Manhattan DA's office says it has 423 uncracked Apple devices in evidence room
The Manhattan district attorney's office now has 423 uncrackable devices in its evidence room, all of them Apple products running iOS 8 or later, according to a new report.
Of these, the iPhone 6 is the most common by model with 166 units, Fortune said in a profile of the office's new digital crime lab, quoting official numbers. The 6 Plus ranks a distant second at 66, followed by the iPhone 6s (63). Distribution skews largely towards iPhones made in the last two years -- in fact the office has just a single uncracked iPhone 4S.
Also in storage are 30 uncracked iPads, though the DA's office didn't identify these by model.
The largest share of the devices, 36 percent, were seized in cases involving electronic crimes and/or identity theft. 24 percent are connected to drug investigations, while much smaller numbers are related to charges like assault, murder, or sex crimes.
As recently as Sept. 2015, the office had less than 100 uncrackable iOS devices. An unexplained surge appears to have taken place between November and December of that year.
iOS 8, 9, and 10 all offer full-disk encryption, making it nearly impossible for anyone -- including Apple -- to access data on a device without its owner supplying the passcode. On products with Touch ID the situation is even more complex -- while a person can potentially be compelled to supply their fingerprint, there's a limited time window in which to do so, and physical hacks may run into problems with the Secure Enclave.
DA Cyrus Vance has been an outspoken critic of Apple's encryption policies. While Apple has maintained that people have a right to privacy, and that strong encryption safeguards both against hackers and state surveillance, Vance has complained that this is really just a marketing ploy and interfering with legitimate investigations. The attorney has called on the U.S. Congress to legislate decryption on demand, though mandatory backdoors have so far been shot down in the legal arena.
Of these, the iPhone 6 is the most common by model with 166 units, Fortune said in a profile of the office's new digital crime lab, quoting official numbers. The 6 Plus ranks a distant second at 66, followed by the iPhone 6s (63). Distribution skews largely towards iPhones made in the last two years -- in fact the office has just a single uncracked iPhone 4S.
Also in storage are 30 uncracked iPads, though the DA's office didn't identify these by model.
The largest share of the devices, 36 percent, were seized in cases involving electronic crimes and/or identity theft. 24 percent are connected to drug investigations, while much smaller numbers are related to charges like assault, murder, or sex crimes.
As recently as Sept. 2015, the office had less than 100 uncrackable iOS devices. An unexplained surge appears to have taken place between November and December of that year.
iOS 8, 9, and 10 all offer full-disk encryption, making it nearly impossible for anyone -- including Apple -- to access data on a device without its owner supplying the passcode. On products with Touch ID the situation is even more complex -- while a person can potentially be compelled to supply their fingerprint, there's a limited time window in which to do so, and physical hacks may run into problems with the Secure Enclave.
DA Cyrus Vance has been an outspoken critic of Apple's encryption policies. While Apple has maintained that people have a right to privacy, and that strong encryption safeguards both against hackers and state surveillance, Vance has complained that this is really just a marketing ploy and interfering with legitimate investigations. The attorney has called on the U.S. Congress to legislate decryption on demand, though mandatory backdoors have so far been shot down in the legal arena.
Comments
Who cares about what the DA in New York thinks? The mayor is a criminal who has vowed to keep defying and ignoring laws in order to protect countless criminals, rapists, murderers and worse.
Do I really give a crap that they can not unlock a few Apple devices? Nope, I do not care at all.
Screw those asswipes.
http://www.darthnull.org/2014/10/06/ios-encryption
I know "Drugs" is a generic term, but if just for marijuana cases if we'd just stop being stupid and putting people in jail for things like this you could maybe eliminate a large portion of those cases. We don't need to be filling our jails because someone is using marijuana.
We're going to make it legal, and it's going to be wonderful.
None?
I use my phone for all sorts of financial transactions, and I have tons of sensitive info stored on it.
Never in a million years would I ever trust my information and my money on an Android device.
I do some work in this area - I have a couple of uncracked phones in my lab right now. I have the Cellebrite kit and it didn't help with those phones. That's how it goes.
Where does the USA Constitution say that I must make it easy on the LEOs to investigate anyone/anything?
Where does it force my participation?
If the LEOs steal my phone, what right do they have to my information?
Where does it says that I should "roll over and play dead" at the illegal requests from LEOs?
Who died and left Vance a founding father of the USA?