Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT <comment><USER2> Wonder if this will help to kill a meme, about how much Apple cares about users and what great values they have, how they're going to stand for the user, fight with governments, etc.

While iPhone itself is pretty secure as a device phone (and Apple makes sure to remind you about that in each ad, public speaking, attacks on competitors, etc), as an ecosystem it's not secure. And it's like that on purpose - there's no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloud.

You have to be a tech person to know how to keep an iPhone secure. Average Joe buys iPhone and pays for iCloud. They Apple first $1k to get (on top of other things) a secure device, and then they Apple monthly fee to give Apple all their data and make insecure. Pretty genius business strategy.

<comment><USER3> > Wonder if this will help to kill a meme, aboyt how much Apple cares about > users and what great values they have, how they're going to stand for the > user, fight with governments, etc.

In this instance, Apple decided to continue to not encrypt iCloud backups because, according to one source,

> […] the company did not want to risk being attacked by public officials for > protecting criminals, sued for moving previously accessible data out of > reach of government agencies or used as an excuse for new legislation > against encryption. [0]

Apple's stance on privacy is more than mere marketing and more than a meme, but their legal team decided that encrypting formerly unencrypted backups, which had already been used as evidence in previous cases, is ill-advised.

Most people, including technically knowledgable users here on HN, were unaware _iCloud backups have always been unencrypted_. Many of us concerned about privacy have avoided iCloud backups because they are subject to subpoena.

I wish Apple would (have) offered encrypted iCloud backup as an option, and I understand why they chose not to. However, I disagree that their stance on privacy is mere marketing. Apple has a balance to strike between the issues of encryption, privacy, and law enforcement, and their products are not perfect for either users or law enforcement.

That doesn't mean Apple doesn't care about its users and their privacy.

[0] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud- exclusiv...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud- exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi- complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT)

<comment><USER4> > Apple has a balance to strike between the issues of encryption, privacy, and > law enforcement [...]

No, they do not. If Apple wants a reputation for privacy and respecting its customers, then it has to put them first. Don't apologize for them making this user-hostile choice.

We could be merely a generation away from the hell hole that is social credit. We can't afford to keep ceding ground on privacy. We have to engender a sense of importance and urgency.

I'll be very mad at the rest of you lot that choose convenience over privacy, rights, and autonomy if 2030 sees our freedoms and liberties eroded further.

Our _collective_ choices matter, and that's why I'm calling you out.

<comment> VvR-Ox 1\. Yes, they have to. At least in the US any company has to cooperate with the law enforcement as you might know. The only choice to do business in the US or based on US governed soil is to comply with them.

2\. Apple at least put some effort into this matter because otherwise there would not be so much media attention to breaking into iPhones. To get data from android on the other hand seems to be no problem at all.

3\. We are already in hell but we do not yet see the flames surrounding us.

4\. If collective choice matters so much we are all doomed and you know it. Try telling the Joneses about encryption etc. - they will still use WhastApp, Facebook and the likes because it is so convenient over a way of burden and hard work to get there or even live without all these "magical devices and services".

<comment><USER5> on 1.: Are there actually US laws that could prevent Apple from offering end- to-end encryption for backups to their user?

That is something very different from cooperating with a specific investigation.

Why did Apple not fight this in court?

Could Apple keep the backups outside the EU, like Microsoft did for email in the Dublin case?

<comment> VvR-Ox I do not think so and AFAIK only the export of strong encryption is prohibited by law in the US.

But it is not about prohibiting encryption but the possibility and/or necessity that Apple has another key to decrypt your data with.

It does not matter where they keep the data as long as the companies headquarters are on US soil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What the... I was under the impression that iCloud backups are end-to-end encrypted. This is a HUGE problem.

<comment><USER7> You should look into the 'borg' backup tool - it has become the de facto standard for remote backups because it does everything that rsync does (efficient, changes only backups) but also produces strongly encrypted remote backup sets that only you have a key to ... your cloud provider has no access to the data.

The borg website is here:

[https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/](https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/)

and a good description of how it works and why you should use it is here:

[https://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail- backups/](https://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/)

<comment><USER8> After looking at a few alternatives (Borg, Duplicacy etc.), I setup Arq on my Mac yesterday.

One thing that irks me about these solutions is that they seem to scan my folders each time they want to backup. Are there tools that are smarter about this? For e.g., while running, they could keep a log of what's changing and only scan those while backing up.

<comment><USER9> Arq for Mac is great for backing up, though the restore util could use a little work. It's not exactly user friendly.

I've used it on my macs for years without any issues at all. I switched after Time Machine broke down for the n'th time in a month saying it needed to recreate the backup, and not once in the 3-5 years i've been using it has it every given me any problems with broken repositories, and every integrity check/restore has succeeded.

Arq on Windows is a different beast though. I'm sure it's technically solid, but the UI leaves a lot to be desired. On windows boxes i default to Duplicaty.

<comment><USER10> > Duplicaty

Did you mean Duplicacy or Duplicati?

<comment><USER9> Duplicati ([https://www.duplicati.com/](https://www.duplicati.com/)).

On my servers i use Borg like any sane person would, but the lack of a good client UI makes scheduling backups on a personal computer a lot more work than i'm willing to put in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apple has a list for that: [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303)

These are end to end:

Home data

Health data (requires iOS 12 or later)

iCloud Keychain (includes all of your saved accounts and passwords)

Payment information

QuickType Keyboard learned vocabulary (requires iOS 11 or later)

Screen Time

Siri information

Wi-Fi passwords

The messages also end to end but the backup contains the private key.

The moral of the story is that if you want real protection, do local backups.

<comment><USER12> Two things:

1) There is no way Apple would be allowed to sell iPhones in China, without China government having access to anything. So, I assume that Apple users in China have e2e encrypted exactly nothing.

2) I have a strong suspicion that those 'enter your Apple ID password because your account needs it' message really means 'a government has requested your data and even though it's encrypted, we will nag you about entering a password, and if you give it, you're a free game'.

I don't blame Apple for this, I'm sure they're doing what they can, but when a government says 'give us this data', they can't not comply. Vote responsibly - companies can't protect us from a government we have put into power.

<comment><USER13> > 2) I have a strong suspicion that those 'enter your Apple ID password > because your account needs it' message really means 'a government has > requested your data and even though it's encrypted, we will nag you about > entering a password, and if you give it, you're a free game'.

Haha I hadn't thought of that. If true, I must have every government requesting my data frequently as I constantly get bombarded to enter my iCloud password.

<comment><USER14> FISA warrants can go multiple hops from the target which with network effects can sweep up tons of unrelated data from random people who happened to interact with someone who interacted with x bad guy.

That's just for domestic surveillance keep in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of WhatsApp claiming it had encryption everywhere and then this [0] dropped. Except, in this case, I'm actually surprised. Didn't Apple publicly claim that it wouldn't bow down to any demands from the agencies?

[0]: [https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3061660/whatsapp-i...](https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3061660/whatsapp- is-storing-unencrypted-backup-data-on-google-drive)

<comment><USER16> It's mostly marketing bullshit.

Apple and Microsoft both tried to build ad businesses, but when they weren't as successful as Google, they turned lemons into lemonade by launching data privacy PR campaigns against Google.

Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft quietly censor their products in China, surrender data to Chinese authorities, and now we find Apple is intentionally leaving iCloud data insecure.

Presumably Google was under the same pressure from US law enforcement, but somehow Google delivered end-to-end encrypted Android backups in October, 2018. And Google did it without all of Apple's self-congratulatory media hoopla.

e2ee: [https://security.googleblog.com/2018/10/google-and- android-h...](https://security.googleblog.com/2018/10/google-and-android-have- your-back-by.html)

Third party security audit: [https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/our- research/android-cloud-bac...](https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/our- research/android-cloud-backuprestore/?research=Public+Reports)

<comment><USER17> Just a reminder, Apple ceded control of its iCloud management in China to a state-controlled company, in addition began storing its encryption keys in China in order to "comply with local regulations". So whether or not your backups are encrypted is almost a moot point, given that the government can submit a lawful demand for your data at any time..

