Assignment 1: Information Literacy

Douglas J Miller

1

Article Write Up: Apple doubles-down on security, shuts out law enforcement from accessing iPhones,
iPads
This week Apple announced the release of its new iOS 8 operating system and with it a reworked
encryption protocol. The new system affectively removes apples ability to access the users data stored
on the phone, be it e-mail to photos. By doing so apples has effectively removed its ability to response
to warrants and subpoenas and forced law enforcement officials to collect information directly from the
users iPhone, iPad. The privacy community and security experts have applauded Apples move and in
the words of the author Apple just scored about a billion points in regard to addressing consumers
concerns and has left it competitors in the dust, (Whittaker, 2014).

Two Additional Articles
Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with search warrants (Timberg, 2014).
Apples new encryption to lock out government (Lever, 2014).
Both www.google.com and www.dogpile.com where used to find the above articles, as to which search
engine produced better results, thats largely subjective. In this case, while dogpile produced more
hits, to actual see the search engine results required users to allow several scripts to run in the
background. Additional, the first several hits were actual advertisements and not relevant search
results. For these reasons google would appear to be the better engine both in terms of relevant results
and overall security.

TRAAP
Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with search warrants (Timberg, 2014).
1. Time: Published September 18, 2014. While there has been no direct updates to this article the
author has published seven additional articles that either follow up with additional information
or expand the scope of the issue.
2. Relevance: Yes, the article is both relevant and provides additional information on Apples new
iOS8 encryption.
3. Authority: Craig Timberg is a national technology reporter for The Washington Post, with
specialties in privacy, security and surveillance. He also been part of the Post team the won a
Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the NSA. Mr. Timberg has been reporting on technology for
several years and been with the post since 1998. Information obtained from the Washington
Post and Linked-In.
4. Accurate: The information provided was consistent with other online information and Apples
own press release, information can be considered accurate and trustworthy.
5. Purpose: The article itself is mostly written just to inform the public of the Apples new
encryption. However, the actual information in the article and Apples decision to shut the door
on their ability to recover user information is both market driven and designed to remove the
legal liability for Apple to comply with warrants and request for information. Additionally, with
Assignment 1: Information Literacy
Douglas J Miller

2

other companies following hot on Apples heels, this has the potential to completely shift the
landscape with regard to personal privacy and the ability of law enforcement agents to gather
large swaths of information.


CCBC Library Database (Journal Articles)

Database: ScienceDirect
Key Words: iphone encryption

An efficient self-adaptive model for chaotic image encryption algorithm (Xiaoling & Guodong, 2014).

Identifying back doors, attack points, and surveillance mechanisms in iOS devices (Zdziarski, 2014)

Internet and Journal articles Compared
There is a vast difference between an internet article and a published journal article in terms of the
quality and quantity of information. That said, the main advantage internet articles have over journals is
their relative ease of access and the timeless of the information. This is largely for two reasons. First
internet articles do not go through the peer review process the same way professional journal articles
do, true they may be reviewed by the editor but journeys are reviewed by fellow experts in the field
prior to publication. Second is the target audience, for the most part internet articles are written for
the common person, while journals are written for experts. As to the authority, generally journals
would be considered the more authoritative as they are written by experts in the specific field and peer
reviewed.

References (APA)
Lever, R. A. (2014, September 18). Apple's new encryption to lock out government. Retrieved from
Business Insider: www.businessinsider.com
Timberg, C. (2014, September 18). Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with
search warrants. Retrieved from Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com
Whittaker, Z. (2014, September 18). Apple doubles-down on security, shuts out law enforcement from
accessing iPhones, iPads. Retrieved from ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/
Xiaoling, H., & Guodong, Y. (2014, April 24). An efficient self-adaptive model for chaotic image
encryption algorithm. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, Pages
40944104.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cnsns.2014.04.012
Zdziarski, J. (2014). Identifying back doors, attack points, and surveillance mechanisms in iOS devices.
Digital Investigation, 319.
DOI: 10.1016/j.diin.2014.01.001
Assignment 1: Information Literacy
Douglas J Miller

3


Note: I used the Word 2013 reference manager for my citations. However the Word 2013 APA citations
did not include a section for the DOI, I needed to add that in manually.