[Cryptography] Is Apple correct?

[Bernie Cosell]

On 19 Feb 2016 at 5:53, CANNON NATHANIEL CIOTA wrote:

> My question is, how can the FBI's demands be considered a backdoor 
> affecting anyone as if I understand correctly, would affect only the one
> specific device?
> If the firmware is programmed to only work on a phone with that specific
> IMEI number signed by Apple, am I correct that the firmware could not be
> modified to work on any other device since the signature would not 
> match?

I don't think we can/do know that.  If it has an IMEI hard coded into it, 
what would prevent a hacker/government who obtained a copy of it from 
hard coding a different IMEI into it [or making it IMEI agnostic 
entirely].

On the theory that only the FBI (and a few people at Apple) knows the 
IMEI of the affected phone, it is possible they could construct a patch 
and encrypt it using the IMEI as the key.  That *might* prevent hackers 
[and other governments] from using it on other phones [but not the FBI: 
since they know the target IMEI, *they* could decrypt the patch and we're 
back where we started with a potential back door leaking out].

So I think it'll be very hard to make this a really secure 
security-breach [is that an oxymoron?? :o)].

    /Bernie\

-- 
Bernie Cosell                     Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com     Pearisburg, VA
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