Walt Mossberg, writing for Re/code:
Even before the court order in California ignited the current fight, I opposed the idea of any encryption back door on grounds that it could also help criminals and repressive foreign governments. And I stand with Apple in its dispute with the FBI over the demand for special passcode-cracking software, for the same reasons.
But there’s an exception, a loophole, in Apple’s unyielding stance on privacy and encryption: Its iCloud service and, specifically, iCloud Backup — the convenient and comforting automatic way in which iPhones and iPads back themselves up daily to the cloud.
Unlike with the iPhone hardware itself, Apple does retain the ability to decrypt most of what’s in these backups. And the company does on occasion turn their contents over to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies when a proper legal warrant or court order is presented.
I’m still wrestling with this side of the issue. Should Apple treat an iCloud backup differently than the phone itself? One aspect of this is the fact that you have the option of backing your iPhone up locally if you don’t want your data exposed in iCloud.
Great read.
Apple’s non-encryption of iCloud backups may have to do with the fact that these backups are stored on Apple’s servers. Since they own the servers, they may be compelled to turn over what is on them.
All iCloud backups are encrypted by default. The issue is Apple might have the key to your iCloud backup.
This is it exactly. If you want truly secure encrypted backups, backup locally to your desktop. You just have to decide what balance you want between security and convenience.
As others have said, iCloud backups and all data stored on their servers are encrypted. The difference is, Apple has access to the key to decrypt that data. They hang on to it for the very simple reason of a user needing their password reset.
This isn’t to say Apple knows your password – they do not. But they do have the key that was generated from the password. When you forget your password, you’re asked to enter a new one and then a new key is generated. All your data is decrypted with the old key and encrypted with the new key and the old key is thrown out.
I believe Mr Sewel talked about that at the hearing? And also on how to protect customers privacy and also from themselves, getting locked out.
Also gotta think this is why Apple added passwords to Notes app.
More click bait BS from Mossberg.
This is a good description of a tradeoff, to which I’ll add the details of
(1) how often do you need to backup your device? Your risk of having it stolen is lower these days, now that Apple has made them user-brickable, and most of us don’t create THAT much data exclusively on our phones that we’d be mortified by having lost if the phone goes down a sewer grate.
(2) Backing up to your desktop or laptop could hardly be easier (if you have one).
(3) The calculus should include the strength of the passcode, too. I just switched to require a much more complex string, since my fingerprint reader obviates the need to type it that often. THIS particular FBI assault will now be useless on my phone.
Apple needs to update iCloud Backup so that the data is encrypted before it is sent to Apple, which is for example how Backblaze backups work. The reason Apple haven’t done this yet is probably that the user could lose the key and the backups are also lost. If Apple have the key then the user can really screw up and yet still buy a new iPhone and restore it from iCloud. So the users have to take an additional level of responsibility to not lose the key in order to get better security.
Apple is working on iCloud security that would lock out law enforcement, reports say
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/25/11113700/apple-icloud-security-encryption-fbi
Apple has already given up iCloud backups when served with a warrant. That is standard in cloud computing. Your cloud data doesn’t have the same protections as local data on devices that you own.
Apple does have the key. The data is encrypted after it is sent to Apple.
If you backup locally, you also have to backup your local system to an encrypted cloud storage where the data is encrypted before it is sent over the wire. Otherwise, your house could burn down and you could lose all of your data.
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You’re talking about redundant, off site backups. You don’t need cloud storage to do that. Just make two local, encrypted backups and take one off site. I used to take work backups home every night.
i live in a high-crime city. the thugs dont care about whether your smartphone may be “user-brickable”. they just want your wallet and your phone, period.
a service like Backblaze can copy your encrypted stuff to their storage (AWS i believe). you dont need to re-encrypt it.
Yev from Backblaze here -> we don’t actually use AWS, we have our own ecosystem ->
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/vault-cloud-storage-architecture/