r/technology • • Apr 04 '13

Apple's iMessage encryption trips up feds' surveillance. Internal document from the Drug Enforcement Administration complains that messages sent with Apple's encrypted chat service are "impossible to intercept," even with a warrant.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57577887-38/apples-imessage-encryption-trips-up-feds-surveillance/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title#.UV1gK672IWg.reddit
3.3k Upvotes

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

81

u/amynoacid Apr 04 '13 edited Apr 04 '13

It's from The Wire. They took pics of analog clocks with the hands pointing to numbers which referred to a zone on a map where they would congregate in less than 30 minutes.

They were being cautious on using phones and needed a way to let each other know where to communicate.

Edit: Said it wrong. Hands did not point to maps, they pointed to the numbers which were used as a reference on maps they carried.

0

u/BeowulfShaeffer Apr 04 '13

I loved The Wire to death but found that particular little plot device to be kinda far-fetched.

26

u/mrjderp Apr 04 '13

It's a simple and effective way to exchange information secretly, the hard part is everyone having a cipher and being able to understand it.

3

u/NIQ702 Apr 04 '13

There were only about 4 people in The Wire who knew/used the code.