Dude, that is absurd. Even a BURKHA / ABAYA is vulnerable from some angle.

Obviously, I imagine an upskirt picture does not reveal any more than what you would see at a beach in any western country. I think the issue is that, a person being made to reveal more of herself than she is consenting to, to a person she does not know, and usually without her knowledge. It would be the equivalent of someone being forced to take off her skirt in public without her consent.

Also, what if the woman is not wearing any underwear? It is her business if she is, or is not, and by wearing a skirt she has a reasonable right to privacy in that matter.

The "backdoor" is the Apple ID - you need that password to bypass the lock. Apple obviously has this (well, they have a hash of your password and the ability to reset it). If they want to unlock it all they have to do is reset the password to the Apple ID. They don't need a special backdoor to get around this.

This feature was added because of the massive theft problem and the "easy" way to circumvent the security - just restoring the device then, boom, you have a new iPad/iPhone that you can sell on.

Now the Apple ID that is entered when "Find my iPhone/iPad" is turned on (and it's on by default, or at least you are prompted during setup to turn it on) you absolutely cannot restore the device without it. You can get as far as wiping the device, but from then on it will be impossible to restore it in working condition since the installer will fail the server check because the device is locked. It will prompt you to put in the Apple ID and password.

It used to be far more trivial to convince Apple to do a password reset, but it resulted in a social engineering security breach, so now they are *much* more stringent about it.

Now, as to whether you can root a locked iOS 7 device to get around this, I have no idea.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa. Ahhahahahahahahaha!

Precious!

They don't know the email, or the password.

You're justifying leaving them because they're following the law?

That's a new one on me, but whatever floats your boat I suppose.

A will is not enforceable in the UK until a court says so. Usually it's not necessary (and cheaper), but until it's done (the hassle that the family are complaining about) it's just a piece of paper.

Apple is following the law and has seriously tightened up their security after the last debacle involving social engineering and a reporter who had his Macbook remote wiped by a third party. They got slammed for that, so they fixed it. Now they're getting slammed for being on the side of security instead of convenience.

With that court order (which will be trivially granted) Apple will reset the Apple ID. Until then they only have the word of the children and a fancy solicitor's letter that the iPad belonged to the mother - I mean, they don't know the login details - and they want to be sure. It's almost certainly not stolen, and almost certainly has been included in the will - there can be different wills that say different things, until one is determined to be the actual one, as defined by (guess what) a court of law).

Hate Apple all you want, but what they're doing is pretty standard and is adhering strictly to their updated security policies - policies that were put in place after they took major flak for a pretty serious security breach in the past. But you know, hate them if they are too lax, hate them if they are too secure - it's all gravy for an Apple hater.

Since iOS 7 if you DFU restore a locked iPad it will be bricked without the Apple ID that locked it. This is an anti-theft measure installed after they had major criticism for their security being too lax.

So, when they were the subject of severe criticism for having lax security (justified in my opinion) after someone used social engineering to reset a reporter's Apple ID you hated them then, and now that they responded to that criticism and improved their security to be less convenient they're still to be hated?

Got it.

You're a very angry person when it comes to Apple. How much of your time would you say you spend raging on the internet because people buy products from a company you don't like?

You don't need a credit card to have an Apple ID. You don't even need to put in a real address (or the one you live at, certainly - Apple doesn't verify that).

Who knows what information Apple has on that iPad and subsequent account? Of course they know what it is, but they need a court of law to say "the people asking for access to it are legit, you can reset the Apple ID".

No, they provided a death certificate, that proves a woman died. They provided a will that said all her possessions go to the kids, and a fancy letter from a lawyer that says the same thing.

None of those things prove that the iPad they want unlocked belonged to the dead person, hence the court order.

This is all pretty standard stuff. It's just big news because someone wants ad impressions via click bait and slashdot just loves to hate Apple. Someone is making a mortgage payment off this story.

Say I inherit a locked safe made by SafeCo from my dead father. I have a certificate proving he is dead, and a will that says I inherit his possessions.

Is SafeCo obligated to open the safe with their master key. Do you think they might ask for a court order, as is standard in probate law?

Now assume that I inherit my father's estate and I add a stolen safe into the possessions, also made by SafeCo. What happens if they unlock that for me without a court order?

Why is it Apple's problem?

Is it a safe manufacturer's problem if a locked safe is inherited by the children and they don't know the combination?

I'm pretty sure they'd ask for something like, I I don't know, a court order perhaps, if they were asked to enter their master code to unlock the safe if the original owner had died and their kids wanted access to it.

Does it take effort to be that stupid?

They're asking for a standard court order based on English law that the documents presented are genuine and that the iPad actually belonged to that dead person.

This is really, really, really standard stuff. The only reason it's turned into a big deal is because it's Apple. After the big kefuffle last year or so when that reporter lost his data because someone social engineered their way into his Apple ID and Apple took (deserved) serious heat for it, they seriously tightened up their security procedures.

You're really going with that?!

Ok!

Maybe you should have posted AC.