Irreal has been preaching for years about the dangers of giving the nannies a backdoor into our private communications. They scream, “Think of the children” at us and insist that they’re the good guys and be trusted to safeguard our privacy. It’s laughable, of course.
Say whatever you want about Apple but they have always said “No” to such requests and have even gone to court to defend their right to do so. Chris Smith, over at BGR, makes an excellent point. The recent breach of the law enforcement wiretap infrastructure at AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen by the Chinese Hacking group Salt Typhoon shows that there’s no such thing as a secure backdoor, and that Apple was right to refuse to pretend that there is.
As Smith points out, this wire tapping interface was exactly that the nannies want: a backdoor into the communication channel. And yet, hackers have been inside the system for months or longer, downloading information and otherwise abusing the system.
I think it’s wrong to put this down to incompetence—even though the government’s involved. As most Irreal readers know, once a system becomes known and has Internet access, it will be breached. The same is true for a putative iPhone backdoor.
It will become known because the first time law enforcement uses it to gather evidence, the defense will insist on learning where they got the data and they will either have to reveal the backdoor or let the criminal walk.
Once it’s known that the backdoor exists, hackers everywhere will work on breaching it. Remember, these attackers will include nation states with virtually unlimited resources. The prize is great enough that it would be worth throwing whatever resources are required to obtain it. My guess is that everyone will be surprised at how fast that happens.
The snake oil salesmen will tell you they have a foolproof system that’s perfectly safe. Don’t believe them. They’re no more reliable than their progenitors. If we want our communications secure, we must continue to insist that there be no backdoors.
Added during publication
Bruce Schneier makes the same point.