Apple has confirmed that it wants to prevent the police and other agencies from being able to get into the iPhone

Last week we informed you that with iOS 12 comes a new feature that will significantly reduce the possibility of hacking into the iPhone. This news originally appeared as one of the features in the iOS 11.4 beta, but Apple did not include it in the final version. However, it is now available in the current beta, and it seems that Apple plans to keep it that way. Now an official representative of the company has commented on the presence of this tool.

The newly added function limits the capabilities of the Lightning connector if the iPhone or iPad has not been unlocked in the last hour. As soon as an hour has passed since the last time the device was unlocked, the charging connector will switch to a kind of limited mode, in which it will only work for charging needs, not for any data transfer needs.

With this step, Apple wants to prevent the use of special tools for forced entry, which began to be used last year to break the protection of iPhones and iPads. These are the so-called GreyKey boxes and are essentially special boxes that, after connecting via the Lightning port, try to break the device's lock by software. This is usually done within a few hours. These boxes are commonly available and American authorities have already used them several times in cases where they needed to break the protection of an iPhone or iPad. But that should be the end of it.

With the new tool, GreyKey Box will be inoperable as it will not be able to connect to iPhone and iPad in "restricted mode" in any way. This mode can be turned off in the settings, it will be turned on by default with the arrival of iOS 12 (if nothing changes in the next three months).

The police and other government agencies are not happy about this move. For example, the police in Indiana, USA, broke the protection of almost a hundred iPhones last year thanks to the use of the GreyKey Box. However, this will not be possible now and the police/investigators will have to find a new way of obtaining information. However, this does not mean that Apple would go directly against them. In the last year alone, the company has registered almost 30 thousand requests to unlock some devices by state investigative authorities (in the USA).

Here comes the question of ethics and Apple's approach to the personal information of its users. On the one hand, it may be good that law enforcement agencies are able to access important evidence, but on the other hand, it is the private and personal information of users that they have not given consent to share. In addition, similar tools like GreyKey Box are not always used for "good" purposes. They can also serve hackers, who get to them and use the personal information of users in their own way - usually in an illegal way. What do you think about this new feature?

Source: Macrumors