Here is a question that keeps me up at night…
Is the San Bernardino iPhone just locked or is it properly encrypted?
Isn’t full encryption beyond the reach of forensic investigators? So we come to the real question: If critical data on the San Bernardino iPhone is properly encrypted, and if the Islamic terrorist who shot innocent Americans used a good password, then what is it that the FBI thinks that Apple can do to help crack this phone? Doesn’t good encryption thwart forensic analysis, even by the FBI and the maker of the phone?
In the case of Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone, the FBI doesn’t know if the shooter used a long and sufficiently unobvious password. They plan to try a rapid-fire dictionary attack and other predictive algorithms to deduce the password. But the content of the iPhone is protected by a closely coupled hardware feature that will disable the phone and even erase memory, if it detects multiple attempts with the wrong password. The FBI wants Apple to help them defeat this hardware sentry, so that they can launch a brute force hack—trying thousands of passwords each second. Without Apple’s help, the crack detection hardware could automatically erase incriminating evidence, leaving investigators in the dark.
Mitch Vogel is an Apple expert. As both a former police officer and one who has worked with Apple he succinctly explains the current standoff between FBI investigators and Apple.
The iPhone that the FBI has is locked with a passcode and encrypted. It can only be decrypted with the unique code. Not even Apple has that code or can decrypt it. Unlike what you see in the movies, it’s not possible for a really skilled hacker to say “It’s impossible“” and then break through it with enough motivation. Encryption really is that secure and it’s really impossible to break without the passcode.
What the FBI wants to do is brute force the passcode by trying every possible combination until they guess the right one. However, to prevent malicious people from using this exact technique, there is a security feature that erases the iPhone after 10 attempts or locks it for incrementally increasing time periods with each attempt. There is no way for the FBI (or Apple) to know if the feature that erases the iPhone after 10 tries is enabled or not, so they don’t even want to try and risk it.
So the FBI wants Apple to remove that restriction. That is reasonable. They should, if it is possible to do so without undue burden. The FBI should hand over the iPhone to Apple and Apple should help them to crack it.
However, this isn’t what the court order is asking Apple to do. The FBI wants Apple to create software that disables this security feature on any iPhone and give it to them. Even if it’s possible for this software to exist, it’s not right for the FBI to have it in their possession. They should have to file a court order every single time they use it. The FBI is definitely using this situation as an opportunity to create a precedent and give it carte blanche to get into any iPhone without due process.
So the answer to your question is that yes it is that secure and yes, it’s a ploy by the FBI. Whether it’s actually possible for Apple to help or not is one question and whether they should is another. Either way, the FBI should not have that software.
Ever since Facebook purchased Oculus in 2014, Mark Zuckerberg has been speaking to promise of virtual reality as the next communications platform. Yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona he punctuated those thoughts with a big announcement – the creation of an internal team dedicated to Social VR.
Led by Daniel James and Mike Booth, the team will work closely with Oculus as well as other divisions within Facebook to explore and build the future of social interaction in VR, the company says.
Facebook describes their work in VR as “still early” but Oculus has been working to lay the groundwork themselves with experiences like Toybox and an upcoming social SDK that will allow developers to easily implement key multiplayer and networking features into their experiences. In fact, Oculus’ dedication to Social VR is “the reason why [they’re] part of Facebook,” Oculus founder Palmer Luckey told us earlier this year.
Still the idea of a metaverse – a giant interconnected world like the ones in Snow Crash or Ready Player One – is something far off.
“It’s not happening in the immediate future,” Luckey said, “we’d much rather work and get this right over a longer period of time than rush into it at the start and be constrained by the design decisions that we make.” He says that it will take VR reaching a “critical mass” for there to be enough data to know how best to design how the future of social interaction will look.
While it may take a while for VR to reach that critical mass Samsung’s announcement that they plan to bundle a GearVR with every Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge preorder could potentially accelerate the process. Last year Samsung reportedly received over 20 million preorders for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge and while Samsung says the GearVR giveaway is “while supplies last” if they give away even a tenth of that it would significantly accelerate the growth of VR’s user base, which in turn could accelerate the growth and need for social VR.
Full event: https://youtu.be/dz057r6hGj4
Watch Mark Zuckerberg talks at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016: VR is the next social platform.
At Samsung’s Unpacked event — where the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge were revealed — Zuckerberg explained about his fascination with VR and how he has been dreaming of using the technology since the age of 11.
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Posted in internet, mobile phones, neuroscience, physics | Leave a Comment on This Is What WIFI, Cell Phones, iPads & More Are Doing Your Child’s Brain – 100 + Scientists Are Now Petitioning The UN
Meet the opponents of BMIs & their report.
*This article only represents a very small fraction of the research regarding the dangers associated with these devices. We encourage you to further your own research, and just wanted to provide a base to let you know that it’s something more of us need to pay attention to.
Did you know that a child’s brain absorbs much more radiation than that of an adult?
Dr. Martin Blank, Ph.D., from the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Colombia University, has joined a group of scientists from around the world who are making an international appeal to the United Nations regarding the dangers associated with the use of various electromagnetic emitting devices, like cells phones and WiFi.
LG has released the latest iteration of its flagship smartphone called the G5, and it’s got some interesting features that make it stand out from the rest of the pack. You can remove to bottom to change the battery or attach a number of other compatible devices.
Produced by Chris Snyder
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I could see dry cleaners in the future being one that you drive up, drop your clothing in a bin (like a drop off box), key in your name and phone number on a kiosk, you get a ticket, a self driving van/ truck collects from the drop off box, the robotics cleaner cleans and processes your clothes. You come to the dry cleaning center, you pay, and collect your clothes.
Also, if you opt to have your clothes delivered; at time of drop off you will be required to prepay and enter in your address at the drop off point. And, a drone delivers to your address.
Ironing sucks, but it’s the kind of precise activity that usually stumps robots. But no longer, because a wonderful team of engineers has developed a robot that can smooth the creases right out of your most wrinkled pair of pants.
The team has published a paper on the arXiv server that describes a new robotic system to smooth cloth using a regular iron. Using two Xbox Kinects, the system scans the surface of whatever it needs to smooth then works out the best way to iron it. The team explains in its abstract:
We present a novel solution to analyse the cloth surface by fusing two surface scan techniques: a curvature scan and a discontinuity scan. The curvature scan can estimate the height deviation of the cloth surface, while the discontinuity scan can effectively detect sharp surface features, such as wrinkles. We use this information to detect the regions that need to be pulled and extended before ironing, and the other regions where we want to detect wrinkles and apply ironing to remove the wrinkles.
FBI not able to hack a phone is really starting to make them look really bad. Granted Apple has created a more advance encryption format on their phones; however, FBI is supposed to be a lot more advance than this.
Why would you want your smart phone encrypted? To protect the information on it should it get lost or stolen, and to ensure no one has tampered with your data.
