Why does the FBI even bother asking Apple to put a back door into their devices when it already comes with backdoors?

They want their own special sauce VIP door?

Why not?

@FrodoSwaggins What are you trying to say?

@FrodoSwaggins You keep confusing me. 😃

I’m not sure if you can even call them backdoors anymore. They’re more like front doors.

@FrodoSwaggins Ok, but how is the Android comment relevant for this thread?
It's as unrelated as my tooth brush, isn't it?

@FrodoSwaggins However I was curious myself. The most apparent thing I found is a bit older, but still interesting: http://zdziarski.com/blog/...

@FrodoSwaggins Not for me. It's argue that's a matter of the mind set you have.

I refuse to read and hear everything like that. It's what makes many discussions in our field so tiring.

However in regards to that backdoor: What you're describing is precisely how a backdoor works. It doesn't imply that "everyone" has access through it, but only the one holding the key (usually the developer/vendor, in this case Apple).

That's not a vulnerability, it's a backdoor. However one is not always worse than the other, the difference is just that one is integrated by purpose and the other is not, and (often but not always) that a backdoor requires a key to be used.

I'd argue that the deep integration of Google/Apple accounts into these devices could be regarded as a backdoor already (at least to an extent).

"... and you are god if you have Apple's encryption keys. That shouldn't be news to anybody."

No, but it's still a reason for me to not use such a device.

@FrodoSwaggins Let me specify what I regard as a backdoor:

A backdoor is a method to give access to a system or device to a party which is not the owner or at least authorized by him and grants access to data or privileges without the owner's consent.

@FrodoSwaggins On Linux *I* decide what gets installed and updated and which application reads my data That's the difference.

Indeed I would not necessarily call this vulnerability a 'backdoor' and I would do not assume malice from Apple, for me it looks more like carelessness after having read through that article.
It's still a considerable risk and, in my eyes, a horrible design decision, to grant every computer I ever plugged my smartphone in, such a level of access to it.

@FrodoSwaggins I misunderstood your comment about Apple's keys before, and thought you had found something in that article I did not see.

That's why I responded in that way.

I assumed Apple had keys which allowed them to have the same kind of access as paired computers do.

Addendum to my next-to-last commend: The actual 'backdoor' part of the article can be found on page 12 and is the bypass of security mechanism which are meant to prevent the vulnerability received above.

@FrodoSwaggins Where do you think I have done that? I think you're reading your own prejudices into my words...