The iPhone Topic

[The_Rev]

Give me iPhone hardware with KitKat OS and I'd be a happy man indeed.

Mrs E's 4S feels FANTASTIC in hand compared to my plasticy S3.

I just hope the new new nexus (Autumn '14) is a cracking phone cos that will be my next one.

You can have 'premiu

I can conclude 2 things from this post

1) you are talking in tech speak and I have no idea what you are on about

2) you were typing whilst driving a train and this has lead to some terrible rail disaster which I will shortly be reading about on the BBC.

Sadly it was option 3, I accidentally clicked the submit button before I finished typing.

[CVByrne]

Give me iPhone hardware with KitKat OS and I'd be a happy man indeed.

Mrs E's 4S feels FANTASTIC in hand compared to my plasticy S3.

I just hope the new new nexus (Autumn '14) is a cracking phone cos that will be my next one.

You can have 'premium' feeling hardware on a high end Android phone though. HTC and LG's flagship handsets feel awesome.

That is true but the wait for an update on HTC is terrible.

I wouldn't pay the premium price for the lg, I don't know why.

At least HTC update their phones eventually. LG never update their phones, it's hilarious.

But get a Google Play edition of the HTC One and you've got it. Pity the camera is a pile of junk.

It's all still compromises in the phone world at the moment. I feel the Galaxy S5 and it's play edition will be the device that ticks every box. Samsung will make it premium feeling and out of good materials. They've already acquired 2 materials companies.

[The_Lions_Roar]

What is the feel of the nexus? I thought it was premium.

[The_Rev]

It's bevelled glass on the front and a gorgeous back. It's bloody lovely.

[The_Lions_Roar]

It's bevelled glass on the front and a gorgeous back. It's bloody lovely.

Sounds premium.

[CVByrne]

Yeah but the problem with Nexus is there is corners cut and those little things keep it from being at the very top end of phones. It'll be amazing phone for the price. But always just that annoying little bit behind the best in terms of hardware.

The new Nexus will likely skimp on the G2 camera and screen. It'll be the same innards, processor, storage etc. But it'll have a cheaper screen and camera option.

The G2 screen is supposed to be jaw dropping and the camera has OIS and is superb. These are the areas to cut corners.

[peterms]

 

1. Christopher Soghoian ‏@csoghoian 1h

   Security researchers to present work showing Apple is technically capable of viewing your iMessages. (via @ @pod2g) http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2013kul/cyril-gg-quarkslab/ …

    

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2. Adrian Short ‏@adrianshort 1h

   @csoghoian @pod2g Further research is needed to see whether Apple is technically capable of delivering them.

 

[Dodgyknees]

It's bevelled glass on the front and a gorgeous back. It's bloody lovely.

Agreed.

[leviramsey]

• Christopher Soghoian ‏@csoghoian 1h

  Security researchers to present work showing Apple is technically capable of viewing your iMessages. (via @ @pod2g) http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2013kul/cyril-gg-quarkslab/ …

   

  Expand

• Adrian Short ‏@adrianshort 1h

  @csoghoian @pod2g Further research is needed to see whether Apple is technically capable of delivering them.

duh

Tech news site CNET has an interesting, but I suspect somewhat misleading, story today suggesting that text messages sent via Apple’s iMessage service—an Internet-based alternative to traditional cell phone SMS text messages—are “impossible to intercept” by law enforcement. Yet that is not quite what the document on which the story is based—an “intelligence note” distributed to law enforcement by the Drug Enfrocement Administration—actually says.

The DEA memo simply observes that, because iMessages are encrypted and sent via the Internet through Apple’s servers, a conventional wiretap installed at the cellular carrier’s facility isn’t going to catch those iMessages along with conventional text messages. Which shouldn’t exactly be surprising: A search of your postal mail isn’t going to capture your phone calls either; they’re just different communications channels. But the CNET article strongly implies that this means encrypted iMessages cannot be accessed by law enforcement at all. That is almost certainly false.

As cryptographer and computer scientist Matthew Green observes, there is a simple and intuitive way to test whether Apple (or any cloud storage provider) has the capability to access a user’s encrypted content stored in the cloud—as Apple’s iMessages are: The “mud puddle test.” If you slip in a mud puddle, destroying your iPhone (along with any locally stored encryption keys) and forgetting your passwords as a result of the bump on the head, can you still recover your data? Can you, for instance, log in from a Web browser, reset your password, and then restore your content to a new device? If you can—and with Apple’s iCloud services, you can—then the cloud provider must itself hold the keys to unlock that data. So iMessages may not be interceptable from a suspect’s cell carrier, but Apple has to be capable of handing them over when the authorities come knocking with a warrant. In fact, all Apple has to do is provide the cops with an appropriate authentication token and they should, in principle, be able to turn an ordinary iPhone into a de facto clone of the suspect’s own device—so that iMessages show up on the police phone in realtime just as the suspect receives or sends them.

In fact, there’s another big way in which iMessages should be much more convenient and useful to police than conventional text messages. As law enforcement has long complained, most cell carriers store ordinary SMS messages for a few days after they’re sent at most—and some don’t retain message content at all. That means police aren’t able to read through a suspect’s historical messages even if they obtain a search warrant—only new ones. Apple’s iMessages, however, are stored indefinitely—which is a lot more useful if you’re trying to investigate a crime that’s already occurred. That means cops should be absolutely overjoyed if drug dealers or other criminals start using iMessage instead of SMS.

