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by buildbot 1375 days ago
This exactly. To have a more secure device this is one of the trade offs. Can you imagine the articles if you could swap out faceID systems to unlock an encrypted iphone?
3 comments

AFAIK face ID generates a key used to decrypt the data. Swapping the system wouldn't let you unlock it, unless it was performing a MitM against the user of the phone. Honestly most of the TPM and trusted enclave stuff Apple does is mostly to prevent that kind of MitM situation. For most users, I don't see it as a threat to worry about.
It’s even more impressive than that — the infrared dot pattern of every Face ID sensor is also physically unique. You can’t swap out Face ID sensors and keep the same enrolment data as a result because the replacement sensor will produce a slightly different pattern.

[1] https://www.apple.com/business-docs/FaceID_Security_Guide.pd...

> Can you imagine the articles if you could swap out faceID systems to unlock an encrypted iphone?

Yes, the articles would go something like this: "WTF is wrong with Apple, did they intentionally implement 'security' in the worst possible way, by leaving the phone unencrypted and just using faceID as a lock screen?!"

That is what they'd have to do for your statement to make any sense, they'd have to leave the data unencrypted and just use a removable component as a pass or fail doorman. So the system would have always been unsecure, it would just be more obvious in this scenario.

I mean.. they could just show a pop-up after required passcode unlock: ‘your iPhone recently had its FaceID/brightness/battery/whatever swapped - do you wish to fully enable the replacement part for this iPhone?’
because the $badGuy doing the swap could just okay that request