Google Apple grapple brings crypto cop block to Android
Protecting against web application threats using SSL
Google has told The Washington Post it will introduce default encryption into its new Android fondleslabs in a bid to foil police forensics (and maybe to copy or catch up with Apple).
The security enhancement follows Apple’s release of iOS 8, which introduced broader encryption, and will ensure Google-powered devices will be equally attractive to those who value their privacy.
Apple’s new privacy policy will make it hard to access user data because the fruity company does not hold the users’ encryption key, “unlike competitors.”
“On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode,” Apple wrote on its website.
“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data.
“So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”
Apple’s stance may, however, not be technically correct. Apple, if forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski is correct: he’s written that Apple’s new arrangements offer “plausible deniability” but leave data like emails and photos open to access by police forensic tools.
Apple’s old policy for extracting user data from iPhones for law enforcement: Come back with a warrant. Their new policy: Get lost.
— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) September 18, 2014
“The move … amounts to an engineering solution to a legal quandary: Rather than comply with binding court orders, Apple has reworked its latest encryption in a way that prevents the company — or anyone but the device’s owner — from gaining access to the vast troves of user data typically stored on smartphones or tablet computers,” Zdziarski has blogged.
“Apple wants you to be able access your photos and other information from your desktop while the phone is locked – for ease of use. This, unfortunately, also opens up the capability for law enforcement to also use this mechanism to dump” photos, third party app data and iTunes media.
Apple previously said only its Mail app was protected by its encryption system. ®
Reducing the cost and complexity of web vulnerability management
Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/19/google_apple_grapple_brings_crypto_cop_block_to_android/