Month: February 2016

http://news.ubc.ca/2016/02/25/race-and-gender-of-scientists-affect-perception-of-credibility/

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Race and gender of scientists affect perception of credibility

Media Release | February 25, 2016

sauder770

Credit: Flickr

Ideology is a key factor in determining how people assess the credibility of scientific researchers, according to a new UBC Sauder School of Business study.

People who tend toward an elitist world view are more inclined to judge white male researchers as more credible, while people who ascribe to egalitarian beliefs are the opposite: they’re more likely to judge women or people of colour as more credible researchers.

“Our studies suggest that belief systems affect how we judge academics in ways we may not be aware of,” said study co-author Karl Aquino, the Richard Poon Professor of Organizations and Society at UBC Sauder. “People might believe in the merits of research, but biases can still overpower logic and prevent people from evaluating scholars objectively.”

In a series of five studies, Aquino and his co-authors asked more than 900 participants in the United States, Canada and India to read research reports that included photos of researchers that varied by gender or race. Participants then evaluated researchers’ credibility. Their ideological leanings from elitist to egalitarian were gauged in a separate survey asking if they agreed with statements like, “It’s OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others,” or “We should strive to make incomes as equal as possible.”

In the Indian sample, Aquino and his co-authors varied the researchers’ caste instead of race or gender and also assessed whether people endorsed socialist or conservative political parties.

Importantly, the perceived credibility of the researcher impacted how the participants interpreted subsequent social situations.

Aquino says a key finding was that the people whose ideologies colour their perceptions are those with the most extreme ideologies, at either end of the spectrum.

“Elitists and egalitarians are equally susceptible to evaluating people in ways that reinforce their beliefs,” said Aquino. “In the business world, the statements made by academic experts can influence decisions, so it’s vital to be aware of how ideology influences whether people believe what comes from the mouth of an academic.”

The study, “What Makes Professors Appear Credible: The Effect of Demographic Characteristics and Ideological Beliefs,” co-authored by UBC Sauder PhD alumnus Luke Zhu, Aquino and Abhijeet Vadera is forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

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http://www.kurzweilai.net/perception-brain-integrates-features-directly-to-patterns

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Perception: Brain integrates features directly to patterns

February 26, 2016

Does our brain perceive objects initially as a conglomeration of shapes, colours and patterns or does it instantly recognise the entire structure? An article by RUB philosopher Prof Dr Albert Newen provides the answer.

There is a thing on the desk. It is open, grey on the outside and black on the inside, has many small square bumps on its horizontal side, and on its vertical side a smooth, reflecting surface. A laptop. But do we really see that thing as a laptop? Or do we see shapes, colours, edges etc., while our brain completes our perception by making use of rational inferences to reach the conclusion that the thing is a laptop? In other words: how intelligent are our perception processes? Prof Dr Albert Newen from the Institute for Philosophy II investigates this question in his latest article which was published in the journal Synthese.

Features produce a pattern

His conclusion: our perception processes are organised in such a manner that they can construct complex contents. Accordingly, we do not initially perceive a laptop as a conglomeration of shapes and colours, but instantly see it as the object that it is. Newen’s explanation: the lack of certain features in a drawing, for example, does not prevent us from seeing the item. During the perception process, our brain is able to integrate a few typical features to a complex pattern. “This takes place immediately when the object is spotted. Consequently, if an individual is trained in recognising patterns, their perceptions may become richer and richer,” says Newen. A chess expert would see the chessboard in a different way than a beginner, because he activates relevant structured patterns automatically as background knowledge, and that knowledge affects the perception process. This also takes place during social perception of other people.

Perception of complex patterns makes evolutionary sense

But where is the evidence that we actually see complex contents as such and that they are not merely an element of our linguistic judgement? Newen: “Perceiving certain contents is of such vital evolutionary importance for us that it is even present in infants who lack concept formation and language.” Such contents include emotions such as fear and anger. The ability to quickly perceive emotion patterns based on the facial expression and body language of another person is crucial for social animals like humans. Prof Newen described further evidence indicating that complex contents are perceived as such in neuroscientific studies. “The structure and speed of information processing suggest that they are aspects of perception rather than aspects of a judgment,” concludes the philosophy professor.