Apple will store some iCloud encryption keys in China, raising security concerns [https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17052802/apple-icloud- enc...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17052802/apple-icloud-encryption- keys-storage-china)

<comment><USER18> That's only for devices where the region is set as China. Why would it be a moot point elsewhere for that reason?

<comment><USER19> Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

<comment><USER20> Dont know why down voted. Even if someone doesnt care for individuals in other legal zones (sad), the extra injustice Apple is accepting in other legal zones is a clear display of what they are willing to do to you eventually.

> Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

So I 100% agree.

<comment><USER21> Well, it's based on incorrect information, based on the parent's citation....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> louis-paul Easy fix: back up your iPhone locally on your computer instead of using iCloud: [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT203977#computer](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977#computer)

The ambiguous position on true end-to-end encryption shows once again that Apple is in for the marketing (both to consumers—predatory and dangerous, and to engineering talent—dishonest). Same hypocrisy as on the China issue. Not that there is an easy solution when you are one of the biggest companies on the planet and that shareholders essentially expect you to grow forever while playing nice with everyone.

<comment><USER22> Second step: Delete old backups

[https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT204247#backups](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204247#backups)

<comment><USER23> Eh, maybe, maybe not. What guarantees are there that the backups actually get deleted? Storage is cheap these days...

<comment><USER24> If you delete your remote backups, they are likely be deleted, eventually. If you don't delete your remote backups, they won't be deleted.

There's no business case for keeping backups around for Apple, unless they suddenly became an ad company and started mining your backups for personalization data.

<comment><USER25> There is a business case - charge the FBI or any government agency for the cost of restoring/delivering it to them, or use the contents to improve any machine learning they are conducting, and I'm sure there are others.

For the longest time Facebook couldn't actually delete photos that you requested the deletion of. They could remove it from indexes so it couldn't be found, but if you had the link it would still be available (akamai cdn). Because, to them, either the cost of the hosting was miniscule compared to the cost of writing the software to ensure things actually got purged from the CDN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The iCloud security overview [1] says iCloud backups are encrypted "in transit" and "on server", but indeed doesn't say much about the encryption keys. There is "end-to-end encryption" on just a few items (iCloud keychain, WiFi passwords, etc.)

1\. [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202303)

<comment><USER27> Apple has a key for iCloud backups. [1]

1\. [https://fixitalready.eff.org/apple](https://fixitalready.eff.org/apple)

<comment><USER28> That's generally what "on the server" means, it's only encrypted so their storage provider (shown to be GCP [https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17053496/apple-google- clo...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17053496/apple-google-cloud- platform-icloud-confirmation) ) can't see their user data.

<comment><USER29> Maybe this is me being out of touch with modern deployment, but that is absolutely not what my impression of "on the server" means. My mental model is that of a client, whatever software is under my control, and a server, which is whatever my client connects to. "Encrypted on the server" then means that at no point is the plaintext data visible to any part of the server.

If Apple splits up the server into a web server and a storage server, then uses "encrypted on the server" to refer only to the storage server, that is entirely disingenuous.

<comment><USER30> There's a difference in encrypted data at rest vs. end-to-end client side encryption. Encrypted data at rest protects against stolen physical storage devices. Without access to decryption key stored on a separate machine, you're unable to read data on the storage device.

Encryption at rest doesn't protect users from the company, since the company has the decryption key. It protects your data if the company misplaces the storage drive.

It's common in corporate environments to check compliance boxes, which is why AWS offers encryption at rest:

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-s3-server- side-e...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-s3-server-side- encryption/)

<comment><USER29> True, but I read a big distinction between "encrypted at rest" and "encrypted on the server". Encrypted at rest has the implications that you state, being there to prevent somebody from walking off with a hard drive. Encrypted on the server implies that it is never unencrypted while on the server, and that any server-side computation is done solely through homomorphic encryption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I will not be surprised if further reporting points a finger at the influence of China as well.

Apple already conceded to hosting Chinese iCloud data on Chinese servers, and that news came out about 2 years ago... which is also the timeframe reported for this decision to forego end-to-end encryption of iCloud backups.

I'm guessing here, but I think it's safe to assume that China was not going to permit such encryption (for the same reason they insist on hosting the data) and thus to provide it for the U.S., Apple would have had to fork iCloud. Add in the political risk in the U.S. and you have a recipe for "maybe not."

</comment><comment><USER32> For comparison, Google end-to-end encrypts Android backups with your lock screen PIN/pattern (which isn't known to Google).

Source - [https://security.googleblog.com/2018/10/google-and- android-h...](https://security.googleblog.com/2018/10/google-and-android-have- your-back-by.html)

<comment><USER33> Offline attacks for a motivated adversary, like NSA, are trivial on low strength security measures, like a standard PIN, numeric only PIN, or pattern. Only a strong passphrase would really help you.

<comment><USER34> This is false. This concern is addressed in the second paragraph of the linked article:

> this passcode-protected key material is encrypted to a Titan security chip > on our datacenter floor. The Titan chip is configured to only release the > backup decryption key when presented with a correct claim derived from the > user's passcode. Because the Titan chip must authorize every access to the > decryption key, it can permanently block access after too many incorrect > attempts at guessing the user's passcode, thus mitigating brute force > attacks. The limited number of incorrect attempts is strictly enforced by a > custom Titan firmware that cannot be updated without erasing the contents of > the chip. By design, this means that no one (including Google) can access a > user's backed-up application data without specifically knowing their > passcode.

<comment><USER35> But the source code of many important parts of android are nonfree, so google can update it to send your cleartext password and you would never know.

<comment><USER34> This is true for iOS as well as every other widely used computing platform. Android is better; unlike iOS you can build AOSP yourself without the Google proprietary parts, and unlike iPhones, Pixel phones have unlockable bootloaders so you can install your own OS builds.

Even most PCs running Linux have plenty of nonfree binaries in various firmwares and common peripheral drivers. I support efforts to make devices with fully open firmware on which you could run Android's AOSP or other open source operating systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Between things like this, and the shenanigans Google pulls (with Android, the store, developers, and other things), I'm quickly going in a different direction.

My ultimate plan is to build my own phone; yes, I'll still be stuck with a carrier (I use t-mobile, and I haven't had a problem with them over 10+ years I've used them), and the hardware won't be completely "open source", but the software and OS will at least be what I make of it myself.

In the meantime, I'll be playing with one of the Pine64 phones; hopefully it will give me most if not all of everything I want and need, and maybe I can help with bug testing or perhaps software development? At any rate, it won't be Apple or Google.

There are times that I have when I sometimes think to myself that going back to simple email on a text screen, and not much else, would be a better thing than what the web has become. Maybe go back to BBS's over ssh or something? "Dial In" using my TRS-80 Model 100 "laptop" and move out to the boonies...

<comment><USER37> It sounds like an awesome idea, and I've considered ordering a pine phone for the same reason.

I don't know why anyone would down vote your comment. On "hacker news" it's no longer considered cool to hack together your own tech?

When did HN become a corporate bootlicking dump?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> But it is nice that you have the option to _not_ backup with iCloud. They are not storing the information whether you like it or not as a lot of companies do.

<comment><USER39> While Apple doesn't force its users to use iCloud, they also don't provide an alternative way to do full backups of iOS/iPadOS devices over a network. Yes, you can plug an iPhone into a Mac, but that doesn't scale.

<comment><USER40> You can set local auto backup over wifi in itunes right?

