Worried that someone is reading your iPhone texts? You may be right, depending on whom you ask. Apple for one, is denying claims that it can read users’ iMessages. The statement comes after a study by QuarkLabs that concluded the technology giant could read the messages if chose or were required by a government order to do so.
“iMessage is not architected to allow Apple to read messages,” Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, said to AllThingsD.
Muller went on to say that the QuarkLabs study “discussed theoretical vulnerabilities that would require Apple to re-engineer the iMessage system to exploit it, and Apple has no plans or intentions to do so.”
The research that brought about this question of privacy stated that the way iMessage is constructed gives Apple the option of access. “As Apple claims, there is end-to-end encryption,” QuarkLabs states. “The weakness is in the key infrastructure as it is controlled by Apple: they can change a key anytime they want, thus read the content of our iMessages.”
Put simply, each user has a unique key that unlocks his or her iMessages. Apple is saying that they do not have all of the keys to unlock each user’s messages. However, NBC postulates that if they needed or chose to, Apple could probably “make” a key to get into a user’s messages.
“So when Apple says it can’t read your messages, it’s like saying it doesn’t have a key to your front door — but it does happen to run the locksmith. If they wanted to — or more likely, were compelled to by a government order — they could cut a key that would work just fine,” an NBC report says.
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