Apple should incorporate a new sister company - in another country. Sell iOS to this new company and have the new, foreign company manage all aspects of iOS development which they would then license back to Apple.
If Apple transferred all software development to the new, foreign company - they'd have no programmers left working for Apple USA that could be court-ordered to create something. Apple USA would of course still control the roadmap for iOS and OSX - but the actual development would be done by people working for the foreign entity and beyond the reach of US law.
Apple USA could keep R&D, Hardware Design and Services while the foreign based sister company handles all software development.
Except that violates existing anti-export laws.
Apple Global could develop strong encryption and sell it to the rest of the world and sell a weak encryption version of iOS mandated by our government only in the US.
Apple Global could develop strong encryption and sell it to the rest of the world and sell a weak encryption version of iOS mandated by our government only in the US.
That is true. They just cannot create a US product and export (without some pretty big red-tape, anyway). However, a lot of other countries would just ban the strong encryption. Europe is not likely to do that as they tend to value personal privacy more highly than we currently do in the US, but Russia and China...in a heartbeat.
Suppose the court compels Apple. A month goes by and the engineers report, "I got nothin'." Another month and "Sorry, can't crack this nut." Another month and it's "I don't know where to start on this one!" How does the government force a group of programs to produce something if the programers say they don't know how to produce it?
Why do people keep saying this as if it were true? The 'version of iOS that allows infinite attempts at the password' is to loaded onto the phone in question via DFU mode. An iPhone will not load arbitrary software that way. It must have a valid signature and only Apple can do that. Furthermore, the software can (and by court order must) include the specific UUID of the target phone. Therefore even if this patch got out of Apple's hands, was disassembled and the UUID changed, it would fail to load on any iPhone because it would fail the signature check. To further ensure security the phone is allowed to remain in Apple's possession for the entire time it is running the altered software. As a final condition of the court order, the entire patch must be RAM resident. No flash memory on the phone can be altered. Therefore the patch will be erased from memory as soon as the target phone is unpowered.
What we have here is a procedure for producing a key for any specific phone, not a skeleton key. The difference is fundamental.
Your second point that Apple will be asked to do this over and over is probably correct. However, even the FBI admits that the utility of this approach is short-lived. All Apple has to do render it obsolete is require a PIN during DFU. I would expect them to add this to upcoming iOS update very soon.
Thanks for that. Still, no nation should be asking for this in the modern world. With hundreds of encryption programs available (most based outside the US) for iOS and Android should Apple customers be forced to act like terrorists and criminals in the way we protect our data in order to be safe from government intrusion (rhetorical question)? It reminds me of gun laws here in Canada. We are limited to 5 round magazines for centre fire semi autos and 10 for handguns despite our statistically excellent history of generally not being murderers etc. Yet criminals don't have the same limitations. Point being it both punishes the law abiding citizen and is completely ineffective in preventing crime.
Let's not get gun control into this! It's an issue that's even more emotional than this one! If we put them together this entire forum will HACF.
But I struggle to understand the sanctity of the phone versus every other form of information storage. With proper judicial review your personal information has always been searchable. That includes bank accounts, phone records, computer hard drives, tax records, business records, email, written correspondence, photographs -- virtually anything. In the US, the only thing that stands between you and a search of any of these items is the 4th amendment which requires probable cause for the issue of a warrant.
So why is a photo stored on my phone unsearchable under warrant, while the same photo in an old-fashioned slide-carousel in my basement can clearly be searched for cause? The only plausible difference between a phone and other media is that modern phones amalgamate a wide variety of information in the same place. But so does my house and, given probable cause, the government can get a warrant to search that. So why not my phone?
The ability of the government to search -- given probable cause and judicial review -- is not despotism. It's the basis of law enforcement. It's how we catch rapists and killers and financial fraudsters and terrorists too. It's always true that such powers can be seen as targeting the law-abiding as well as the criminal but it's not possible to avoid that. That's why it's always a balancing act between personal privacy and civil society. Advocates for absolute privacy in the digital domain seek to fundamentally alter that balance in ways that are unprecedented.