<comment><USER39> Yes, but that only works in local networks and after connecting via USB once – and the backup is always stored on a single computer. So it may be acceptable for personal usage, but not suited for an enterprise environment where you want to centrally manage hundreds of devices and provide some redundancy for your backup system.

<comment><USER40> I guess I don't understand this point. This is exactly what ios mdm backup is for. Relying on users backing up their personal icloud accounts for work seems highly problematic. If they are work icloud accounts... usb should not be a problem since you are probably provisioning the devices, and the itunes backup approach over your intranet seems actually ideal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Beyond HN and tech circles, is there any detectable groundswell of demand for privacy? When you talk with friends & family about privacy, does anyone care?

When average people care about privacy, the large players will respond. Until then, pressure from the state can be accommodated without irking customers, so Big Tech will play along.

<comment><USER42> Next time you encounter someone who claims they don't care about privacy, ask whether or not they close the bathroom door (or the stall in a public restroom) when they're taking a shit. And if they say yes, ask them why? What's going on in there isn't any big secret. It's not like they're in there plotting a terrorist attack. What are they hiding behind that door?

It turns out most people _do_ care about privacy. You just have to frame it in relatable terms.

I don't want anyone else watching me take a dump because that's private, and it's not any of their business. Likewise, I don't want other people knowing what articles I read on the internet, or what music I listen to, or reading the contents of my business plan, or scoping out my dick pics, or any of a thousand other things, because those things are also private and they aren't anyone else's business unless I choose to share them.

Restrooms have doors, and most people close them for privacy. Data has a privacy door, too, and it's called encryption.

<comment><USER43> > _" ask whether or not they close the bathroom door (or the stall in a public > restroom) when they're taking a shit"_

This is a pretty bad question and a hyperbole. Most people would want no one (including people who they are usually intimate with) to watch them defecate. And that is _not_ the same thing as government snooping on its own citizens. Arguments for massive surveillance given by governments is not so much about invading the personal privacy of people than it is about protecting national "security" or preventing "terrorism". For this reason, few people are going to get convinced if you equate the privacy to use the lavatory without anyone watching to the privacy of being able to communicate without the government monitoring you. The best argument against massive surveillance is the one that Snowden gave during a Reddit AMA:

> _" Some might say "I don't care if they violate my privacy; I've got nothing > to hide." Help them understand that they are misunderstanding the > fundamental nature of human rights. Nobody needs to justify why they "need" > a right: the burden of justification falls on the one seeking to infringe > upon the right. But even if they did, you can't give away the rights of > others because they're not useful to you. More simply, the majority cannot > vote away the natural rights of the minority._

> _" But even if they could, help them think for a moment about what they're > saying. Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you > have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free > speech because you have nothing to say._

> _" A free press benefits more than just those who read the paper."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> _It turns over data more often in response to secret U.S. intelligence court directives, which sought content from more than 18,000 accounts in the first half of 2019, the most recently reported six-month period._

When you think about it, that volume is staggering. 36,000 iDevice-using intelligence targets every year? Imagine the amount of analyst time required just to go through 36,000 iCloud backups every year!

<comment><USER45> Really makes you wonder what the criteria is for being investigated.

Maybe I'm naive, but I find it hard to believe that there are 36,000 yearly iCloud accounts with probable cause to be tied to terrorism activity and/or national security matters, especially if that's only in the US.

As someone with a (half) Middle Eastern heritage and name (but born and raised in the US) I've experienced my fair share of nuanced discrimination at airports and one weird situation with what I assume was the FBI. There's always the ignorant TSA agent who raises an eyebrow when you report coming back from the Middle East... like why would anyone ever travel there if it weren't for terrorism?

I'm a pretty average techie so I'm not too worried about anyone going through my iCloud backups, but I feel like there should be some more transparency around this stuff. I feel like if you're secretly investigated but discovered to be innocent, shouldn't you deserve to know you were spied on? I guess that's what FOIA requests are for.

The war on terrorism feels like a game of whack-a-mole sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is also why you should never use cloud backups for iMessage or WhatsApp.

<comment><USER47> This is disabled by default in iOS 13, to keep your messages secure (and because often times it doesn't work properly). You have to go into iCloud settings to turn it on. And then if you aren't using iCloud Backup, the key to your Messages backup is not stored by Apple, so they can't read it anyway (see [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202303)).

For some reason, I doubt Google would do that.

</comment></comment><comment> awinter-py I don't think we understand yet how to model the impacts of breaches on products.

Cambridge Analytica didn't ruin facebook, but it did enable CCPA, and it probably changed how FB users think of / trust the product. Ashley Madison / equifax breaches completely ruined their cos.

Snowden disclosures were a weird middle case that meant all things to all people.

Weakening aapl's privacy claims may not matter to a post-truth public but I suspect it will further drive demand for actual consumer privacy products, when and if they enter the market.

</comment><comment><USER48> As a big fan of the Mac and iPhone this is incredibly disappointing. I always assumed the privacy situation with Apple was candy-coated but I didn't think they were this spineless.

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't think Apple ever claimed iCloud backups are end-to-end encrypted (it is encrypted at rest, but not end-to-end).

But I can see how many users would assume that, given Apple's dishonest/brash marketing about how "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone".

</comment><comment><USER50> Even if you want nothing to do with iCould, you must still enable it for these features:

\- Mac-to-Mac copy/paste (shared clipboard, continuity) \- iPad sidecar

Once you enable it, it immediately begins uploading your contacts, photos and passwords to Apple. Then you need to disable those specific things. Even after you delete those things, every app on your phone can silently and without your explicit permission, start loading data into iCloud.

</comment><comment><USER51> I wish Data Protection ([https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/protecting_t...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/protecting_the_user_s_privacy/encrypting_your_app_s_files)) would allow app developers to use a locally-derived key to secure app data.

Then, even in iCloud Backups, you'd still not have the key to decrypt specific app data without having unlocked the device.

I realize you could do this right now (in theory) with your own encryption solution and Keychain, but a first party solution that's as easy use as the Data Protection features/apis would be really nice.

Apple has plenty of data that I wish was E2E encrypted, but if many/most of my 3rd party apps had their own data locked, that would go a long way in the right direction.

</comment><comment><USER52> I believe this has been the case for sometime hasn't it? I vaguely remember reporting indicating this was true during the San Bernardino case and that Apple handed over that backup. Either way I do remember reading the Apple law enforcement guidelines a year or two ago and this was the case. iCloud data is not secure from law enforcement.

My project list has implementing a WiFi backup Windows/iTunes VM for this specific case. Does anyone know how iOS backups will be handled on personal PCs once iTunes is discontinued?

<comment><USER53> Device backups are handled by Finder in the post-iTunes world, at least on the Mac. I think iTunes is still a thing on Windows?

<comment><USER52> Ah I see the distinction in a few articles now. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Just to be clear, if you do local backups to iTunes, you can encrypt those backups with a key you control

</comment><comment><USER55> PSA: libimobiledevice exists and supports native encrypted backup/restores for iPhones using the idevicebackup2 utility. You can also disable iCloud backups from there for fun.

[https://www.libimobiledevice.org/](https://www.libimobiledevice.org/)

Not excusing Apple. This is a disgrace, first in China now here.

<comment><USER55> With the ifuse utility you can even mount a subset of your iPhone's storage as a FUSE filesystem. (If it's jailbroken you can mount all of it)

Doing so I was able to read the SQLite database Photos uses on my girlfriend's iPhone to migrate only photos she had favourited to her new phone; she hated the idea of moving them all over so much that she was ready to let the best ones perish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Apple is not 100% secured against SIM swapping. There's an option to have an SMS sent with your 2FA code as another option. I know because I've done this before and was wondering when Apple would let you use a hardware token or virtual MFA as an option like in my Google account.

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_ I've seen the list that Apple provides on their web site that lists the things that are end to end encrypted, but what about "Locked" Notes?

