Think Cops Are Locked Out of the New iPhone? Guess Again
http://mashable.com/2014/09/27/police-can-still-get-your-iphone-data/
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Moreover, despite all the controversy, there are actually still a few ways for the police to get at least some data from an iPhone with iOS 8 and protected by a passcode. . . .
Getting your iCloud backup
If police officers can't get the data that's locally stored on an iPhone, they might still be able to get it from the cloud.
Apple prompts users to back up their iDevices to iCloud, and the data there can be obtained by law enforcement agents with a search warrant. Yes, iCloud backups are encrypted, but they're encrypted with a key in Apple's possession, so Apple can be legally required to turn the backups over if served with a valid legal request.
Using forensic tools
Forensic tools are still a great way to get some data out of your iPhone. If the police arrests you and gets both your phone and a computer that you used to connect with your phone using iTunes — a "paired device" — they can dump some data out of it bypassing your passcode using existing forensic tools, as Zdiarski noted in a recent blog post.
In this case, the passcode doesn't protect you, because Apple has designed this system to allow you to access some data on your phone using iTunes or Xcode without unlocking your device.
The caveat here is that only some data is available in this scenario. In particular, any data from third party applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Evernote; photos, videos and recordings; and iTunes media such as books and podcasts. But data from native iOS applications like iMessages, emails or calls is out of reach.
Getting your iTunes backup
Another target for police officers is the iTunes backup on your computer. If you back up your iPhone to your computer with iTunes, a police officer that gets his hands on your computer can get all the data that you have last backed up.
"Data is still available, as long as iTunes and iCloud reign," Lee Reiber, the vice president for mobile solutions at forensic firm AccessData, told Mashable.
In this scenario, only a backup password can stop the police, and in that case, it better be a good password or it might be vulnerable to brute forcing — the automated process of guessing all possible passwords until you get the right one. Or, they might just force you to give it up.
Forcing you to give up your passcode
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(Much was skipped. Entire article is at the link. Zim.)
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