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of of course law enforcement has a right to search phones. Nobody is denying that. Go ahead, search all you want. If there's a safe that law enforcement has a warrant to search, and they don't know the combination, they just break into it. Go ahead, FBI, break into the I.phone in your possession. Feel free to try any method you like. That's not at issue here. What's at issue is that the FBI wants a means to easily get into any IPhone, and the solution to that problem requires that they get Apple to create a weakened version of the security in iOS. And Apple doesn't want to, and under the law, appears not to be required to do so. So, go ahead FBI, shave down the EPROM on the iPhone and read it's hardware key with a laser, then copy the encrypted data off the phone onto a high-speed computer and start applying one after another passcode, combined with that iPhone's hardware encryption key. You'll have the data unencrypted in an hour or less. After the three weeks of carefully shaving down and reading the circuit that holds the hardware encryption key.
You see, Apple generates and writes a unique hardware key to each iPhone, but doesn't store that hardware key outside the iPhone. So Apple has no idea what the hardware encryption key is for each iPhone it produces. When a user sets a passcode on tne phone, the passcode is combined with the hardware encryption key inside a secure area of the iPhone, this combined encryption key is then used to one-way encrypt all the data stored on the phone. There's no way to read that key back. The only way to decrypt the data is to reconstruct that combined key by entering the proper passcode and letting the phone combine it with the hardware key deep in its internals, that apply that key to decrypt the data. So the FBI needs the passcode, but trying to brute force the passcode using the phone's interface will frustrate the effort because after ten consecutive incorrect passcodes, the phone erases all its data. The FBI wants Apple to subvert this security measure, but Apple claims, rightl so, that would open some very bad doors, from giving government precedent to make other demands, like using a phone's microphone or camera to surreptitiously spy on its owner, to concerns the security backdoor the FBI is demanding will make its way into the hands of hackers, terrorists, etc.
Let's not get gun control into this! It's an issue that's even more emotional than this one! If we put them together this entire forum will HACF.
But I struggle to understand the sanctity of the phone versus every other form of information storage. With proper judicial review your personal information has always been searchable. That includes bank accounts, phone records, computer hard drives, tax records, business records, email, written correspondence, photographs -- virtually anything. In the US, the only thing that stands between you and a search of any of these items is the 4th amendment which requires probable cause for the issue of a warrant.
So why is a photo stored on my phone unsearchable under warrant, while the same photo in an old-fashioned slide-carousel in my basement can clearly be searched for cause? The only plausible difference between a phone and other media is that modern phones amalgamate a wide variety of information in the same place. But so does my house and, given probable cause, the government can get a warrant to search that. So why not my phone?
The ability of the government to search -- given probable cause and judicial review -- is not despotism. It's the basis of law enforcement. It's how we catch rapists and killers and financial fraudsters and terrorists too. It's always true that such powers can be seen as targeting the law-abiding as well as the criminal but it's not possible to avoid that. That's why it's always a balancing act between personal privacy and civil society. Advocates for absolute privacy in the digital domain seek to fundamentally alter that balance in ways that are unprecedented.
Beyond the sanctity of my data is the fact I have full confidence in the security of my iPhone. I do not have to fear theft of my private data. Moreover, I store passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc. It is more than just securing a few photos.
Your personal information has always been searchable with a warrant because it was in plain site (on paper, etc) but now it can be stored in an electronic vault that can not be opened. They still can subpoena records from the phone company, bank, etc.
The 4th amendment may allow them to perform the search, but the 5th says I do not have to assist them.
My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?
But the data on your phone IS searchable. Have at it, FBI. If you can make heads or tails of it, because it's encrypted, then you're perfectly welcome to it. In fact, I'll volunteer it, sans passcode, for your complete inspection. No warrant required. Choke on my stream of encrypted data all you want.
My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?
Just to make it clear. I do not think that data in an iPhone should be out of the reach of law enforcement, but the search warrant should go to the rightful owner or user of the phone and afterwards, whomever can give access readily. This way there is no question who can unlock the phone.
