Examined: The new MacBook Pro Touch Bar and Apple's T1 authentication chip
While Apple won't detail the T1 to any significant depth to avoid exploits, some details on how the Touch Bar works in conjunction with the new T1 chip have surfaced -- including what happens if the Touch Bar needs to be replaced. AppleInsider explains.
Apple introduced the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar on Thursday, and as part of the assembly, it contains a sapphire Touch ID sensor on the right hand side above the delete key. Touch ID by itself wouldn't be possible as Apple has implemented it on the iPhone without some sort of dedicated, secure chipset.
The company has also included what it has dubbed the T1 chipset. The new chipset, debuting on the MacBook Pro implements Apple's secure enclave, independent of macOS and the Intel processor contained within.
The remaining 1370 pixels in the approximate center of the bar is the application region for general usage.
"Sure, there's some commonalities between it and the Watch, given that they're both ARM, with some shared engineers and design philosophies," we were told. "But, to call it an Apple Watch [SoC] variant isn't accurate at all."
"There has always been a common core between OS X, and iOS, and by extension, the Apple Watch -- just like Steve [Jobs] said way back in the day," our Apple source added. "Just because the same routines are used, and some of the same API calls doesn't mean that the chip is the same, not at all."
Some other claims by Troughton-Smith were confirmed as being generally correct, however.
"The Touch Bar theoretically could run while the rest of the machine is turned off," said Troughton-Smith. "So you get all the low-power and security benefits of an iOS device, without having to switch to ARM completely on the desktop."
Parts of the Touch Bar run already independently of macOS, as the bar is used to turn on the computer, and authenticate a user.
Troughton-Smith's remarks are further borne out by alleged remarks from Apple Senior Vice President of Software Craig Federighi made in an email to a customer. When asked if the Touch Bar turned into a regular function bar in Boot Camp, Federighi allegedly confirmed the behavior.
If the statement actually came from the executive, it proves that the bar is independent of macOS Sierra itself.
According to our sources inside Apple, the company is expecting similar numbers for the Touch Bar, as it sees for broken input devices.
AppleInsider has learned there is no association procedure between a service stock generic Touch Bar, and the T1 inside the MacBook Pro. As a result, at least for now, if the Track Bar needs replacing for any reason, so does the T1.
Troughton-Smith believes that the front-facing camera in the new MacBook Pro is governed by the secure enclave in the T1, so it is possible that a failure of any of the related components would necessitate a three-part swap. Our source specifically said that they "would neither confirm nor deny" that statement.
The 2016 MacBook Pro family, announced Thursday, is a major redesign to Apple's flagship notebook, and comes in screen sizes of 13 and 15 inches, with core models starting at $1,799. Shipping will start for the Touch Bar-equipped machines in ?to three weeks, but four to five-week delays in receipt have already been reported.
AppleInsider was at the event, and was able to spend some time with all the latest hardware.
To grab the lowest prices on Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, see AppleInsider's Mac Price Guide.
Apple introduced the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar on Thursday, and as part of the assembly, it contains a sapphire Touch ID sensor on the right hand side above the delete key. Touch ID by itself wouldn't be possible as Apple has implemented it on the iPhone without some sort of dedicated, secure chipset.
The company has also included what it has dubbed the T1 chipset. The new chipset, debuting on the MacBook Pro implements Apple's secure enclave, independent of macOS and the Intel processor contained within.
Resolution details of the Touch Bar
The Touch Bar is essentially a USB 2180x80 display, mounted for optimal viewing at a 45 degree angle. Apple reserves 128 pixels on the left as the "system button," and 608 pixels on the right for the "control strip," including Touch ID prompts -- but not the sensor itself, which sits to the right of the Touch Bar.The remaining 1370 pixels in the approximate center of the bar is the application region for general usage.
Where does the T1 come from?
Developer Steven Troughton-Smith claimed that the T1 is similar to the system-on-a-chip used in the Apple Watch, telling The Verge that the chip is a "variant" of the S1 in the Apple Watch. However, sources within Apple that AppleInsider has spoken with calls the remark an over-generalization of the technology.If the Track Bar needs replacing for any reason, so does the T1.