My understanding is that encryption is happening on the client-side and that you need to enter your password to unlock.

</comment><comment><USER57> Are the iMessages in an iCloud backup encrypted or not? As of now. It seems actually unclear.

<comment><USER58> Yes, but the key is stored in your iCloud backup if you use it. As soon as you disable iCloud backups it will roll the key for iMessage and they will be effectively E2E encrypted.

 _When Messages in iCloud is enabled, iMessage, Business Chat, text (SMS), and MMS messages are removed from the user's existing iCloud Backup, and are instead stored in an end-to-end encrypted CloudKit container for Messages. The user's iCloud Backup retains a key to that container. If the user subsequently disables iCloud Backup, that container's key is rolled, the new key is stored only in iCloud Keychain (inaccessible to Apple and any third parties), and new data written to the container can't be decrypted with the old container key._

[https://support.apple.com/guide/security/icloud-backup- conte...](https://support.apple.com/guide/security/icloud-backup-contents- sec2c21e7f49/web)

<comment><USER59> _> Yes, but the key is stored in your iCloud backup if you use it. As soon as you disable iCloud backups it will roll the key for iMessage and they will be effectively E2E encrypted._

Assuming this is true, you still don't know what people on the other end will do, meaning it is never actually E2E encrypted.

<comment><USER58> E2E usually means from endpoint device 1 (my iPhone) to endpoint device 2 (my friend's iPhone). What the other person will do with it doesn't factor into the conventional definition of E2E.

<comment><USER59> No, conventional definition is actually both: from endpoint device 1 to endpoint device 2 and from endpoint device 2 to endpoint device 1. If device 2 has backups in question enabled, there is no E2E anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> End-to-end backup encryption is hard. Apple had faced criticism from cryptographers for failing to implement it.

[https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2012/04/05/icloud-w...](https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2012/04/05/icloud- who-holds-key/)

The fact that they started working on the problem then abandoned it after the FBI complained is disappointing, especially to Apple consumers. But all it means is the status quo marches on.

Headlines like this vindicate my decision to never purchase an Apple product.

<comment><USER61> >Headlines like this vindicate my decision to never purchase an Apple product.

What else can you buy? Surely not Android...do you live without a smartphone (serious question, not judging)?

<comment><USER60> "Surely not Android...do you live without a smartphone (serious question, not judging)?"

That's a very judgmental way to ask that question if you're trying to not be judging.

My phone hardware would fall under the Android classification, but I run LineageOS.

I wish I had more options, but we're stuck in a hellish duopoly for the time being.

<comment><USER12> > but I run LineageOS

With Google Play Services surveillance rootkit? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Unpopular opinion:

We users are better off if Apple is "compromising" on something like this at the stage we're in now - especially since nobody forces you to use iCloud Backups - than we'll be when/if the US gov makes Apple an offer it can't refuse and forces a real backdoor master-key on the whole system top to bottom.

Assumption: That not going full encrypted backups will prevent the government from having the political capital to enact a "crackdown" forcing a backdoor on the devices, iMessage, etc.

<comment><USER63> That is not the issue. Their deceptive marketing is the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Another case of a headline not being supported by the story:

" Reuters could not determine why exactly Apple dropped the plan.

"Legal killed it, for reasons you can imagine," another former Apple employee said he was told, without any specific mention of why the plan was dropped or if the FBI was a factor in the decision."

And further on: " However, a former Apple employee said it was possible the encryption project was dropped for other reasons, such as concern that more customers would find themselves locked out of their data more often."

So 4 of the 6 sources were speculating (FBI), and one actively admits they don't know the reason, but the lede says 6 sources confirmed this. Hmmm...

<comment><USER65> In fairness, the title does not say that Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups _because_ FBI complained :P

<comment><USER66> I know you're being cheeky and pedantic, but that's exactly the spin the title was trying to go for in order to get clicks. While not "technically" wrong, it's still pretty dishonest imo.

<comment><USER67> "Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after release of 'National Treasure 2', starring Nicholas Cage"

<comment><USER65> I would read the hell out of that article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> So what about all the privacy billboards, 'What happens on your phone stays on your phone?'. New version: 'What happens on your phone stays on your phone and unencrypted on the cloud'.

</comment><comment><USER69> A completely e2e encrypted backup system would have to include photos (current iPhone backups do not). But true encryption means that when customers forget their passwords, they lose their data.

Already, people who don't use iCloud Photo Library and lose their phones, or forget their passwords, lose the photos that were on the phones.

Anyway, I think the customer experience issues weigh pretty heavily here.

<comment><USER70> Sure. But they could easily make it opt-in, hidden in the settings, with a warning/confirmation/etc so users know exactly what they are getting into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Shame on the FBI. Unfortunately the average Apple user won't understand or care about the implications. This is why I don't use ICloud or any cloud products. Apple are not nearly as bad as Google though.

I stopped using GDrive about a year ago and I aim to be Google-free for 2020. I don't use Gmail for anything important any more.

</comment><comment><USER72> Is anyone surprised by this?

It could be for many reasons too, including average people forgetting iCloud passwords and wanting their data back. Does Apple unlock an iCloud backup in that situation?

Perhaps a pro-privacy compromise would be for Apple to offer the feature but have it turned off by default, which means 99.99% of users won't ever change that.

</comment><comment><USER50> The small bit of iCloud E2EE which Apple allows (for health data, passwords and Mac-to-Mac clipboard sharing) is using your iPhone's 6-digit passcode and your Mac's admin password.

That means that Apple can also now perform an offline brute-force attack against your file vault password.

This makes even your offline devices less secure.

</comment><comment><USER49> Apple should allow third-party backup solutions. Backblaze is the option I would use if I had the choice, because they already support end-to-end encryption (end-to-end does have a downside: losing the encryption password means losing the data. Most people would make this tradeoff, but many HN readers would).

</comment><comment><USER73> When will a startup enter into this space with a privacy focused smartphone? Does this already exist, and is it good? If not, why all the complaints and why hasn't someone entered the market? Obviously startup costs will be high, but there will certainly be funding available for this market, right?

<comment><USER74> Pine64 and Purism make devices that might fit that bill, but keep in mind that the devices may not be as user-friendly in their current state as you might hope for. There's still a lot of rough edges, I hear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Is there a good design that lets someone forget their password and restore their backup (without a recovery key somewhere, like on an old device?)

If you forget a local iTunes backup password, there is no way to fix it.

</comment><comment><USER76> What level decision this is?

a) Is this just tactical move? Apple might choose to delay it's plans In effort to avoid confronting the current administration and wait for more reasonable one.

b) Is this permanent change of strategy? Giving up.

</comment><comment><USER12> Two things:

1) There is no way Apple would be allowed to sell iPhones in China, without China government having access to anything. So, I assume that Apple users in China have e2e encrypted exactly nothing.

2) I have a strong suspicion that those 'enter your Apple ID password because your account needs it' message really means 'a government has requested your data and even though it's encrypted, we will nag you about entering a password, and if you give it, you're a free game'.

I don't blame Apple for this, I'm sure they're doing what they can, but when a government says 'give us this data', they can't not comply and stay in business. And a whole point of a company is staying in the business.

Vote responsibly - companies can't protect us from a government we have put into power.

</comment><comment><USER77> Well, that's one way to force Apple to reverse a stupid decision. Looking forward to backups encrypted so well Christopher Wray would have a nervous breakdown, in the next iOS update.

</comment><comment><USER78> Apple has done a great job convincing otherwise "progressive" people that one of the world's richest companies is the underdog who's fighting for _you_!

</comment><comment><USER79> Time to disable iCloud backup and cancel my iCloud subscription.

<comment><USER80> Samesies :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> To be fair to Apple, if you believe Apples privacy policy, being able to access it, theyliky won't access it and sell your data to advertising Agencies.