And what will you do if the person won't comply? Waterboard them? Give up and say: "oh, it's ok -- you got away with it." This makes no sense at all.
My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?
The data is not beyond the reach of the police...the ability to read the data is.
Beyond the sanctity of my data is the fact I have full confidence in the security of my iPhone. I do not have to fear theft of my private data. Moreover, I store passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc. It is more than just securing a few photos.
Your personal information has always been searchable with a warrant because it was in plain site (on paper, etc) but now it can be stored in an electronic vault that can not be opened. They still can subpoena records from the phone company, bank, etc.
The 4th amendment may allow them to perform the search, but the 5th says I do not have to assist them.
My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?
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But the data on your phone IS searchable. Have at it, FBI. If you can make heads or tails of it, because it's encrypted, then you're perfectly welcome to it. In fact, I'll volunteer it, sans passcode, for your complete inspection. No warrant required. Choke on my stream of encrypted data all you want.
Which of course means it's not actually searchable. Your argument -- and Elspeth's -- is that your data should be forever beyond the reach of the law, even when there is a valid search warrant and probable cause. But your data might well be evidence of criminal activity. How would feel if you were a bilked investor and this was Bernie Madoff's phone? You might see it differently.
Thanks for that. Still, no nation should be asking for this in the modern world. With hundreds of encryption programs available (most based outside the US) for iOS and Android should Apple customers be forced to act like terrorists and criminals in the way we protect our data in order to be safe from government intrusion (rhetorical question)? It reminds me of gun laws here in Canada. We are limited to 5 round magazines for centre fire semi autos and 10 for handguns despite our statistically excellent history of generally not being murderers etc. Yet criminals don't have the same limitations. Point being it both punishes the law abiding citizen and is completely ineffective in preventing crime.
Let's not get gun control into this! It's an issue that's even more emotional than this one! If we put them together this entire forum will HACF.
But I struggle to understand the sanctity of the phone versus every other form of information storage. With proper judicial review your personal information has always been searchable. That includes bank accounts, phone records, computer hard drives, tax records, business records, email, written correspondence, photographs -- virtually anything. In the US, the only thing that stands between you and a search of any of these items is the 4th amendment which requires probable cause for the issue of a warrant.
So why is a photo stored on my phone unsearchable under warrant, while the same photo in an old-fashioned slide-carousel in my basement can clearly be searched for cause? The only plausible difference between a phone and other media is that modern phones amalgamate a wide variety of information in the same place. But so does my house and, given probable cause, the government can get a warrant to search that. So why not my phone?
The ability of the government to search -- given probable cause and judicial review -- is not despotism. It's the basis of law enforcement. It's how we catch rapists and killers and financial fraudsters and terrorists too. It's always true that such powers can be seen as targeting the law-abiding as well as the criminal but it's not possible to avoid that. That's why it's always a balancing act between personal privacy and civil society. Advocates for absolute privacy in the digital domain seek to fundamentally alter that balance in ways that are unprecedented.
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So, go ahead FBI, shave down the EPROM on the iPhone and read it's hardware key with a laser, then copy the encrypted data off the phone onto a high-speed computer and start applying one after another passcode, combined with that iPhone's hardware encryption key. You'll have the data unencrypted in an hour or less. After the three weeks of carefully shaving down and reading the circuit that holds the hardware encryption key.
I have never done this procedure or know anyone who done it (and I work in a lab with a lot of material scientists). But the consensus amongst the surface physicists I know is that this is theoretically possible but also highly risky. It's likely to fail and leave the phone permanently inaccessible.
But I struggle to understand the sanctity of the phone versus every other form of information storage. With proper judicial review your personal information has always been searchable. That includes bank accounts, phone records, computer hard drives, tax records, business records, email, written correspondence, photographs -- virtually anything. In the US, the only thing that stands between you and a search of any of these items is the 4th amendment which requires probable cause for the issue of a warrant.
So why is a photo stored on my phone unsearchable under warrant, while the same photo in an old-fashioned slide-carousel in my basement can clearly be searched for cause? The only plausible difference between a phone and other media is that modern phones amalgamate a wide variety of information in the same place. But so does my house and, given probable cause, the government can get a warrant to search that. So why not my phone?
