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To: dragnet2
Nothing is secure and when ya sync using icloud or whatever, it's even less secure. Nothing is free, and if it were even relatively secure, you'd be charged for it. Bet the rent.

Don't you know anything at all about modern encryption? Apparently not.

Too bad. If you did and if you knew that your Apple devices automatically encrypt your data to a 256 bit AES standard BEFORE you upload to the iCloud, you wouldn't be so paranoid. Use a good non-dictionariable passcode and there is NO WAY anyone can decrypt your data. None.

It is obvious, YOU do not know what you are talking about through your hat when you say that "nothing is secure."

There are levels of security, dragnet2.

Apple allows us to use every single character one of the 220 characters accessible from the keyboard in our passcode. . . and your passcode can be up to 256 characters long.

Although Apple does prohibit having any two characters sequentially identical, you are free to do anything else. Essentially, your passcode can be any character string combination. That gives you the possibility of having up to 256220 passcode combinations. Think about that very huge number. Just 16 numeric numbers plus a four digit date code makes it almost impossible for fraudsters to hit on a valid credit card number. Nine numbers in our Social Security numbers makes it almost impossible to hit valid SSNs. Here we have a possible combinations almost infinitely larger than either of those that can be used to encrypt your data.

But it is even better than that, dragnet2. . . because after YOU select your passcode to use, your Apple computer or device entangles that passcode with the 128 bit Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) assigned to your device. Now, that gives 384220 possible passcode combinations. That combined, entangled KEY is then converted to a HASH on your device so that it cannot be reverse calculated from the HASH, and then used to encrypt your data to a 256 bit Advanced Encryption Standard file, unlockable only with the original key. . . which is kept only device.

A Googol, is 10100, a very large number indeed. This number of possible passcode combinations is FAR larger than a Googol.

It is then uploaded by YOU to the iCloud as that encrypted file. Apple does NOT have a key that can unlock it. No one but you can unlock it. THAT, my FReep friend is what is known as secure. If your upload is intercepted by anyone, all they see or record, is gobbledegook, garbage code. Un-intelligible noise.

Most people are NOT going to use a 256 character passcode. But a sufficiently complex shorter one is sufficient.

You are right in that Apple may be required to hand over to the government what they are holding. . . and even be required to help the government gain access to what they have. But what can they do if they do not have the technology to do ANYTHING to gain access to the data they have stored?That is the situation as it stands.

How long would it take to try every possible combination of characters and numbers and symbols that could have been used to encrypt your databy brute force? Good question. Because that is what would be required, unless they can force YOU to reveal your passcode.

Let's assume your Passcode was a short, but complex, 16 character code. Recall, however, that it was entangled with your computer's or device's 128 character UUID, so the base is now 16 + 128 or 220144, not quite so large as the that previous number, but still huge. . . and quite a bit larger than a Googol.

985,624,295,028,035,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations. That's 985 Quindecillion, give or take a few.

If the government's supercomputer could check 50,000 passcodes every second, It therefore test 1.5 TRILLION possible passcodes a year. Let's grant the government agency a 33% faster supercomputer and say they could check 2 TRILLION passcodes a year, OK? That means it would take their supercomputer only a mere. . .

49,281,214,751,401,700,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 YEARS

to check all the possible passcodes to decipher your encrypted file that had been encoded with your 16 character complex passcode entangled with a 128 character UUID. It is possible they could, if they were outrageously lucky, get the data deciphered next week, but it more likely will take them a good portion of 49 Undecillion (1035 Years to break into your data. Double, triple, quintuple, or even multiply the speed of the government's super computer by a factor of 1000. . . it makes only infinitesimal differences in the amount of time it would take to break your passcode. That's the law of very large numbers at work.

Do you expect to still be around for the unveiling of your data? Certainly any pressing reason to know what you have in your files would be long forgotten. . . as would be the human race, the planet Earth, and even our Galaxy!

Me? I kind of doubt it will matter to you, because some Cosmologists and Physicists theorize that at around just one thousand decillion (1033) years from now, proton decay will convert the remaining interstellar gas and stellar remnants into leptons (such as positrons and electrons) and photons. . . and there will be no matter left at all. . . so nothing will matter at all.

Keep your passcode complex and don't let it out of your control. . . and your data is safe and secure on the iCloud. Don't believe the hype about insecurity you are hearing. It is far easier you to LOSE your data than it is for them to steal it from Apple.

Now, do you understand???

28 posted on 01/03/2015 8:13:17 PM PST by Swordmaker (This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users contnue...)
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To: Swordmaker
It is far easier you to LOSE your data than it is for them to steal it from Apple.

Read back, I never once implied or suggested it was easy.

I stated nothing is secure, nor is your data you're loading up on icloud, or whatever remote storage system you're syncing to.

You don't have to believe me. As I told ya, you're free to use your electronic devises as you see fit.

31 posted on 01/03/2015 8:35:08 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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