</comment><comment><USER82> Apple has an opportunity to stand separate as a leader in user privacy first. But to do so means constantly standing up to government(s).

<comment><USER83> It literally doesn't matter. You are talking about their latest ad campaign.

Apple internal is complete detached from the commercials you see. It's about sales, not teaching users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> I was moments away from ordering a mac book 16" when this got published. Waiting for the new xps 13 development edition now.

</comment><comment><USER85> Dell, which started as a military supplier, encrypts their cloud storage to avoid liability.

I wonder what Apple is liable for in light of this.

</comment><comment><USER86> Might be a good reason to look into storage as an appliance. Personal NAS' (Synology, QNAP) are quite serviceable.

</comment><comment><USER87> Well the Fappening can disgrace and expose millions of people to extortion etc.

But the FBI can see everything so thats okay.

</comment><comment><USER21> 394 comments based on a rumor from an anonymous employee? Is this what HN considers "news"?

</comment><comment><USER88> So what if the FBI complains? If anything, that's a sign they're doing things correctly.

</comment><comment><USER81> Just back up on your pc and select encrypt and not use iCloud, but that is a huge hassle

</comment><comment><USER89> Some companies are better than others but there's absolutely no reason to believe any one of them would ever be on "your side" for any reason. You can vote for who makes decisions in government, but you can't vote for who makes decisions in companies.

<comment><USER16> You vote every time you decide to buy or not to buy.

<comment><USER90> That's not how that works at all. You can buy something you need because you need it and that's not at all a vote saying you like the management of how it was produced.

<comment><USER38> It's a vote whether you claim it is or not. If you need something but don't want to support the company, buy it from someone else. And if you can't find a company that you want to support, then you'll see it's just like real politics. You don't get to only vote for the parts of a candidate you like, you vote for the whole package.

<comment><USER91> > _then you'll see it's just like real politics. You don't get to only vote > for the parts of a candidate you like, you vote for the whole package._

Well, that's the problem with politics as well, and the reason that modern democracy is a sham (compared to ancient Athenian direct democracy [1]).

[1] obviously for those it included at the time. After all, modern democracy didn't include slaves, women, and even poor white folks (the extension of voting rights to non-property-owning white men happened in 1828, and it was hampered in the South until the early 20th century) until well into the 20th century.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> matt-attack So now that iTunes is gone, how does one do a local iPhone backup?

<comment><USER92> It's part of the Finder now. Same UI (and probably code) just doesn't come as part of a monolithic application (but now part of a even more monolithic OS).

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> If this is true it is incredibly disapppointing.

</comment><comment><USER94> Great. More identity theft for the masses!

</comment><comment><USER95> Data shouldn't be end-to-end encrypted. It should just be end-to-server encrypted, without the server having an ability to decrypt your data.

</comment><comment><USER96> oh I'm deeply disapointed. I payed so much premium for quality and privacy and this is my outcome.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone who knows anything about Apple think they would approach the FBI before creating a new feature?

</comment><comment><USER97> I'm so done with Apple, but more generally, with cell-phones. I was very excited to have Signal available back in 2015, but when I learned about cellular baseband processors and DMA attacks, I realized the whole smartphone stack is insecure. We can't audit anything in our phones, down to the cellular chip.

Even if our phones were 100% trustworthy, they are triangulated by cell towers thousands of times per day. Location tracking can only be avoided by:

1: Not owning a phone.

2: Powering off your device and keeping in a Faraday cage while not using.

Tempting to own a cute little purse that blocks phone signals, but do I really need a cell-phone on my body, 24/7?

If I evaluate the overall pros & cons of my cellphone, it has been overwhelmingly negative. I've had a phone since August 2014, when I went to college. Before that, I would text with my parents' phones.

Here are the top negative things that have happened due to using a phone:

1\. Miscommunication, isolation, social anxiety due to social media and texting. Talking in person is so much better. And what about the hours and hours of snapchatting, so pointless and sad looking back.

2\. False sense of security, thinking you can know what's going on, help people, intervene when necessary (friend sexual assault stuff at parties). What about when their phone dies? It made me wish we had landlines, or that I had been there. If I didn't have a cell phone, I don't think I would've left the party. I would've stayed and kept watch.

3\. Poor posture, lack of sleep, constant exposure to blue light (who knows if the light is really bad), etc.

4\. Missed connections by having my head in my phone all the time in public.

5\. The US government has a total map of my life since August 2014, even though I have sent thousands of encrypted messages and hundreds of encrypted phone calls.

6\. Less time available each day. I have spent typically 1-3 hours per day on my phone since I got one, about 1,980 days ago. This amounts to probably 4,000 to 6,000 hours, or about 170 to 250 days. In other words, about 1/8th of my life since 2014 has been dedicated to bullshit technology.

Here are some positives:

1\. I have lots of photos that would otherwise have required a camera. But I have dozens of film cameras and a few digital ones, and there's no reason to shoot photos on such a tiny format. Good luck printing cell-photos beyond 5x7 or even 8x10.

2\. I occasionally talk to family. This could be accomplished with a landline.

Maybe I've missed some things, and maybe I'm being pessimistic, but the reality is that I've lost lots of sleep and experienced more problems with interpersonal relationships as a result of having a phone. It's likely that not owning a phone would expose me to a new class of problems, but I've decided to get rid of my phone.

I'm in the process of switching accounts and removing 2FA, so I don't need cell service. Once I get there, I'm planning to write a little blog post about it. After having a baby, it's become clear that a phone is sucking my life away, and I need to be present with my family. Hope to have this all dealt with in the next week or two.

<comment><USER98> I think you are indeed missing a few pros. Off the top of my head,

1\. Having Google/Apple Maps has helped me find new restaurants and kept me from ever getting lost in foreign cities,

2\. Tinder and other dating apps have enabled me to date people that I would never have met in my day-to-day life,

3\. Lyft and Uber have come in handy more times than I can count,

and the list goes on. My use-case is different than yours, I'm sure, but there is a reason that smartphones are ubiquitous: we as a society have roughly evaluated the cost-benefit analysis of owning one and tend to side with the 'benefit'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> > aboyt how much Apple cares about users

No company cares about anything. A company is not a person.

Apple, because of its privacy-marketing, is incentivized to be the privacy player in the market. But only so far as consumers keep them honest about it.

They got away with this loophole because it stayed under the radar; if it gets enough attention and enough customers show that it matters to them, it could change.

On the other hand, it's possible that because we have a smartphones duopoly, Apple only needs to maintain a position where people will say "well at least it's not as bad as Google". I'm upset about this personally, but I'm not ditching my iPhone. Of course, this does cement my decision to never pay for iCloud, for what that's worth (much less, but not nothing).

<comment><USER16> _> No company cares about anything_

It's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission.

Corporations are run by leaders.

Many leaders choose to pursue unethical and immoral activities to maximize profit. They justify their actions by saying "it's just business", or "we have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders to maximize earnings per share by whatever means necessary".

Other leaders realize that an ethical purpose can often deliver outsized profits over the long term. Leaders with a moral mission make decisions that sometimes sacrifice short-term profits with the intent to build an organization and a brand for long term.

<comment><USER100> >t's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission.

Not really, those leaders are pretty quick to hide behind the corporate veil when it's convenient for dodging questions of moral (or even legal) responsibility.

The whole point of corporate legal structure is to create an entity that is _separate_ from the humans that occupy offices. That entity is not a person.

<comment><USER101> OK, but isn't this largely semantics? Saying Apple doesn't care about customers may technically be true, but that is taking it quite literally. The statement can also be meant to imply the people in Apple care, of course no one would speculate that a non human corporate entity would care.

I also largely agree that the Apple meme of privacy being trotted out lately doesn't quite jive with this news, but at the same time surely there are people who care about it at Apple, and maybe as a whole they even prioritize it more than others.

