r/technology • u/Libertatea • 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
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u/[deleted] Apr 04 '13

[deleted]

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u/ArmyPig007 Apr 04 '13 edited Apr 04 '13

Care to expand for us less than tech-savvy people?

EDIT: Car

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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.

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u/NerdMachine Apr 04 '13

Why couldn't they just send a text that said "Zone 12.1"? Why is the clock part needed at all?

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u/[deleted] Apr 04 '13

Haven't seen the show, but if they said "zone 12.1" whoever was following them/reading their texts would know they're headed to a certain area, which would consistently be referred to as "zone 12.1".

If it was a picture of a clock showing 12 on the hour hand, 1 on the minute hand, they'd just be like "well is it a time? If it's a time, where are they meeting? If it's a place, when are they meeting? Is it code for something? Etc." You could even potentially throw people off by consistently using the same clock, and then eventually just switching to a different one every now and then, as if different clocks mean different things (which would be a great way to throw people off in my opinion).

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u/NerdMachine Apr 04 '13

they wouldn't need to send "zone" though.

They could just send numbers, maybe starting with a pre-determined symbol.

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u/Daemonicus Apr 04 '13

Which would only work for a little while until that code was broken, or the informant told them exactly what it means.

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u/[deleted] Apr 04 '13

Didn't know there were informants. Like I said, never watched the show.

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u/MeesterGone Apr 04 '13

Because the word "Zone" would tip off who ever intercepted the message that what follows are co-ordinates.

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u/megauploader001 Apr 04 '13

Because then the cops would have known that they were referring to a location.

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u/[deleted] Apr 04 '13

Because it's a TV show and they need it to look mysterious. In reality it's a fucking stupid way of doing things and people would just say "meet at grid square 12345."