Abstract of Defending the liberal-content view of perceptual experience: direct social perception of emotions and person impressions

The debate about direct perception encompasses different topics, one of which concerns the richness of the contents of perceptual experiences. Can we directly perceive only low-level properties, like edges, colors etc. (the sparse-content view), or can we perceive high-level properties and entities as well (the liberal-content view)? The aim of the paper is to defend the claim that the content of our perceptual experience can include emotions and also person impressions. Using these examples, an argument is developed to defend a liberal-content view for core examples of social cognition. This view is developed and contrasted with accounts which claim that in the case of registering another person’s emotion while seeing them, we have to describe the relevant content not as the content of a perceptual experience, but of a perceptual belief. The paper defends the view that perceptual experiences can have a rich content yet remain separable from beliefs formed on the basis of the experience. How liberal and enriched the content of a perceptual experience is will depend upon the expertise a person has developed in the field. This is supported by the argument that perceptual experiences can be systematically enriched by perceiving affordances of objects, by pattern recognition or by top-down processes, as analyzed by processes of cognitive penetration or predictive coding.

references:

How to install Chromium OS on the Raspberry Pi 2

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Published on Jan 22, 2016

Credits and links for downloads, music and wallpaper used in the video down here:

Downloads and instructions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChromiumRPI/…

Win32Disk Imager:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32…

Wallpaper:
http://cedarctic.deviantart.com/art/S…

Music:
Tobu – Life

Commands:
chronos
chronos
sudo su
chronos
date -s 01/22/16 (replace with current date)
exit
exit
(Key combination Ctrl+Alt+f1 or whatever you are prompted on the top of your screen)

Chromium OS on Raspberry Pi Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChromiumRPI

Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence? – Nick Bostrom, Neil Jacobstein and Margaret Boden Singularity Videos

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Published on Feb 24, 2016

Interview with Nick Bostrom, Neil Jacobstein and Margaret Boden

Billions of dollars are pouring into the latest investor craze – artificial intelligence. But serious scientists like Stephen Hawking have warned that full AI could spell the end of the human race. How seriously should we take the warnings that ever-smarter computers could turn on us? Our expert witnesses explain the threat, the opportunities and how we might avoid being turned into paperclips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8lUuuMFcUU

http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2016/02/24/1-in-5-with-vision-loss-see-vivid-hallucinations-canadian-study-says.html

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1 in 5 with vision loss see vivid hallucinations, Canadian study says

A new study looks at the little known, centuries-old medical condition called Charles Bonnet Syndrome.

By: News reporter, Published on Wed Feb 24 2016

When doctors talk about vision loss, the focus is often on what patients don’t see. A new study, however, shows that one in five Canadians with vision loss are seeing some spectacularly bizarre things — little men holding umbrellas at the end of their bed, strange women in long dresses dusting their homes, colourful rain drops falling in sheets before their eyes.

These types of vivid hallucinations are not a sign of dementia, as many patients and doctors believe, but a marker for a little known, centuries-old medical condition called Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS), said Dr. Keith Gordon, vice-president of research at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and author of the study published in the current issue of Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology.

“People are afraid to tell their family, friends and even doctors that they’re experiencing hallucinations for fear of it being misunderstood as mental illness,” Gordon said. “With these findings, we are now able to shed more light on CBS and help raise awareness within the medical community and the general public about how prevalent it actually is.”

Gordon’s work is the first major study of CBS due to vision loss across of the three most common eye diseases — age-related macular generation, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. Findings are based on information provided by 2,565 study respondents over 40 years of age.

While it is not yet known exactly what causes CBS, research suggests it is related to an attempt by the brain to fill in information that would normally be obtained from the eyes.

“My ultimate goal is to raise awareness so society doesn’t rule people out or, God forbid, put them in nursing homes because they think they’re crazy,” Gordon said.

Josée Rivest is a neuropsychologist who works with seniors at Baycrest hospital in Toronto. She’s seen firsthand how a lack of knowledge about CBS can lead patients and families down a frustrating road.

“By the time they come to me, they’ve been shuffled around in the system,” Rivest said, noting some patients received psychiatric medications to deal with the visions, a potentially useless and risky treatment.

Rivest said it’s critical that specialists and general practitioners alike “systemically ask” patients who are starting to lose vision whether they see things that other people don’t see.

