IP-Boxes

From a New York Daily News story about a judge tossing out evidence police obtained from a suspect’s iPhone:

U.S. Department of Homeland Security special agent David Bauer had testified in Djibo’s case that a “fairly new” device called an IP-Box can be used to “systematically attempt every passcode from 0000 to 9999.”

But in the other case before the magistrate, Johnson noted, different federal prosecutors argued that the IP-Box is unreliable and could result in a “non-trivial risk of data destruction.”

These devices are easily obtained, and only cost $100-200. It takes about 17 hours to run through all the codes from 0000 to 9999. (A smart one would start by trying the most commonly used four-digit passcodes first, instead of starting at 0000.) Anyway, if you haven’t switched to a six-digit passcode, you should. And if you have anything truly sensitive on your devices, you should enable the option to erase all data after 10 failed attempts.

★ Wednesday, 23 December 2015