Which brings us to the question of why, exactly, this sensitive law enforcement document leaked to a news outlet in the first place. It would be very strange, after all, for a cop to deliberately pass along information that could help drug dealers shield their communications from police. One reason might be to create support for the Justice Department’s longstanding campaign for legislation to require Interent providers to create backdoors ensuring police can read encrypted communications—even though in this case, the backdoor would appear to already exist.

The CNET article itself discusses this so-called “Going Dark” initiative. But another possible motive is to spread the very false impression that the article creates: That iMessages are somehow more difficult, if not impossible, for law enforcement to intercept. Criminals might then switch to using the iMessage service, which is no more immune to interception in reality, and actually provides police with far more useful data than traditional text messages can. If that’s what happened here, you have to admire the leaker’s ingenuity—but I’m inclined to think people are entitled to accurate information about the real level of security their communication enjoy.

[CVByrne]

I do love how now the NSA have all the iPhone 5S owners finger prints. NSA must be dancing after that. 

[The_Lions_Roar]

Who's NSA?

[AVFCforever1991]

I do love how now the NSA have all the iPhone 5S owners finger prints. NSA must be dancing after that. 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2013 by AVFCforever1991

[blandy]

I do love how now the NSA have all the iPhone 5S owners finger prints. NSA must be dancing after that. 

Now, to address our post-Snowden paranoia, is the NSA able to reach in and grab your fingerprints? A first question might be "why would it want to, when you leave your fingerprints all over the place, and gave them to US border control if you visited it in the past decade?" But on the basis that it just might, what's stored is an encrypted hash of a mathematical representation of your prints; it's retained in what Apple calls a "Secure Enclave" of the chip. Apple says that isn't backed up or sent off the device. As a colleague remarked, if Apple had introduced this six months ago, everyone would have been cooing; now, everyone cooks up conspiracy theories.

It's notable how none of those have attached to Android's own biometric system, Face Unlock, which apparently can be fooled with a picture from Facebook. "That's because nobody uses it," came a suggestion from Twitter. By contrast, people will use Touch ID. A lot. Some have indicated that that's why they're getting the 5s over the 5c.

grauniad

[CVByrne]

Touch to unlock is important in an iPhone as entering a pin every time you unlock is a head wrecker. Pattern to unlock on Android is quick and easy so the same feature on an Android phone wouldn't be much use. Especially as it'll have to take up room on the device, room needed for what's more useful, the screen.

I don't think this will catch on until the actual screen itself is a fingerprint reader.

[The_Rev]

Who's NSA?

Have you been living under a rock this year?

[blandy]

Touch to unlock is important in an iPhone as entering a pin every time you unlock is a head wrecker. Pattern to unlock on Android is quick and easy so the same feature on an Android phone wouldn't be much use. Especially as it'll have to take up room on the device, room needed for what's more useful, the screen.

I don't think this will catch on until the actual screen itself is a fingerprint reader.

I wonder if the fingerprint thing will catch on more because of the use of it to authorise purchases, than to unlock screens? - In the future, when we're all wearing hoverpants, fingerprint recognition instead of PINs or passwords might be the way things go.

And on the security concerns, I think some of the stuff about NSA was a little concerning, so I had a read of the internet and a think, and I kind of don't have the same view as some other people. it's not about whether it's apple or google or whoever, it's about the technology and the use of it

if you use a password with amazon, or google, or apple or whoever, on a phone, or online, then I guess that NSA and GCHQ might be able to get hold of it.

I think with fingerprints it's actually slightly different, because it's not actually your fingerprint that is "captured" by the phone. What is captured is a digital representation of x number of points on your finger or thumb or whatever you choose to use. So then the issue is, if it's just a few points, it runs the risk of being possible that someone else might have a similar result, so it's not completely secure, as it's not completely unique. As you increase the complexity of the digital representation, you increase the security, but also increase the ability of NSA or whoever to create a representation of your fingerprint from the digital "model".

Can they actually get that model from the phone? I would guiess if they could get your phone, definitely. Is the model sent to apple's (or google or amazon or etc.) servers? and is it identifiable as belonging to a particular person? I think, form reading, that the answers are "probably yes" and "not directly". But if the NSA got the data, they could likely piece it all together and have a high probability of knowing that a digital representation of a fingerprint belonged to a particular individual.

Is that bad? Well it's not good, and they shouldn't be allowed to even try to "sweep up" everybody's data of whatever sort.. But it has less consequences than them getting your passwords.

So I think I'm OK with it, it seems more secure, more convenient and less of a risk and easier to remember than PINs or passwords. 

I imagine other manufacturers will aim to introduce it to their phones and computers, too. And that's likely to be a benefit, if it's done well.

As apple phones are too expensive and too small screens for my liking, if someone else comes up with a phone that ticks all the boxes, including fingerprints, then it gives me choice.

[CVByrne]

The next iphone will definitely be 4.5 or 4.7 inch screen. We've already heard plenty about Apple testing bugger screens. They have 2 sizes for the ipad. I think they'll end up with 2 sizes for the iphone. With the smaller being made of plastic.

[limpid]

Once your fingerprint is compromised, how do you get another one?

 

Biometrics are bad authentication factors. They can all be subverted and once they are, you're screwed.

[blandy]

Once your fingerprint is compromised, how do you get another one?

 

I have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs ( I'm led to believe in some places that number would be considered low) or I could use a cat.

 

http://youtu.be/1OFW6Va1m5k

[blandy]

Perhaps they'll move onto DNA next, you know, you'll have to, er, do a sample to log in to your jPhone (iPhone will be obsolete by then)