CBS hallucinations tend to begin soon after a person’s vision deteriorates. It can affect people of any age. There are two main types of hallucinations: simple repeated patterns and complex images of people, objects or landscapes. It’s common for visions to occur once or twice daily. The images may last a few seconds or minutes. Symptoms generally decrease in frequency after a year to 18 months. In some cases, the hallucinations can linger five years or longer.

CBS patients, unlike those suffering from mental illness, are aware that what they’re seeing is not real. Also, the syndrome affects only vision so patients who have this condition would not be hearing voices as well.

While the upside of a CBS diagnosis is confirmation of sanity, the downside is there is no treatment.

Jack Hunter, a retired private investigator, has been living with his visions for the past six years. Blind in one eye and suffering from macular degeneration in the other, he was watching the local news recently when a rope ladder appeared to be coming up the side of the broadcaster’s nose.

His first vision was of a woman in profile with grey hair and Victorian-style dress mopping the floor of his Etobicoke apartment. He’s seen brightly coloured bushes pop up in the centre console of a friend’s car. He’s seen the fine print of broadsheet newspapers where the words appear written in a foreign text. It’s been years since he could read an actual newspaper.

Who was Charles Bonnet?

Charles Bonnet Syndrome is named after the Swiss naturalist who in 1760 documented the “visions” of a “sane, elderly man with vision loss.” It turned out later that the sane, elderly man was Bonnet’s grandfather, Charles Lullin, a retired magistrate whose eyesight had deteriorated after cataract surgery.

It wasn’t until the late 1930s that the term “Charles Bonner Syndrome” was coined by Geneva neurologist George De Morsier to describe visual hallucinations in the elderly who remain sane.

How to cope with Charles Bonnet syndrome

There is no single simple test to diagnose CBS. A medical professional will likely try to rule out other conditions that could be causing visual hallucinations, such as Parkinson’s disease or dementia.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People in the United Kingdom suggests that standing up or moving slightly can help to get rid of the hallucinations. Some people also find that looking directly at the image they are seeing causes it to fade. Sometimes moving your eyes or blinking rapidly can also help. The CNIB notes that many people experience hallucinations when they are sitting quietly. The institute advises patients to try turning on the TV or radio or moving locations. Adjusting the lighting in a room can also help diminish the vision.

http://canadajournal.net/health/eating-almonds-daily-may-boost-health-says-new-research-43528-2016/

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Eating almonds daily may boost health, says new Research
Eating almonds daily may boost health, says new Research
Posted by: News Feb 24, 2016 in Health Leave a comment

A new research from the University of Florida suggests that you can improve your diet simply by eating a handful of almonds each day.

Scientists studied the effect that the addition of almonds can have on a person’s diet quality, based on data collected from 28 parent-child pairs living in North Central Florida.

The parents were instructed to eat 1.5 ounces of whole almonds each day during the three-week intervention portion of the research period, and the children were encouraged to eat half an ounce of whole almonds or an equivalent amount of almond butter each day. Although only one parent and one child’s habits were analyzed in the study, which was published in the December issue of the Journal of Nutrition Research, the researchers encouraged the whole family to participate and provided enough almonds and almond butter for everyone in the family to eat.

At the beginning of the 14-week research period the research subjects’ average Healthy Eating Index scores were 53.7 ± 1.8 for the parents and 53.7 ± 2.6 for the children. The Healthy Eating Index is a measure of diet quality that assesses conformance to the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. A score below 51 is reflective of a poor diet, a score between 51 and 80 reflects a need for improvement and a score greater than 80 indicates a good diet.

After the almond intervention, the average Healthy Eating Index score for parents and children increased, with parents’ average increasing to 61.4 ± 1.4 and children’s average increasing to 61.4 ± 2.2. They increased their Healthy Eating Index component scores for total protein foods and decreased the intake of empty calories.

The researchers believe the parents and children were replacing salty and processed snacks with almonds, said Alyssa Burns, a doctoral student in the UF/IFAS food science and human nutrition department who conducted the study.

Over the past 20 years, per-capita consumption of nuts and seeds has decreased in children 3 to 6 years old, while the consumption of savory snacks—like chips and pretzels—increased. Researchers were interested in studying the addition of almonds into 3- to 6-year-old children’s diets, because encouraging healthy eating habits during early childhood can have numerous lifelong benefits.

