Interestingly, I thought about that. I believe the number of likely passwords is manageable - the default being a 4 digit number. One can certainly brute force a 10,000 number universe. Using up a phone, real or virtual, every 10 tries makes this a tedious and expensive proposition.

I'm pretty sure it's not the password itself they want to disable, just the automatic delete.

Could it be that, as reported elsewhere, that the original password had been changed after the government had taken possession of the phone, that it might leave Apple unable to unlock the phone. Whether Apple left an opening for upgraded software to change the new password is not known yet. Also, has the order to Apple been released publicly yet?
It is a bit early to speculate that there is a China marketing reason to not comply.

There are easier ways to accomplish that. One can make mirror copies of the phones memory without altering any of the contents and then experiment till the cows come home. The problem is that there are trillions of possible combinations of password protection so It can take a long time to test them all. It is likely that the encryption system uses a trapdoor algorithm where the answer is a function of operations on thousands of prime numbers. It is possible to find the answer but to open the door you must know the question. It may be that even Apple can't do that unless they deliberately built a back door into their system which is unlikely.

I've been playing catch-up on this issue. I believe that the situation is that the phone prevents someone from using brute force to guess the password because it delete's the contents after 10 incorrect guesses. What the government wants them to do is to write a special version of their operating system that disables this feature so that they can guess the password by brute force.

That seems certainly doable and would not be something that Apple would want to have out in the world.

The two key words of the article are "if true."
Did Apple give the info to China? Are the Apple people so greedy that they'd break their own business rules in order to acquire a market? If so, to hell with them. If on the other hand, they have maintained their security protocols to everyone, we can say hurray for them, and the government has no right to the information under any form of law congruent with the Constitution. One thing that hasn't been explored in the article is how badly China wants iPhones. Are they willing to give up the use of them and the commerce they will bring over what they know is a highly unlikely situation? For now, I'm with Apple.

This so reminds me of that scene in Atlas Shrugged when the police try to force John Galt to open the door to his household lab. When he refuses, and they break down the door, all the room's contents are immediately turned to dust.

It's good this scenario has come up. It will help the mobile vendors raise the bar with personal security, especially since there's a clear market demand for it.
So what next? Banning the sale of uncrackable mobile devices?

Different country, different rules, no power, no protection and a government that would not hesitate to hag your butt?

Would pulling out of china been a option or was it more important to keep the population of a communist country connected to the rest of the world?
Not that I think Apple thinks this way, rather I'd hope that at least someone brought up that thought.

There is a question that so far no one has asked. "Is it possible to do what Apple is being asked to do?" As I understand it the phone in question has the latest version of Apple's encryption software. A friend that is in a position to know such things tells me that Apple went to great lengths to create a system that was so unbreakable that even if you know exactly how it works it is still impossible to crack. If this is the case the real reason that Apple is resisting the court order is that they are unable to comply not that they don't want to.

Agreed, I also suspect China's market size played a large part.

Fight the battles you can win.

Another statist hachet job. Not comparable to the feds demands at all.

I had no hand in hiding your post. I only ignore one person on this site and its not you.

I agree except to the extent that Apple has provided this service at the request of the government 70 times and that this instance was for a 100% certifiable terrorist who killed Americans on American soil. Of all those instances, why choose this one to deny? There could be leads, evidence, or potential plots on that cell phone that are time critical. Logically, it makes no sense unless 1) the gov didn't follow procedure or 2) Apple has something to hide in this case.