But I also don't know how much I really disagree with the FBI's position. In general I have seen this kind of access to be used in the right situations (IE collecting communications of criminals). I understand this can be a slippery slope, but should we trade that for leaving clear evidence against criminals unturned in the name of "privacy"?

<comment><USER93> The people at Apple who write the code usually do care about privacy. Their bosses and execs? It is harder to tell.

From the information I have, the majority of Apple employees do care about values such as privacy and ethical business practices, as well as product quality and usability, but those values can sometimes be undermined by executive decisions based on business and monetary motives.

<comment><USER102> That doesn't matter one bit if they continue to work there when their ethics and values are not aligned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> >there's no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloud.

Turn off iCloud and do local encrypted backups to your PC or Mac.

This works over your wifi network (if you prefer wireless charging at home) or via a cable connection.

<comment><USER2> It's not only way more friction than iCloud, but you'd be surprised how many people nowadays don't even own a PC or Mac. In my wife's family 60% of people only have phones, tablets and smart TVs. They use laptops/desktops only at work.

<comment><USER104> We Need iOS TimeCapsule.

<comment><USER105> We need Time Capsule. Period. It was discontinued in 2018. [1] I am still so sad about this.

1: [https://www.macworld.com/article/3269361/apple- discontinues-...](https://www.macworld.com/article/3269361/apple-discontinues- the-airport-time-capsule-airport-extreme-and-airport-express.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> The ecosystem is incredibly insecure, despite what Apple's marketing department wants you to think. More than anything I'm surprised at how often their advertising talking points are parroted in tech circles, like here on HN.. in any thread hinting at Google vs Apple you're bound to find a long comment chain about how Apple is "secure" and "privacy oriented" and "cares about their users". Not that Google is any better, but it makes me wonder whether it's just astroturfing or if their marketing is actually working.

<comment><USER107> It all depends on your threat model. For the average person I'm not worried about the relatively unlikely occurrence of the government accessing their backups. I'm much more worried about the more likely occurrence of local malware or ad tracking by malicious apps including from big names like Facebook & other social media companies, and in that instance Apple is still ahead as the OS restricts what apps can do a lot more than Android, the App Store is more curated against malware, etc.

<comment><USER106> Here's a threat model for you: how fucked would you be if your iCloud backups suddenly became searchable online? Ever say anything bad about your boss or company in an convo? Ever taken any photos you wouldn't want released? Ever downloaded any files you wouldn't want public?

The agencies have proven time and time again that they're pretty terrible at keeping secrets (see: all the leaks, data breaches, TSA master keys, etc). As long as they have a back door, it's inevitable that it'll happen -- it's effectively a ticking time bomb.

When I send a message over Signal, I can trust that it'll be kept private, barring some truly extraordinary incident. With Apple, it's kept accessible _by design_ (storing the encryption key with the encrypted backup? really?).

It's not about the government accessing my messages, because I really don't care all that much, it's that I don't trust them to keep secrets. If the government has access to something of yours you _must_ assume it'll eventually be made public... whether or not you're okay with that is up to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> Which is exactly why I use Signal exclusively.

<comment><USER18> Signal prohibits backing up chats on iOS. So there's no question of information leaking from a backup when there's no way to create it.

<comment><USER108> For me, not being able to back up chats is a feature. It even warns you if you download an attachment (e.g. an image) to local storage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> another reason to switch to android

<comment><USER110> android does end to end backups out of the box?

<comment><USER111> Yes

[https://security.googleblog.com/2018/10/google-and- android-h...](https://security.googleblog.com/2018/10/google-and-android-have- your-back-by.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> Surprise! The "we value your privacy" statement is a lie, as with any other US company.

</comment><comment><USER113> Privacy? Who needs it, amirite?

I mean, I'm not up to anything illegal, and I don't actually care about people seeing my stuff, BUT... the concept as a whole of "government should have access to everything all the time, regardless of reasoning" does not sit well with me.

<comment><USER114> You don't even, for instance, torrent? Movies, music? (You don't have to answer that. :P ) Ever pirate apps, even just to try before you buy?

The point is, if someone from the law is interested in you, or suspects you of some grander illegal thing, a lot of us do illegal things that might just be a little less grand, and a lot of us have the digital equivalent of a broken taillight.

<comment><USER115> There are plenty of more mundane misuses as well. Ex-spouse stalking, slighted lawman with a grudge, technician with a weird fetish. Sure there should be safeguards but they don't always work as well as you'd hope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is Apple's privacy white paper dealing with fats on iCloud just an eyewash now?

 _> Instead of protecting all of iCloud with end-to-end encryption, Apple has shifted to focus on protecting some of the most sensitive user information, such as saved passwords and health data.

> But backed-up contact information and texts from iMessage, WhatsApp and > other encrypted services remain available to Apple employees and > authorities._

Way to confuse laypeople with promises of security and data privacy. If Apple had concerns about users losing the key, why not implement it similar to two factor authentication on Apple IDs where Apple also provides the recovery codes (and additionally disallow any other mechanism of recovery)?</comment>


Dear Designer: How to Explain to Your Kids That You Work at Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://modus.medium.com/p/64a93bef7ac3 <comment><USER2> That reminds me of that old, old joke: "For God's sake, don't tell my mother! She thinks I'm a piano-player in a brothel"

</comment><comment><USER3> The link is a 404.</comment>


Show HN: AiDee – a open source micro-framework for Touch ID and Face ID - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aiFigueiredo/aiDee <comment><USER2> I don't understand. How is this better than using `LAContext` directly?

<comment><USER3> Indeed. The readme itself says it "aims to be a simple example of Apple's not- so-new LocalAuthentication API usage". So this is more like a "swifty wrapper" around LAContext[0].

[0]: [https://github.com/aiFigueiredo/aiDee/blob/029fcd9c9ca8c3242...](https://github.com/aiFigueiredo/aiDee/blob/029fcd9c9ca8c3242bfb5648a20c1d2583114b98/aiDee/aiDee/BiometricAuthentication.swift#L57)

<comment><USER2> Yeah. I skimmed through the code. Seems unnecessarily. It does wrap it to run in the main thread, which can be useful.

I've found that more often than not, saving a few lines of code in too many places in the codebase can almost introduce a new dialect of the language for the team and newcomers to the team to learn and maintain.

I thank the author for sharing and taking the time and effort to do this and it seems like others are finding it useful, so it's all good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your feedback. I was unsure how to properly name this, but maybe Biometrics Wrapper would have been better.

Regarding LAContext, the only difference is that aiDee adds an extra layer of abstraction with a clean and simple public API (e.g. biometricAuth.authenticateUser(...) instead of context.evaluatePolicy(...)).

If I had a company where I'd need to implement this in 10 different apps, I think I would do something like aiDee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this is awesome, but any Apple engineers should be trying to obviate the need for stuff like this to exist. At least one can hope!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. One can always hope :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> is there something similar for android?</comment>


VMware Set to Acquire Part of Blue Medora - <AUTHOR> http://tunemon.com/vmware-set-to-acquire-part-of-blue-medora/ <comment><USER2> Another one bites the dust.</comment>


A fake hitman, a kill list, a darknet vigilante, and a murder - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/kill-list-dark-web-hitmen <comment><USER2> Another possible moral is _don 't be a freelance security researcher as a hobby_. You should at least get paid for it and get some organisational cover - not only are you potentially at risk of crossing organised crime, but you can very easily be framed and end up raided by the police.

<comment><USER3> > Another possible moral is don't be a freelance security researcher as a > hobby. You should at least get paid for it and get some organisational cover > - not only are you potentially at risk of crossing organised crime, but you > can very easily be framed and end up raided by the police.

Alternate reading -- the best way to extricate yourself from a dark web scam is to pose as a freelance security researcher as a hobby and turn on your co- conspirators. Explains why you have admin access to the the site and all its email correspondence when the police come looking for you.