“The habits you have when you are younger are carried into adulthood, so if a parent is able to incorporate almonds or different healthy snacks into a child’s diet, it’s more likely that the child will choose those snacks later on in life,” Burns said.

They were also interested in learning how easy or difficult it is to incorporate almonds into the diets of preschool-aged children—an age when food preferences are developed.

“Some of the challenges that we saw were that the kids were getting bored with the almonds, or they didn’t like the taste of the almonds or the almond butter,” Burns said.

To counter that, she said they came up with creative ways for the parents to incorporate the almonds into their children’s diets—for instance, adding them to familiar foods like oatmeal, smoothies or sandwiches.

The study’s results suggest whole food approaches, like adding almonds to one’s diet, may be an achievable way to improve overall public health.

“Adding a variety of fruits, vegetables and nuts to your diet can improve your overall diet quality,” Burns said.

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/02/24/freshwater.biodiversity.has.positive.impact.global.food.security

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Freshwater biodiversity has positive impact on global food security

Published: Wednesday, February 24, 2016 – 11:52 in Biology & Nature

Inland freshwaters with a greater variety of fish species (biodiversity) have higher-yielding and less variable fisheries according to a new study from the University of Southampton and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). At least two billion people depend directly on inland freshwaters, such as lakes, rivers and wetlands, for the provision of food. However, despite thousands of freshwater species contributing to food security, the relationship between biodiversity and yield remains poorly understood.

Using datasets from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and IUCN covering 100 countries in Africa, Europe and parts of Asia, researchers from the University of Southampton have conducted the first large-scale test of the impact of freshwater biodiversity on fishery yields and the variability of yield over time.

After taking into account other factors that would be expected to have an effect on yield, such as fishing effort, the size of lakes, and temperature and precipitation, they found that those fisheries with a higher number of species are also producing higher yields. In addition, they showed that in parts of the world where there was a higher number of fish species there was also more stability in the yield year on year. Countries with the strongest relationship included Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Vietnam and Thailand.

Emma Brooks, Postgraduate Research Student in the University’s Centre for Biological Sciences and lead author of the study, said: “The results suggest that fish biodiversity may deliver benefits for human wellbeing. As such, these results provide a powerful argument for placing biodiversity conservation centrally within fisheries management, particularly in countries with the highest yielding inland fisheries as these also tend to have high freshwater biodiversity.”

Dr Felix Eigenbrod, Associate Professor (Spatial Ecology) in the Centre for Biological Sciences and senior author of the study, said: “Our study demonstrates that maintaining healthy freshwater systems that support a wide variety of fish (not just those targeted for fishing) is good not only for freshwater species conservation, but is also critical for food security and livelihoods. This is especially true in developing countries where fisheries provide a major source of protein and micronutrients, are a source of income, and where they are used as a safety net in times of hardship such as when crops fail.”

Beyond food security, the researchers say that understanding the degree to which biodiversity underpins freshwater fisheries has particular policy relevance because freshwater systems are of major importance for the conservation of biodiversity. Freshwater habitats are disproportionately species rich given that they cover only 0.8 per cent of the Earth’s surface but contain 10 per cent of species described to date and as many as a third of all vertebrates.

Dr Will Darwall, Head of the IUCN’s Freshwater Biodiversity Unit and co-author of the study, says: “Inland waters are the most threatened systems globally, with dams, water extraction, pollution and invasive species as well as overharvesting of the fisheries themselves recognised as some of the biggest threats. It is imperative that the relationships we explored should be considered within freshwater and fisheries management; the protection and conservation of species diversity in freshwater systems is a win-win outcome for human food security and conservation efforts to preserve freshwater ecosystems.”

The findings also highlight the urgent need for more data to fully understand and monitor the contribution of biodiversity to inland fisheries globally.

Emma Brooks adds: “There is a lack of data for freshwaters, including a thorough understanding of species compositions and distributions worldwide. Equally, a concentrated effort is required to increase reporting not only of inland fishery yields, but also of fishing efforts. Only by doing this will we be able to fully understand the extent of the role that biodiversity plays in underpinning inland fisheries.”

Source: University of Southampton

http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/24/google-project-shield-battling-ddos-attacks/

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Google’s Project Shield helps any news site beat DDoS attacks

Independent news sources can get help from Google’s massive infrastructure to stay online.

