Bill Gates calls for terror data debate
Can someone who really knows it, please explain one thing for me? I've heard different statements and don't know which one is correct.Can Apple - in theory - unlock that phone?Is ita) Unless there's a defect in HSM module (Secure Enclave) that allows the key extraction (like SEM data forensics or whatever), Apple just can't unlock the phone, because it's outside of their control.I mean, I can readily imagine a system where encryption key is completely unknown to the OS, OS doesn't have any access (or has a write-only access using public key encryption) to the user data while the phone is locked, and encryption is performed by a tamper-resistant hardware, that won't do anything without a correct secret (passphrase) and HSM will irreparably erase key material after 10 failures (which is the behavior hard-coded into silicon).orb) Apple technically can unlock the phone by doing an OS update with a specially crafted insecure OS, but doesn't wants to do so, because it would create a bad precedent. I.e. the HSM isn't absolute and can be forced to disclose the key (or accept brute-force attacks) by the OS.To put it simply: in theory, can Apple defeat their own security - if they would really want to - or not?Edit: s/TPM/HSM/g