The ability of the government to search -- given probable cause and judicial review -- is not despotism. It's the basis of law enforcement. It's how we catch rapists and killers and financial fraudsters and terrorists too. It's always true that such powers can be seen as targeting the law-abiding as well as the criminal but it's not possible to avoid that. That's why it's always a balancing act between personal privacy and civil society. Advocates for absolute privacy in the digital domain seek to fundamentally alter that balance in ways that are unprecedented.
I simply do not understand why people cannot comprehend that this is not about whether the police can seize the photo in the first place.
Lets put it in more simply terms. You are a terrorist. You want to write secret notes to your co-conspirators that no one but you and they can read. To do this, you devise a wholly new language that no one but you and your co-conspirators know (lets call the new language gibblefritz). You write your diabolical plans down on paper in this new language. You send unencrypted emails in this new language to you co-conspirators. The police figure out you and your co-conspirators are a terrorists and they decide to arrest you, however, during the attempt to arrest you, all of you are killed. When the police search your corpse and your conspiracy hang-out, after getting a search warrant, they find your written diabolical plans in your pockets and in filing cabinets in the hang-out. They also find the emails on your computer.
There ends the power of a search warrant.
The police are desperate to read your missives to learn whether they killed all the terrorists or if there are others they don't know about...but they cannot because everything is in gibblefritz and the police don't read gibblefritz...no one reads gibblefritz. Now the police know that over at the University of Apulosi, Dr. MacIntosh is really really good at deciphering dead languages. So they take your gibblefritz writings to Dr. MacIntosh and they say "Dr. MacIntosh, please help us, please translate these writings." Dr. MacIntosh says "I am so sorry, but I just cannot. I don't have time. I'll have to write a whole new program for my deciphering computer. I don't have resources to do that and it will take a really long time to do. Helping you will sully my reputation. Helping you will undermine all my other work. No one will trust me if I help you. I don't want to learn to read the evil language of gibblefritz, anyway." So, the police go to to court and the beg the judge "Please, you honor, make Dr. MacIntosh help us read these diabolical writings. Don't listen to his excuses. The people are in danger, there may be other terrorists out there. The world will end if we do not find them. The world will end if we don't learn how to read gibblefritz. Give us a Writ to make Dr. MacIntosh do as we want."
This is sort of like your own version of gibblefritz. Dr. Macintosh has no involvement with the case at hand and therefore he cannot be compelled to do anything under the AWA. They can ask but they can't compel. But Apple clearly has involvement with the maintenance and distribution of software on the iPhone. It's their hallmark actually. The DOJ argues that that fact means that they are sufficiently involved in the case to bring the AWA into play. Again, higher courts will decide but to my un-lawyerly mind the argument is clearly correct.
I simply do not understand why people cannot comprehend that this is not about whether the police can seize the photo in the first place.
Lets put it in more simply terms. You are a terrorist. You want to write secret notes to your co-conspirators that no one but you and they can read. To do this, you devise a wholly new language that no one but you and your co-conspirators know (lets call the new language gibblefritz). You write your diabolical plans down on paper in this new language. You send unencrypted emails in this new language to you co-conspirators. The police figure out you and your co-conspirators are a terrorists and they decide to arrest you, however, during the attempt to arrest you, all of you are killed. When the police search your corpse and your conspiracy hang-out, after getting a search warrant, they find your written diabolical plans in your pockets and in filing cabinets in the hang-out. They also find the emails on your computer.
There ends the power of a search warrant.