Nathan Ingraham , @nateingraham

1h ago in Security
1Comments
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The distributed denial-of-service attack, better know as a DDoS, is one of the more basic but effective ways of shutting down a website you might want to torment. Often, hackers use them to silence sites who hold viewpoints they disagree with, making it a popular tool for internet censorship. A few years ago, Google launched Project Shield, a tool that would let small sites route their traffic through Google in an effort to avoid such attacks — and today, Wired is reporting that virtually any news site can sign up to be part of Project Shield and use Google’s technology to stay online in the face of a DDoS attack.

Originally, Project Shield came out of Google Ideas (now renamed Jigsaw) and was used by about 100 sites focused on hot-button topics like human rights, election monitoring and independent political news. But now any “independent” news site (a site that isn’t sponsored by the government or a political party) can use Project Shield to help avoid DDoS attacks. While big news sites are welcome to join, Google’s continuing to focus its efforts on smaller sites that don’t necessarily have the infrastructure needed to fight off such an attack.

“Just about anyone who’s published anything interesting has come under an attack at some point,” Project Shield leader George Conard tells Wired. “The smaller and more independent voices often don’t have the resources, whether technical or financial, to really put good protections in place…That’s where we come into the picture.” Conrad specifically noted that Google wouldn’t allow its tools to be used to push a political agenda — anyone can use the service, regardless of what viewpoint a site is espousing. “One of the important things about keeping these voices alive is that you shouldn’t be able to silence one point of view just by launching an attack,” Conrad said.

From a technical perspective, Project Shield lets those who sign up use Google’s domain name servers rather than their own. After that, traffic coming to the site is routed through an intermediate, Google-owned intermediate “reverse proxy” server that can filter out malicious traffic. How exactly that’s done wasn’t specified, as Google doesn’t want to give attackers any idea of how it defeats their attempts.

As for what’s in this for Google, it’s not about revenue — it’s to continue furthering the company’s mission to serve up information to people when they want it. Part of that comes from its search results, but Project Shield is meant to make sure that the information people are searching for is available and online when they want it.

To use Project Shield, a site has to give Google visibility into who’s visiting — something likely to rankle the company’s privacy critics. But Google says that it’ll only keep logs for two weeks, after which the data will be stored in aggregate and used to learn more about attacks. The company also notes that the data it collects won’t be used in its advertising programs.

How successful Project Shield will be in this more open form remains to be seen, but results from the pilot program sounds like they’ve been pretty successful. Of course, hackers will continue to try and find ways around such advances, but having the power of Google on the side of independent news sites will likely be a big help in the battle to stay online.

http://www.ecns.cn/2016/02-24/200277.shtml

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ZTE wins two prestigious awards at MWC in Barcelona

0

2016-02-24 11:03XinhuaEditor: Gu Liping

A model shows the ZTE Axon Watch at the Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 22, 2016. The Mobile World Congress (MWC), the most important mobile communication event in the world, opened its doors in Barcelona on Monday. (Photo: Xinhua/Lino De Vallier)

A model shows the ZTE Axon Watch at the Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 22, 2016. The Mobile World Congress (MWC), the most important mobile communication event in the world, opened its doors in Barcelona on Monday. (Photo: Xinhua/Lino De Vallier)

Chinese telecommunication giant, ZTE won two prestigious awards at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) which is currently held in Barcelona.

Tuesday saw ZTE win the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough Award and the Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology Award for its Pre5G massive MIMO technology.

Pre5G massive MIMO technology aims at improving the efficiency of the inalambric spectrum and improves network capacity.

In a commercial network, the average single-carrier peak rate of Pre5G Massive MIMO exceeds 400 Mbps and increases spectral efficiency by four to six times as compared with that of existing 4G networks.

Pre5G Massive MIMO uses beamforming technology to expand from 2D to 3D coverage, while adapting well to different environments, such as high-rise buildings, hotspot macro coverage, stadium coverage, and last-mile scenarios in order to dramatically improves overall network quality.

Waiman Lam, from ZTE’s Marketing Department, told Xinhua on Monday that the company was optimistic of winning one of the awards, as it had done in 2015.

Last year saw ZTE win the prize for Best Mobile Enabled Consumer Electronics Device for its ZTE Smart Projector.

