“The [U.S.] government wants to work with companies such as Apple Inc. and Google to stop criminals and terrorists from exploiting the encryption technology built into some smartphone operating systems, [FBI Director James] Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, echoing President Barack Obama’s call to action,” Christie Smythe reports for Bloomberg. “The industry says encryption and other barriers are there to protect your personal data from falling into the hands of hackers or snoops — or, some say, the government itself. ‘Weakening security with the aim of advancing security simply does not make sense,’ the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents 62 of the largest tech companies in the world, said in a statement.”
“Apple doesn’t even keep a ‘master key’ anymore, to gain access to an iPhone when presented with a warrant, said John Kindervag, a tech analyst at Forrester Research. Google has been rolling out similar protections for its Android operating system,” Smythe reports. “Android 5.0 Lollipop offered ‘full disk encryption’ by default on some devices. Enhancements were added for 6.0 Marshmallow.”
MacDailyNews Take: Let’s get real: Google’s promise of encryption will take several years to roll out to significant numbers of fragmandroid sufferers.
Android 5.0 and 5.0 only comprise 29.5% of Android devices. The percentage of those are encrypted by default is far less than even that due to significant performance issues. Android 6.0, with full-disk encryption on by default, is only running 0.5% of Android devices!
With 22% running iOS 8 and 70% running iOS 9, 92% of Apple’s iOS devices are encrypted.
In other words, stop trying to equate Android with iOS by deeming Google’s efforts as “similar.” Android is a bad joke, as usual.
“‘One of the reasons the government has received such skepticism from companies and consumers’ over access to phone data ‘is that it has spent the last two decades trying to strip every privacy protection from cellphones,’ said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University,” Smythe reports. “Turley, a civil-liberties advocate who has been critical of the government’s handling of such issues, called the Obama administration ‘one of the worst for privacy protections.’ …Apple CEO Tim Cook said at a conference in October he was opposed to ‘a back door that’s only for the good guys.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote early last month: Backdoors = insecurity. Wherever backdoors exist, it’s not only “authorities” exploiting them legally. Only a blooming idiot would believe in a “secure backdoor” accessible only by properly authorized “authorities.”
None of us should accept that the government or a company or anybody should have access to all of our private information. This is a basic human right. We all have a right to privacy. We shouldn’t give it up. We shouldn’t give in to scare-mongering or to people who fundamentally don’t understand the details. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, February 27, 2015
Visit the Apple-backed reformgovernmentsurveillance.com today.
SEE ALSO:
Obama administration’s calls for backdoors into encrypted communications echo Clinton-era key escrow fiasco – December 14, 2015
Donald Trump: To stop ISIS recruiting, maybe we should be talking to Bill Gates about ‘closing that Internet up in some way’ – December 8, 2015
Hillary Clinton: We need to put Silicon Valley tech firms to ‘work at disrupting ISIS’ – December 7, 2015
Apple CEO Cook: ‘You can’t have a back door that’s only for the good guys’ – November 21, 2015
Apple CEO Cook defends encryption, opposes back door for government spies – October 20, 2015
Do not let the government snoops weaken encryption – November 4, 2015
U.S. NSA seeks to build quantum computer to crack most types of encryption – January 3, 2014
Judge compares government request for Apple to access users’ iPhone data to execution order – October 27, 2015
U.S. judge expresses doubts over forcing Apple to unlock iPhone – October 26, 2015
Apple tells U.S. judge it can’t unlock iPhones running iOS 8 or higher – October 20, 2015
a href=”http://macdailynews.com/2015/10/20/apple-ceo-cook-defends-encryption-opposes-back-door-for-government-spies/”>Apple CEO Cook defends encryption, opposes back door for government spies – October 20, 2015
With Apple court order, activist federal judge seeks to fuel debate about data encryption – October 12, 2015
Judge declines to order Apple to disable security on device seized by U.S. government – October 10, 2015
Apple refused to give iMessages to the U.S. government – September 8, 2015
Obama administration war against Apple just got uglier – July 31, 2015
Edward Snowden: Apple is a privacy pioneer – June 5, 2015
Apple, others urge Obama to reject any proposal for smartphone backdoors – May 19, 2015
U.S. appeals court rules NSA bulk collection of phone data illegal – May 7, 2015
In open letter to Obama, Apple, Google, others urge Patriot Act not be renewed – March 26, 2015
Apple’s iOS encryption has ‘petrified’ the U.S. administration, governments around the world – March 19, 2015