The police are desperate to read your missives to learn whether they killed all the terrorists or if there are others they don't know about...but they cannot because everything is in gibblefritz and the police don't read gibblefritz...no one reads gibblefritz. Now the police know that over at the University of Apulosi, Dr. MacIntosh is really really good at deciphering dead languages. So they take your gibblefritz writings to Dr. MacIntosh and they say "Dr. MacIntosh, please help us, please translate these writings." Dr. MacIntosh says "I am so sorry, but I just cannot. I don't have time. I'll have to write a whole new program for my deciphering computer. I don't have resources to do that and it will take a really long time to do. Helping you will sully my reputation. Helping you will undermine all my other work. No one will trust me if I help you. I don't want to learn to read the evil language of gibblefritz, anyway." So, the police go to to court and the beg the judge "Please, you honor, make Dr. MacIntosh help us read these diabolical writings. Don't listen to his excuses. The people are in danger, there may be other terrorists out there. The world will end if we do not find them. The world will end if we don't learn how to read gibblefritz. Give us a Writ to make Dr. MacIntosh do as we want."
This is sort of like your own version of gibblefritz. Dr. Macintosh has no involvement with the case at hand and therefore he cannot be compelled to do anything under the AWA. They can ask but they can't compel. But Apple clearly has involvement with the maintenance and distribution of software on the iPhone. It's their hallmark actually. The DOJ argues that that fact means that they are sufficiently involved in the case to bring the AWA into play. Again, higher courts will decide but to my un-lawyerly mind the argument is clearly correct.
maintenance of software of a device isn’t an involvement in the crime being investigated
My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?
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But the data on your phone IS searchable. Have at it, FBI. If you can make heads or tails of it, because it's encrypted, then you're perfectly welcome to it. In fact, I'll volunteer it, sans passcode, for your complete inspection. No warrant required. Choke on my stream of encrypted data all you want.
Which of course means it's not actually searchable. Your argument -- and Elspeth's -- is that your data should be forever beyond the reach of the law, even when there is a valid search warrant and probable cause. But your data might well be evidence of criminal activity. How would feel if you were a bilked investor and this was Bernie Madoff's phone? You might see it differently.
It's not Apple's data. Apple already provided the Feds with whatever they could. It's not Apple's job to do the Fed's bidding.
Just to make it clear. I do not think that data in an iPhone should be out of the reach of law enforcement, but the search warrant should go to the rightful owner or user of the phone and afterwards, whomever can give access readily. This way there is no question who can unlock the phone.
And what will you do if the person won't comply? Waterboard them? Give up and say: "oh, it's ok -- you got away with it." This makes no sense at all.
Actually the San Bernardino County, Department of Public Health (owner of the Farook's work phone) gave consent to the FBI to access the contents in the work phone. Since the San Bernardino County, Department of Public Health could not get the phone unlocked, it is the FBI's job now to "perform" the search if the FBI wants the information. It is the FBI's job (not Apple) to figure a way around the 10 and delete and encryption or hire a contractor or University to help. If Apple were willing and offered to write the "GovOS", then great! But Apple did not offer and now is refusing an unreasonable court order for very good reasons. The FBI should drop this nonsense at once and save this case as a lesson's learned. Not only did the FBI's CTD failed to stop the terrorist attack and now 14 are dead, but then the FBI wrongly advised the San Bernardino County which stopped backup of the remaining phone data to iCloud. And now they are coercing Apple to write a hack OS, which could compromise security for millions of iPhone users. The FBI chief ought to get fired and the entire FBI put out of operation.
Jeff, you come across like a person who would be willing to waterboard and torture innocent people.
Which of course means it's not actually searchable. Your argument -- and Elspeth's -- is that your data should be forever beyond the reach of the law, even when there is a valid search warrant and probable cause. But your data might well be evidence of criminal activity. How would feel if you were a bilked investor and this was Bernie Madoff's phone? You might see it differently.
Yes, it is. The device is searchable, and inside is found whatever exists within it. Like a safe that's been forced open only to find a pile of shredded documents that would implicate the owner of the safe in a crime, if not for being professionally shredded to the point of being unrecoverable using existing technology.
My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?
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But the data on your phone IS searchable. Have at it, FBI. If you can make heads or tails of it, because it's encrypted, then you're perfectly welcome to it. In fact, I'll volunteer it, sans passcode, for your complete inspection. No warrant required. Choke on my stream of encrypted data all you want.