The 2016 MWC has seen ZTE present its ZTE Blade V7 and ZTE Blade V7 lite smartphones and an intelligent portable projector, the Spro Plus.

The MWC is the most influential gathering in the world mobile industry, with this year even bringing together 2,100 exhibitors and around 94,000 visitors between Feb. 22 and 25.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/apple-could-make-it-even-tougher-to-hack-iphones-1.2791369

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Apple could make it even tougher to hack iPhones

AppleA proposed service would let people use Apple mobile devices to quickly transfer money from bank checking accounts to intended recipients. (AFP PHOTO/JOSH EDELSON)

Michael Liedtke, The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, February 24, 2016 3:49PM EST

SAN FRANCISCO — Suppose the FBI wins its court battle and forces Apple to help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers. That could open all iPhones up to potential government scrutiny — but it’s not the end of the story.

Turns out there’s a fair bit both individuals and Apple could do to FBI-proof their phones and shield private information from investigators and cybercriminals alike. Those measures include multiple passcodes and longer, more complex ones.

Of course, increased security typically comes at the expense of convenience. Most efforts to improve phone security would make the devices harder to use, perhaps by requiring you to remember more passwords.

Making it more difficult for law enforcement to crack open iPhones could also spur legal restrictions on phone security, something that neither Apple nor other technology companies want to see.

“They are walking a tightrope,” says Mark Bartholomew, a law professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo who specializes in privacy and encryption issues. Requiring longer passcodes might annoy most Apple users, he says, while boosting phone security “sort of amplifies the whole argument that Apple is making things too difficult and frustrating law enforcement officials.”

Apple had no comment on any future security measures. In a recent letter to customers, it noted that it has routinely built “progressively stronger protections” into its products because “cyberattacks have only become more frequent and more sophisticated.”

In the current fight, the FBI aims to make Apple help it guess the passcode on the work phone used by Syed Farook before he and his wife killed 14 people at an office party in December. The FBI wants Apple to create special software to disable security features that, among other things, render the iPhone unreadable after 10 incorrect guesses.

Apple has resisted, maintaining that software that opens a single iPhone could be exploited to hack into millions of other devices. The government insists that its precautions would prevent that, though security experts are doubtful.

Should the FBI prevail, it would take computers less than a day to guess a six-digit passcode consisting solely of numbers, the default type of passcode in the latest version of the iPhone operating system. Even with security features disabled, each passcode guess takes 80 milliseconds to process, limiting the FBI to 12.5 guesses per second.

For security-conscious individuals, the simplest protective move would be to use a passcode consisting of letters and numbers. Doing so would vastly increase the amount of time required to guess even short passcodes. Apple estimates it would take more than five years to try all combinations of a six-character passcode with numbers and lowercase letters. Adding capital letters to the mix would extend that further.

Changing to an alphanumeric code is as simple as going into the phone settings and choosing “Touch ID & Passcode,” then “Passcode options.”

Another option is simply to pick a much longer numeric code. An 11-character code consisting of randomly selected numbers — that means no references to birthdays or anniversaries that could be easily guessed — could take as long as 253 years to unlock.

But longer, more complex codes are harder to remember, and that’s probably why Apple hasn’t yet required their use. It could, however, easily do so. In fact, iPhones moved to six-digit passcodes from four last September.

Apple may have other tricks up its sleeve. For instance, the company could add additional layers of authentication that would thwart the security-bypassing software the FBI wants it to make, says computer security expert Jonathan Zdziarski.

Apple phones rely on a feature known as the “secure enclave” to manage all passcode operations. The software demanded by the FBI would alter the secure enclave, Zdziarski says. But the software couldn’t do so if the secure enclave required the user passcode to approve any such changes.

“This is probably the best way to lock down a device,” Zdziarski says.

Apple could also require a second passcode whenever the phone boots up; without it, the phone wouldn’t run any software, including the tool the FBI is requesting. “It would be like putting a steel door on the phone,” Zdziarski says. Currently, iPhones automatically load the operating system before asking for a passcode.

For now, Apple CEO Tim Cook is focusing on winning the current battle with the FBI in a Southern California federal court while also trying to sway public opinion in the company’s favour. The skirmish could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the meantime, Apple is probably already working on security improvements for the next version of the iPhone operating system that it will probably announce in June and release in September.