Oliver Haslam on December 12, 2019, 10:55 pm

Apple Used DMCA To Take Down Post Containing iPhone Encryption Key But Retracted The Request Later

Apple recently used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to have Twitter delete a tweet that included an iPhone encryption key.

The tweet was originally shared on December 7 by a security researcher going by the name Siguza. That key could allow someone to reverse engineer the iPhone’s Secure Enclave which is where all of Apple’s encryption is taken care of.

However, a couple of days later Apple sent a DMCA notice to Twitter, and it was later deleted as per the request. However, it’s now back online after Apple reportedly retracted its request. Apple confirmed to Motherboard that it sent the takedown notice but later retracted it.

Around the same time Reddit also received notices relating to posts in the r/jailreak subreddit. While it hasn’t been confirmed that the notices were initiated by Apple, security researchers believe that it was the iPhone maker at the root of them. And it’s believed the company is trying to slow the jailbreak community as a result.

Apple has a long history of trying to thwart jailbreakers and other people who try to circumvent its security systems. The Secure Enclave is vital to things like Face ID, Touch ID, and Apple Pay so it’s unlikely the company will want it to be cracked wide open. Hence these takedown notices and Apple’s wish to keep things as locked up as possible.

(Source: Motherboard)