Which of course means it's not actually searchable. Your argument -- and Elspeth's -- is that your data should be forever beyond the reach of the law, even when there is a valid search warrant and probable cause. But your data might well be evidence of criminal activity. How would feel if you were a bilked investor and this was Bernie Madoff's phone? You might see it differently.
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Yes, it is. The device is searchable, and inside is found whatever exists within it. Like a safe that's been forced open only to find a pile of shredded documents that would implicate the owner of the safe in a crime, if not for being professionally shredded to the point of being unrecoverable using existing technology.
Except that the data on the phone in question is not unrecoverable. A simple act by Apple would render the data available. Even Apple doesn't dispute this. They have stated their reasons for not complying but they have never said that it's particularly difficult for them to do so.
Comments
The last seven years have made one thing perfectly clear ... what The Regime wants, The Regime gets.
But I struggle to understand the sanctity of the phone versus every other form of information storage. With proper judicial review your personal information has always been searchable. That includes bank accounts, phone records, computer hard drives, tax records, business records, email, written correspondence, photographs -- virtually anything. In the US, the only thing that stands between you and a search of any of these items is the 4th amendment which requires probable cause for the issue of a warrant.
So why is a photo stored on my phone unsearchable under warrant, while the same photo in an old-fashioned slide-carousel in my basement can clearly be searched for cause? The only plausible difference between a phone and other media is that modern phones amalgamate a wide variety of information in the same place. But so does my house and, given probable cause, the government can get a warrant to search that. So why not my phone?
The ability of the government to search -- given probable cause and judicial review -- is not despotism. It's the basis of law enforcement. It's how we catch rapists and killers and financial fraudsters and terrorists too. It's always true that such powers can be seen as targeting the law-abiding as well as the criminal but it's not possible to avoid that. That's why it's always a balancing act between personal privacy and civil society. Advocates for absolute privacy in the digital domain seek to fundamentally alter that balance in ways that are unprecedented.
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of of course law enforcement has a right to search phones. Nobody is denying that. Go ahead, search all you want. If there's a safe that law enforcement has a warrant to search, and they don't know the combination, they just break into it. Go ahead, FBI, break into the I.phone in your possession. Feel free to try any method you like. That's not at issue here. What's at issue is that the FBI wants a means to easily get into any IPhone, and the solution to that problem requires that they get Apple to create a weakened version of the security in iOS. And Apple doesn't want to, and under the law, appears not to be required to do so. So, go ahead FBI, shave down the EPROM on the iPhone and read it's hardware key with a laser, then copy the encrypted data off the phone onto a high-speed computer and start applying one after another passcode, combined with that iPhone's hardware encryption key. You'll have the data unencrypted in an hour or less. After the three weeks of carefully shaving down and reading the circuit that holds the hardware encryption key.
You see, Apple generates and writes a unique hardware key to each iPhone, but doesn't store that hardware key outside the iPhone. So Apple has no idea what the hardware encryption key is for each iPhone it produces. When a user sets a passcode on tne phone, the passcode is combined with the hardware encryption key inside a secure area of the iPhone, this combined encryption key is then used to one-way encrypt all the data stored on the phone. There's no way to read that key back. The only way to decrypt the data is to reconstruct that combined key by entering the proper passcode and letting the phone combine it with the hardware key deep in its internals, that apply that key to decrypt the data. So the FBI needs the passcode, but trying to brute force the passcode using the phone's interface will frustrate the effort because after ten consecutive incorrect passcodes, the phone erases all its data. The FBI wants Apple to subvert this security measure, but Apple claims, rightl so, that would open some very bad doors, from giving government precedent to make other demands, like using a phone's microphone or camera to surreptitiously spy on its owner, to concerns the security backdoor the FBI is demanding will make its way into the hands of hackers, terrorists, etc.
I have never done this procedure or know anyone who done it (and I work in a lab with a lot of material scientists). But the consensus amongst the surface physicists I know is that this is theoretically possible but also highly risky. It's likely to fail and leave the phone permanently inaccessible.
Jeff, you come across like a person who would be willing to waterboard and torture innocent people.
Wow...