<comment><USER4> Except this guy had proof that he contacted law enforcement multiple times and provided them with data (which they mostly ignored).

<comment><USER3> Yeah - when you get cold feet that's how you inoculate yourself.

"I got this stuff cause I'm a random security analyst, not cause I'm an admin for the site"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You so rarely run into a news story that considers a genuinely difficult ethical question. I think I'd say that it's morally wrong to run a scam hit darksite to steal money from people who want assassins, but it is not obvious. Especially when you consider the larger point that the existence of scams like this one make it harder for a real service to pop up.

<comment><USER6> There is research showing that suicide rates increase with greater access to easy methods(ie. guns). My guess would be that murders work much the same way. Planning and executing a murder is difficult, signing up for a website and sending bitcoin is easy. I suspect that murder appearing more accessible encourages more people to pursue it. Obviously a scammer won't pull off an actual hit, but I worry that the person paying might be more willing to pursue other methods after months of thinking about it and being led on by the scammer.

<comment><USER7> A small argument here... where it seems you are misusing causality.

>There is research showing that suicide rates increase with greater access to easy methods(ie. guns).

Saying that "access to guns" increases suicide is a very misleading statement often used intentionally. As there is no concern for the opposite effect of ownership nor any reasoning of cause vs effect. There are more defensive uses of guns than misuses, including suicides according to the CDC. BUT...

To tie it to your argument... Does having access to internet CAUSE an increase in murder for hire?

If we want to limit murder for hire - Should we ban Tor or encryption, should be allow our civil rights to be removed because some people will misuse them? By your wording especially-yes because these things are 'easy', it's just signing up for a website and making a bitcoin transfer after all.

I question any line of thought that leads with _" this is bad because people might misuse it"_ or that _" we should stop people thinking about something"_.

<comment><USER8> > "this is bad because people might misuse it"

Well, that's the reason you can't buy a nuclear gun even if you have the money it costs; because you "might misuse it" or maybe you just want it for a collection, doesn't matter you can't have one; so its not as black as white as some might believe.

<comment><USER7> That's a disingenuous argument. We're talking about guns and in a broader sense encryption access as it pertains to the article. Which are two things that have legitimate and defensive purposes.

Something like a "nuclear gun" or DDoS attack has no defensive purpose. In the terms of firearms, you jumped to ordinance when the topic is about arms. I hope you didn't do so intentionally.

<comment><USER8> Ok you want to get really specific about guns, let's do that. The reason guns are so popular for suicide is because it is immediate, unlike filling your car with carbone dioxide (gas) or figuring out how to hang yourself. The immediateness give suicidal people a lot less minutes to further consider their decision, an minutes are very important in the case of these people, specially when the decision hasn't been in their heads for years but only for days meaning a emotional response to an traumatic event, for example that's what happened to Katie Stubblefield, broke with his boyfriend then took his brother's rifle and shot herself in the head at her parent's house, you see... when you fail to kill yourself by hanging there is not pretty much any lasting damages due such failed attempt, unfortunately for Katie the same cannot be said for rifle shots, she was found by her mother with pretty much nothing left of her face but lots of blood and exposed bone and still breathing; so yeah, guns make the suicide issue a lot more complex for multiple reasons while there is no upside for society, America would be pretty much the same if after 1900 guns had been banned, of course you think otherwise, you give it some emotional weight or some false protection purpose, given countries without guns on their streets don't seem to be doing any worse.

<comment><USER7> People select effective tools, shocker.

>America would be pretty much the same if after 1900 guns had been banned

That's a pretty massive leap. Maybe you can ignore the 500k-3M defensive gun uses per year, maybe you can ignore the civil rights movement that was furthered by blacks arming themselves - coincidentaly this is the roots of modern gun control in the USA (a plan to keep "the wrong people" from owning guns, still rooted in racism today), ignore the "rooftop Koreans", ignore that unlike Mexico to the tip of Chile that razor wire and bars on Windows isn't common in USA because the penalty for property crime can be death, ignore that our military is the best in the world because of country boys that grew up with positive gun culture, ignore all you like. You're clearly not presenting a factual argument with such a broad hypothetical.

Edit: I've already been sucked in to a silly line of thinking too much. The point here isn't that you're scared or upset about the existence of guns. It's that we don't get rid of things or stop people from thinking things because someone might be bad. That's not how a free society works.

<comment><USER8> Your definition of "free society" is probably the problem here. In mine the tools of violence play a non-existing role; for exactly the same reason they don't get atomic bombs.

<comment><USER7> > In mine the tools of violence play a non-existing role;

Lol. When you have a problem, you're going to call police, to bring a "tool of violence". You're just being naive about who is 'allowed' to have a means of defense.

If police are the only ones that can defend themselves from people like you - you aren't free, you are subservient. Aren't the same people a threat to them, a threat to you? Classes of nobility don't seem very free to me.

But... you jumped to "nuclear gun", so how much of a serious argument could I expect from you?

<comment><USER8> Ad hominem much. Bla bla you believe what you want in a civilized country the only gun needed by the police may be a taser gun.

<comment><USER7> You're right, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were literally a child, mattigames.

>only gun needed by the police may be a taser gun

:D please tell me more about your experience with police and police training! Then I'll tell you mine where I've traveled around the country training and training with police. Can't wait.

EDIT: Nice job using a throwaway account to downvote my posts! Though you should know that's against the TOS here.

<comment><USER9> Please don't do flamewars on HN, and especially don't cross into incivility like you did here. That's a way to get banned on HN, but we'd much rather that you take the spirit of this site to heart. Please see the links at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18787962](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18787962).

<comment><USER7> Absolutely my bad. I got sucked into it somehow despite it being clear the topic was lost nearly right away.

<comment><USER9> It happens to nearly all of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > A tall man in his thirties with thick sable hair, a short beard and deep- > set, dark eyes, Monteiro ... [can be found doing this and that and also > doing this in reddit and... ]...

Hey, This guy put a lot of effort trying to be anonymous and could have serious problems if not, so lets describe him thoroughly in a public e-journal!.

I hate when journalists do this.

<comment><USER11> At this point, he had already revealed probably-identifying information in an interview with the Mirror newspaper. That same interview respected his accomplice's desire for anonymity, so I don't think we can assume journalists were at fault here.

This was after he was disturbed enough by receiving a video of a burning car to go to the police. He seems to have a complex relationship with anonymity.

<comment><USER7> I think this and the rest of the article really only shows me that this guy while technically prepared to be a security researcher - practically or emotionally is not.

His buddies have the good sense to remain anonymous.

<comment><USER12> I think to some degree he tried, I'm still wondering if "bRspd" is the same guy, anytime it talks about proper hacks / database dumps it blames whoever bRspd is, and keeps him and Judge Judy out of it. It just seems a little too coincidental. He should of published as an anonymous blogger (or more), and then based his wiki work off that. Maybe purposely write in terrible English in anoymous blogs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pretty good write-up of the Allwine/"dogdaygod" case, which contains more information about the husband's personal situation and subsequent trial:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2018/01/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2018/01/25/a-church-elders-ashley-madison-affairs-led-him-to-the-dark- web-and-murder-police-say/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm always wondering - how can people that are determined enough to access the dark web and buy crypto, and willing to instigate a murder, fall for such obvious scams? Do they really think the mafia hosts front sites for anyone to browse and order through? What, do they think they give discounts and fidelity cards as well?

<comment><USER15> Hitmen are an actual thing that exists, it's not crazy to expect them to be available for hire via the dark web. In terms of legality and the consequences of being caught, ordering a hit on someone is not _that_ different from ordering a kilo of heroin, and the dark web facilitates that pretty well. (Morality is, of course, another matter.)