"Sure, there's some commonalities between it and the Watch, given that they're both ARM, with some shared engineers and design philosophies," we were told. "But, to call it an Apple Watch [SoC] variant isn't accurate at all."
"There has always been a common core between OS X, and iOS, and by extension, the Apple Watch -- just like Steve [Jobs] said way back in the day," our Apple source added. "Just because the same routines are used, and some of the same API calls doesn't mean that the chip is the same, not at all."
Some other claims by Troughton-Smith were confirmed as being generally correct, however.
"The Touch Bar theoretically could run while the rest of the machine is turned off," said Troughton-Smith. "So you get all the low-power and security benefits of an iOS device, without having to switch to ARM completely on the desktop."
Parts of the Touch Bar run already independently of macOS, as the bar is used to turn on the computer, and authenticate a user.
Troughton-Smith's remarks are further borne out by alleged remarks from Apple Senior Vice President of Software Craig Federighi made in an email to a customer. When asked if the Touch Bar turned into a regular function bar in Boot Camp, Federighi allegedly confirmed the behavior.
If the statement actually came from the executive, it proves that the bar is independent of macOS Sierra itself.
Fixing the Touch Bar at the Genius Bar
As a user-facing component, the Touch Bar and integrated Touch ID sensor will see a lot of wear. According to data gleaned by AppleInsider around five percent of all service calls for macOS and iOS devices at Apple retail stores are about physically broken screens, with another two percent being macOS broken input devices like keyboards or trackpads.According to our sources inside Apple, the company is expecting similar numbers for the Touch Bar, as it sees for broken input devices.
AppleInsider has learned there is no association procedure between a service stock generic Touch Bar, and the T1 inside the MacBook Pro. As a result, at least for now, if the Track Bar needs replacing for any reason, so does the T1.
Troughton-Smith believes that the front-facing camera in the new MacBook Pro is governed by the secure enclave in the T1, so it is possible that a failure of any of the related components would necessitate a three-part swap. Our source specifically said that they "would neither confirm nor deny" that statement.
The 2016 MacBook Pro family, announced Thursday, is a major redesign to Apple's flagship notebook, and comes in screen sizes of 13 and 15 inches, with core models starting at $1,799. Shipping will start for the Touch Bar-equipped machines in ?to three weeks, but four to five-week delays in receipt have already been reported.
AppleInsider was at the event, and was able to spend some time with all the latest hardware.
To grab the lowest prices on Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, see AppleInsider's Mac Price Guide.
Comments
2) I think this makes it clear that the Touch Bar's display, communication, Touch ID, and Apple Pay are all within this single chip. I still wonder how this will play out for a separate, wireless display for future desktop Macs and how this will work with Boot Camp or a VM with Windows.
There's a problem with authentication. The T1 does all the authentication of the TouchID sensor, and then sends a signal saying "This is OK". So no actual secure information would be sent over Bluetooth, but the OK signal would be vulnerable to spoofing. The simplest way to get round that, would be to go back to a wired keyboard. Assuming Apple doesn't want to do that, and I suspect they don't, the only way, as far as I can tell, would be implementing a token system, much the same as you might use for 2-Factor Authentication.
Actually, I think I just convinced myself it's a lot easier than I initially thought. It would just be another layer of tokenisation, which actually should be relatively easy to implement, assuming it doesn't already do that.
I can't imagine they won't roll this functionality into other machines, I just wonder how far back they'll go with support. Anyone know of any issues that would preclude their selling the functionality in keyboards that could be paired with older machines?
You really think this is overlay to quickly adjust a color is a great solution?
Once Apple does this, it should be easy for government installations to get full approval for its use, especially on mobile devices going to other countries.
https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/yosemite-filevault/
This encrypts the disk using a long random key. The device master key is wrapped up using user passwords so when a user logs in, it decrypts the master key. The master key is held in RAM so that the storage can be accessed efficiently but this can be a security risk. Holding this key in a secure chip/enclave would mean that system processes couldn't access it.
External drives can be easily encrypted using the same process:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21791?locale=en_US
It takes a long time for hard drives but SSDs are ok. It asks for the password when connecting an external volume.
The secure enclave stores fingerprint data, which would be usable as an intermediate key just like login passwords.
Google "passwords fingerprints faces 4th Amendment" and it comes up with a number of "potentially-frightening-possibility articles".