Re:Apple Security Research Device Program
by eddieroger on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @09:07PM
(#23923202)
Most, maybe, but look at all of the Developer Transition Kits Apple has been distributing - they’re Mac Mini bodies with Apple Silicon inside. There’s no reason to think this won’t be an iPhone chassis with modified guts.
Re:Apple Security Research Device Program
by saagarjha on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @09:13PM
(#23923249)
This will likely be an iPhone that looks identical to a production one, both inside and out. Perhaps there will be a serial number on it or something.
Re:Apple Security Research Device Program
by ladberg on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @03:51PM
(#23920845)
I agree, but I think there are non-technical people who would happily buy a cheap iPhone on Craigslist or Facebook and enter in all their iCloud or banking info without rebooting or looking at warnings.
Re:Apple Security Research Device Program
by saagarjha on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @03:57PM
(#23920903)
Who is honestly going to buy this highly sought-after iPhone, backdoor it and flip it for a discount on Craigslist in an attempt to what, hack a random person? And you can just prevent that by doing something simple like disabling the App Store…
Re:Apple Security Research Device Program
by ladberg on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @07:19PM
(#23922622)
First, my argument only applies to when these are common and not highly sought after (see the top level comment I replied to). Not necessarily a random person, but having an easily obtainable rooted iPhone would absolutely enable targeted attacks against wealthy/famous people.
Think of it like a classic USB drop attack but a bit more expensive: you install your remote management code on a phone, box it up like new, and drop it at the door of someone wealthy's house. I'd bet they would happily assume it's a wrong delivery and start using it if it's an upgrade over their current phone.
Re:Apple Security Research Device Program
by saagarjha on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @08:07PM
(#23922882)
Again, if you make the research iPhones unmistakable people will figure it out. And yeah, people ignore strange markings or click through warnings, but if you make it impossible to do the thing they want to do then they literally cannot ignore it.
Re:Apple Security Research Device Program
by Wowfunhappy on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @03:58PM
(#23920923)
I agree with the first sentence, but disabling the app store would greatly hamper security research, since you can't debug third party apps.
Re:Apple Security Research Device Program
by saagarjha on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @04:07PM
(#23921026)
You'd just download the IPA manually and self-sign it or whatever. Basically just make it unmistakable that this device is not normal and block normal people from being able to use it as normal without realizing it's a development device.
In other cases, e.g. Android/Chromebooks, there's a common, immutable early chain-of-trust that stays the same between production and development devices (or in this case, between rooted and unrooted devices); which pops up a message during boot warning that a device is currently a development/rooted device, and therefore should not be trusted for production use-cases. It could just-as-well also say "DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE ON THE SECONDARY MARKET; IT HAS BEEN TAMPERED WITH, AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITHOUT FACTORY RE-VERIFICATION" — and then users told repeatedly in the company's messaging to look for messages at boot before buying.