Indeed. Although a lot more than billions of years. With classical computers the energy requirements alone set severe limits, by Landauer’s principle. You’re talking about a galactic scale engineering project. With quantum computers, I think the number of bits doubles at a given energy level, so it might be feasible for very advanced civilizations with quantum computers.
The space of possible passcodes is vastly smaller, so the feasible methods are to try to work with the hardware on the device or try to discover the unique key.
Sort of the opposite of the old Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence adage, then.
After absorbing some more information about it all, it does have the stink of a deliberate play for favorable precedent - the Bureau seems to have decided that it’s found its equivalent of the “There’s a nuke in Manhattan and we have to torture this guy” scenario.
Sigh.
On the other hand: they’ve made their play. It’s out in the open. And now we’re going to get case law. Which, it seems to me, is a good thing, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Could go all the way to the Supreme Court, even…wonder who’ll be the new Justice when it does?
Curious that Apple is willing to argue with the US gov’t about precedent and ensuring the sanctity of user privacy, and yet I wonder how much they’ve bent over to work with the Chinese gov’t’s demands surrounding the same issues?
Since the iPhone was officially introduced in China seven years ago, Apple has overcome a national security backlash there and has censored apps that wouldn't pass muster with Chinese authorities. It has moved local user data onto servers operated by the state-owned China Telecom and submits to security audits by Chinese authorities.
Not surprising that they’ve censored apps; the Chinese government is notoriously hard on content. But everything else seems pretty standard; it’s good to know they’ve “overcome a security backlash” without compromising user security the way the FBI wants to.
It’s kabuki theater on both sides. I hope it turns out well. Honestly though, the FBI has been looking for an excuse to press the issue and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with our safety, as I’m sure you know.
Apple has decided to go all in. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
The FBI claiming they need access to this phone is stupid. The criminals responsible for the crime in question destroyed their personal phones, on purpose. That shows some understanding of operational security. What are the chances this work phone has any data on it related to the crime or future crimes? (Slim to none.) This is a power grab, plain and simple.
