Friday, March 4, 2016

Chip Hacking Might Help FBI Unlock iPhones


With all the buzz about Apple not giving the Government access to a back door/bypass for the IPhone the FBI still maybe able to access the data anyways according to Julia Elvidge, president of Chipworks Inc. It would have to be done by physically removing the processor chip and using an ion beam to precisely extract the 1 and 0 in order to unscramble the UID key, and information could then be migrated to a PC to view the information on the phone. This process has never been attempted on an iPhone, and is only hypothetical, but similar processes have been done successfully on other hi-tech electronics. Not to mention, it would take an extensive amount of time, effort, resources, and money to accomplish this. If any mistakes happened during the process important data or all data could be compromised. Prior to the iPhone 5 extracting the data would have been very easy, users who had older iPhone remember getting them "jail broke," this was achievable due to the security or lack of implemented into the processor chip.
  
I thought this article was interesting because we had discussed the Apple topic in class and this is a perfect example of the Governments reach. Even if Apple does not provide them with a back door to their security they can find one anyway at the cost of the American tax payers. This is only good publicity for Apple because it make their products security look unbreakable, when in reality we all know it is not. It is also naive to think that the FBI could not get into the iPhone if they really wanted to. I am an iPhone user myself, and I am happy to hear that it is not that easy to bypass the security, but I also know it is not impossible.

The relevance this article has to marketing can be looked at from many angles. Apple is instilling confidence in their products, and in the consumers who purchase these products. Apple is also reinforcing it's reputation of being trust worthy as a company by not simply giving over a customers information to the Government. The biggest marketing perk, is all the free publicity that Apple is receiving and while it may not improve sales of current and future phones it will definitely not diminish it either.

1 comment:

  1. The amount of time and effort of retrieving and processing all the 1 and 0 bits into real data is such tedious and time consuming. That will disadvantage for the investigator because it will slow down the process of the case. Also, imagine if this method become common, it will bring great stress on both consumers and companies. Consumers will be paranoid of using mobile devices, which can decrease the demand of mobile technology.

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