Tap tap installed - iPhone kicks butt.

The breadth and depth of the available apps is a telling point too - Ovi doesn't have the depth nor the breadth of the iTunes store. There are a few points which mitigate this though. For example, the e66 does not require you to jump through a bunch of hoops like converting mp3's to some other format to get it in as a ringtone. So to a certain degree the ringtone downloads isn't quite as important - hence the Ovi store doesn't need the same level of focus - the customer demand is probably not as great. The iTunes store though, has millions clamouring to change the default ringtones to something reasonable. So it stands to reason they'd have to provide a better service. Also given iTunes focus initially on the iPod and music etc the background development for iTunes was already there and done. Nokia is playing catch up all the way and trying to develop this revenue stream. So the question is - will the community support behind the Ovi store be as great over time as what it appears to be for iTunes?

In the interests of full disclosure I really like both of these phones. I really like making and receiving calls on my Nokia and not have to charge it every single day. I really like the awesome utilities on the iPhone and I especially like the onscreen board for sending texts and emails. I'll compare and contrast the phones in another post but at this point, they both have many pluses and minuses.

In conclusion, the iPhone store - iTunes kicks the butt of the Nokia store Ovi.