<comment><USER16> I'm sure there is a crazy world of high-end assassins given the incidents involving Jamal Khashoggi, Viktor Yushchenko, Alexander Litvinenko, etc. But from a business standpoint and morality aside, the "every person" assassin almost seems as bad of a business model as the one high school kid who sells fake ids. You have a bunch of one time customers, extremely high legal risks versus the financial payoff, and a high likelihood of eventually getting caught. With drugs, you have addicted, and therefore, repeat customers.

<comment><USER17> Indeed, I would suspect that real hitmen usually aren't full time hitmen as an occupation. In the case of the highend examples you mention, they're probably ex special forces or spies for that country that usually don't get asked to do that, but do some other jobs for their paymasters. And most "hitmen" are probably actually from extremely poor countries and live and work in gangs doing all the usual gang illegal stuff in addition to doing hits (for relatively low sums).

I think dark web hitmen are entirely scams, but I suppose if we can literally buy heroin or crystal meth online from the dark web, it's not entirely naive to think aprori that hits could also be purchased. The reason they're not is probably that it's actuslly extremely difficult to regularly perform hits in the West, and probably not a great business model to scale on the dark web for the average Joe who wants to pay only a few grand for a hit.

<comment><USER18> Richard Kuklinski was a fulltime hitman. He had some other scams on the side, but killing was his business. I suspect that when you're running a large criminal enterprise you need people like Kuklinski on a kind of retainer basis.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpTDo4fUW4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpTDo4fUW4s)

<comment><USER17> > Richard Kuklinski was a fulltime hitman

The wikipedia page you linked says:

> Throughout his criminal life, Kuklinski was involved in narcotics, > pornography, arms dealing, money laundering, collecting debts for loan > sharking, hijacking and contract killing.

<comment><USER19> Sounds like a full stack criminal to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The British police really don't come out of this well. Not especially surprising as they are also failing to do anything about rampant internet fraud.

</comment><comment><USER21> Excellent writing. The story, although real, has all elements to make a decent thriller movie.

<comment><USER22> Was getting this vibe myself. Had to ask myself at the end of it -- and even during -- why is this not a movie.

<comment><USER7> Well, the main character seems to be slightly bubbling in terms of keeping himself anonymous, having keep records and contacts with police, appropriately handling contacts with journalists, and the story only glances on the murder of Bryon that is touched on twice and never resolved in the slightest making me assume it's tangentally related enough to add to the article title but that's about all.

I'm not sure _"amateur security researcher"_ makes a good story. Look at the ethical question posed, some dude make upto millions on this scam, by taking money from bad people, he by far isn't the worst person in the story.

IDK. I see the real hero of the story here to be the two hackers that remained anonymous through the story, because they had the good sense to make that a priority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This could be the seed of a great movie. Hobbyist investigates "dark web" sites and find a hitman site that seems like a scam, only to find it's really much worse.

<comment><USER24> A bit like the Mr Robot episodes with Craig Robinson (guess that needs a spoiler alert, apologies!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I almost want to make a joke saying that the moral of the story is not to get married. Nevertheless, an excellent write-up and just as enticing of a story.

<comment><USER25> Although that's amusing, there's a pretty good real moral to this story:

> It appeared that Monteiro had been arrested on the basis of a misinformation > campaign.

> There had been warning signs for a while, at least since the point at which > Yura had threatened to expose him as a cop. In June 2016, when Monteiro > hacked into Yura's Gmail account, he had noticed that the scammer had > created email addresses under the name of Chris Monteiro

Until I got to this point in the article, I hadn't realized that the initial denunciation of the site[1] was done under _Monteiro 's real name_. This is a good example of why messing with internet scumbags, even if they're pretty clearly not actual mafia capos, is an activity best undertaken pseudoanonymously (at the very minimum). Although what happened to Monteiro was a bit nastier than usual skiddie fare, there are a _lot_ of ways, from financial fraud to swatting, for someone who wishes you ill and possesses your dox to seriously mess with your life.

Seems like Monteiro was too wrapped up in the acquisition of personal notoriety to care about opsec. My intent isn't necessarily to victim-blame Monteiro, but hopefully this episode will serve as a lesson to other well- meaning but potentially naive vigilantes.

Some of the nasty stuff that's happened to Krebs[2] also falls into this category. I guess in his case it's probably more of an intentional, aware-of- the-risks tradeoff, but man, I don't think that's a deal I'd be willing to make, especially since many such incidents don't end so peacefully[3].

\---

[1] [https://pirate.london/assassination-scams-the-next- generatio...](https://pirate.london/assassination-scams-the-next- generation-16faccef578e)

[2] [https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/03/the-world-has-no-room- fo...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/03/the-world-has-no-room-for-cowards/)

[3] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/man-pleads- guilt...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/man-pleads-guilty-to- swatting-attack-that-lead-to-death-of-kansas-man/)

<comment><USER12> > Until I got to this point in the article, I hadn't realized that the initial > denunciation of the site[1] was done under Monteiro's real name. This is a > good example of why messing with internet scumbags, even if they're pretty > clearly not actual mafia capos, is an activity best undertaken > pseudoanonymously (at the very minimum). Although what happened to Monteiro > was a bit nastier than usual skiddie fare, there are a lot of ways, from > financial fraud to swatting, for someone who wishes you ill and possesses > your dox to seriously mess with your life.

I hope he learned from "Judge Judy" to not expose his real identity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This guy hacks into a darknet "hire a hitman" site and downloads the target list. Although the site is fake, he realises that the target list could help pre-empt real murders.

<comment><USER27> He goes to the cops who ignore him, because they feel they have better things to do then prevent What enda up being at least two murders.... then later the bad guy buys some SEO and they raid the white-hats place because they think he's running the site..... the site he handed over to them already... the site they didn't care about. These cops don't just seem incompetent, they seem downright moronic.

<comment><USER3> No, it's not quite that simple.

As presented by the journalist here, it makes sense to believe him. But imagine seeing what Monteiro is presenting in real-time, with some reasonably cautious skepticism. His computers contain the entire source of the hitman site, he had admin capabilities of the site, enough to take it down. Even as Yura created new sites Monteiro retained the ability to read all of the email of the site. A reasonable reading of that, is that rather than a white knight, it was just as likely he was a co-conspirator.

And frankly they shouldn't fully let go of that idea. The author seems willing to take everything Monteiro says at face value, without an ounce of skepticism. If Monteiro and Yura were a team and one got cold feet, how would it play out, and how could one best cover his tracks?

<comment><USER7> >Even as Yura created new sites Monteiro retained the ability to read all of the email of the site. A reasonable reading of that, is that rather than a white knight, it was just as likely he was a co-conspirator.

Yes. I found this to be unbelievable.

Let's say bad-admin uses an out of date Wordpress or join pa instance with some security flaw. Am I really to beleive in 2 years he keeps using the same instance every time his site is taken down?

That seems extremely unlikely.

If your hian site is taken down by some guy in London, you're going to wonder how; and probably assume it was some bad code on your end.

Dude keeps using the same code and keeps wondering how his site keeps getting hacked - yet, knows enough to work SEO, get a guy SEATed, run an anonymous darkwrv site, and handle crypto payments?

Sure seems odd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just do a CTRL+F on "Njoroge" if you want to read more about the case in the opening paragraph. The story doesn't circle back to that until WAYYYYY too deep in this long form article.

I get the writing style, but it should give some closure to that much earlier on.

</comment><comment><USER29> Unfiltered uploads AND sql injection? jeeeez...</comment>


Newspond - Techmeme competitor - <AUTHOR> http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/02/19/is-newspond-a-techmeme-killer/ <comment><USER2> Good looking news site. Very nice UI layout. Probably similar to Techmeme auto-news-discovery-ranking guts underneath it.

Makes Techmeme look like the Drudge Report. But the unsexy look of the Drudge Report has its charms. I still like Techmeme. Newspond looks too good maybe.</comment>