Apple Denies It Built NSA a Backdoor for 600 Million Devices

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/23/apple-denies-it-built-nsa-backdoor-600-million-devices



Access points 'may have been used' by NSA, researcher suggests, though maker of computer giant adamantly denies working 'with any government agency' while creating any product or service

Apple Denies It Built NSA a Backdoor for 600 Million Devices
Max Ocean, editorial intern
Wednesday, July 23, 2014

After Jonathan Zdziarski, a computer security researcher, presented an academic paper last week revealing previously-unknown backdoors in Apple's iOS software running on hundreds of millions of iPhone an iPad devices, Apple has gone on the defensive by publicly stating it did not wittingly create a portal for government spying and reaffirmed previous claims by saying they have "never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services."

Subsequently, responding to Apple's statement, Zdziarski said the computer maker may have "inadvertently" admitted that "they do indeed have back doors in iOS" even as they denied working with government agencies to create them.

In his original presentation presented last Friday at the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE/X) conference in New York—called Identifying Backdoors, Attack Points, and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices—Zdziarsk highlighted three specific backdoor capabilities in the iOS software running on over 600 million iPads and iPhones, all of which had never been known publicly before Zdziarski found them. In a blog post written the same day Zdziarski stated his concern that “some of these services may have been used by the NSA to collect data.”

Apple's response to Zdziarski's claims arrived on Monday in a statement to iMore, saying that the backdoors are"diagnostic functions" and "do not compromise user privacy and security."

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The old "I didn't know" defense may not work very well for Apple.

[merrily]

1. Under the 4th amend., using a computer is reasonable cause for a search.

Everyone knows that.