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A comment on Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained. Parent comment

Re:Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI compl... by Spooky23 on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @12:08PM (#22108799)
That definately isn't meaningfully true, because MacOS devices without enclaves can function as iMessage clients.
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Re:Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI compl... by snowwrestler on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @01:58PM (#22110141)
This is a really good point; I don't use Messages on my Mac so I forget that's an option.

Maybe the concept is the same, but on a Mac the private key is stored in the Keychain instead of a physical enclave?

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Re:Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI compl... by Spooky23 on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @03:06PM (#22110933)
I think it is in keychain, but my understanding is that Secure Enclave keys cannot be exported.
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Re:Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI compl... by tialaramex on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:09AM (#22114819)
It's not uncommon for software to claim to offer this feature. Windows does it for example, and it was a bug in such a feature for WebCrypto in Firefox that made the news recently here.

Invariably such features are weak and a sufficiently capable attacker can override them. In Windows for example you could reach into the opaque data structure and toggle the Boolean that forbids exporting keys...

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