“Last week Apple released its new iOS 8 operating system for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch devices. Most of the coverage of iOS 8 focuses on visible features that users can interact with. But there’s one major change in iOS 8 that most users probably won’t notice unless they find themselves in a great deal of trouble,” Matthew Green writes for Slate. “Specifically, Apple has radically improved the way that data on those devices is encrypted. Once users set a passcode, Apple will no longer be able to unlock your device — even if ordered to do so by a court.”
“While privacy advocates have praised Apple’s move, it has drawn fire from some notable legal scholars. Writing in the Washington Post on Sept. 19, Orin Kerr referred to Apple’s new policy as a ‘dangerous game,’ one that ‘doesn’t stop hackers, trespassers, or rogue agents’ but ‘only stops lawful investigations with lawful warrants,'” Green writes. “While Kerr has moderated his views since his initial post, his overarching concern remains the same: By placing customer interests before that of law enforcement, Apple is working against the public interest. If you interpret Apple’s motivations as Kerr does, then Apple’s recent move is pretty surprising. Not only has the company picked a pointless fight with the United States government, it’s potentially putting the public at risk.”
“The only problem is that Kerr is wrong about this,” Green writes. “Apple is not designing systems to prevent law enforcement from executing legitimate warrants. It’s building systems that prevent everyone who might want your data—including hackers, malicious insiders, and even hostile foreign governments—from accessing your phone. This is absolutely in the public interest. Moreover, in the process of doing so, Apple is setting a precedent that users, and not companies, should hold the keys to their own devices.”
Much more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Me-too Google: Uh, okay, we’ll do default encryption like Apple, too (it’ll just take several years to roll out) – September 18, 2014
Apple CEO Tim Cook ups privacy to new level, takes direct swipe at Google – September 18, 2014
Apple begins encrypting iCloud email sent between providers – July 15, 2014
Obama administration demands master encryption keys from firms in order to conduct electronic surveillance against Internet users – July 24, 2013
Apple’s iMessage encryption trips up U.S. feds’ surveillance – April 4, 2013
The hawks should not worry since the government can still spy on most people as they continue using iCloud services. They will not be able to with use of iCloud only if Apple will offer option where the company does not store the key on its servers at the expense of user not being able to restore the data if he/she has forgotten the password.
derss, how stupid are you? Read what Apple has said. The device encrypts the data to 128 bit encryption before it ever is uploaded to iCloud with a key that Apple does not have access to! In what way can Apple store that key on its server if it DOES NOT EVER HAVE IT??? It is the user’s risk if they forget their password or one time restore key provided when they established their two-factor authentication. You keep repeating this idiocy, so I think you are either a paid troll, or damn stupid.
Are builders picking a fight when they don’t give the government an extra set of keys to your house?
Well said.
Apple has chosen to walk away from a fight with the government, not start one.
They have flat out told all governments we have no data that you want, if you want user data try Facebook, Google, Amazon, Cell providers and ISPs.
I think this is a great move and the right direction for Apple.
The real question: Why is the government the enemy?
Each government sees a foreign government as a potential enemy. It’s good business to block them all.
not to other governments…to their own people.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It’s usually been that way throughout history. In the Dark Ages, God only talked to priests, so priests had absolute say over everyone’s lives and possessions. Today we have laws written unintelligibly, and the only interpretations made valid are done by puppets to big money. Our government is a puppet show that ensures the wide gap in wealth and power. Rewrite the laws so that an 8-year old can understand, and the government will have less chance to be an enemy and will have more use as a facilitator, just as Apple products are easier to use and more empowering, whereas competing products are frustrating and useless and prone to identity theft.
HEY!? Who are you? Well thought out, well written, clear as a bell and correct! ……sweet God I need a drink.
Thanks, very flattering. I’m just someone who thinks that it would be so much better if everyone really felt they had a stake in how this country runs. It all seems controlled by a few.
Phones are now so personal, that it’s becoming an extension of the mind. Therefore should be protected under the 4th amendment.
The court can’t force you to give up a password, or at least won’t try. But someday that may change.
Right. If I kill someone with a knife, don’t go after the knife making company.
Once you do kill someone, who do you prefer they go after?
Syriassly folks of the free civilized world, the United Hates is addicted to war. I mean can you imagine how hard it’s been for terrorist, uh president Obummer not to follow in the boots of G.W. Bushwacked’s crimes against humanity, torture and total ignorance of a sovereign nation? It’s bend others over time and giving them the drones, air assaults, ground boots and water sports on the board.
Let’s fix up some of the stuff from the article:
“It’s [Apple] building systems that prevent everyone who might want your data—including hackers, malicious insiders, and even hostile foreign governments” Now if you are an Amurdercan you can add hostile domestic government, syriassly that’s soooo obvious. The United Hates of course being a fifth rate wannabe terrorist nation should be considered hostile to nearly everyone, I mean who goes and violates a country’s sovereign territory? That’s right scum like Ruska and the United Hates.
Now one of the comments about backdoors: “Apple would need a backdoor that allowed them [government] to execute legitimate law enforcement requests,”
Syriassly, does anyone really believe that the United Hates government is capable of executing a legitimate request?
Heck no, the only execution they are interested in are the numbers they can get from their drones when they cross the border into another country, without an invitation of course.
The lowest level of respect for a sovereign nation would dictate an invitation or a legitimate request or some sort of coordination with that nation before sending war drones to kill people within that nation and those that don’t syriassly have absolutely no moral legal or ethical leg to stand on and should be regarded as nothing more than pure unadulterated scum that need to be brought to the justice for crimes against humanity.
The United Hates, they work so hard at being a wannabe terrorist nation, devoid of ethics and racking up more crimes against humanity and threatening global security. They still have a long way to go though, but they are well on their way.
Oh Karma is going to be such a bitch.