“‘We didn’t elect Tim Cook to protect privacy,’ writes Robert Levine in a Sunday New York Times op-ed piece about the San Bernardino stand-off between Apple and the FBI. ‘That’s what governments are for,'” Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes for Fortune. “‘But the current choice,’ he concludes, ‘is between a government that doesn’t seem to recognize limits to its own power to access personal information and a technology company that does. It’s a bad choice, but an obvious one. While nobody elected Mr. Cook to protect our privacy, we should be glad someone is.'”
“That’s one point of view,” P.E.D. writes. “It happens to be mine.”
P.E.D. writes, “It’s one shared by eight out of nine U.S. newspaper editorial boards and 71% of my readers.”
MacDailyNews Take: And 94.17% of ours:
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Who elected Tim Cook? Some guy named Steve.
SEE ALSO:
Apple could easily lock rights-trampling governments out of future iPhones – February 20, 2016
Prediction: Apple will cave to U.S. government demand to crack open iPhone, Donald Trump will get the credit – February 20, 2016
Apple: Terrorist’s Apple ID password changed in government custody, blocking access – February 19, 2016
Petition asks Obama administration to stop demanding Apple create iPhone backdoor – February 19, 2016
Newspaper editorials back Apple over U.S. government 8 to 1 – February 19, 2016
Apple likely to invoke First Amendment free-speech rights in against U.S. government backdoor demands – February 19, 2016
Donald Trump calls for Apple boycott over San Bernardino terrorist iPhone encryption – February 19, 2016
Secret memo details U.S. government’s broader strategy to crack phones – February 19, 2016
DOJ escalates war against Apple, files new motion to compel company to break into iPhone – February 19, 2016
Apple is still fighting Big Brother – February 19, 2016
Apple co-founder Woz: Steve Jobs would have fought this U.S. government overreach, too – February 19, 2016
Mother who lost son in San Bernardino terrorist attack sides with Apple against U.S. government backdoor demands – February 19, 2016
iPhones don’t kill people, people kill people – February 19, 2016
Attention ALL Apple customers and supporters:
Apple has an army of loyal long time customers and supporters – NOW is the time to stand forcefully behind Apple init’s fight to protect the constitutional civil rights of privacy for all US citizens.
Apple is a model corporate citizen and consumer rights champion whose lifetime track record speaks for itself and for us all.
Apple is the world’s most valuable company with a life long commitment to excellence in products, support, morals and ethics.
Stand firm with Apple as it has always stood for you the consumer and as its record of excellence in everything it has always done proves:
*1* – Read Tim Cook’s letter explaining Apple and forward it to everyone you know so that they understand the issues…
*2* – Sign the White House petition demanding the the government Halt efforts that compel Apple and other device makers to create a “backdoor” for the Government to access citizens data:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/apple-privacy-petition
*3* – Attend an Apple store protest in a city near you on Tuesday February 23rd 2016. Protests are scheduled and planned across the US to back Apple in battle with FBI:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/protests-rally-across-us-back-201127260.html
Just say NO to the un-American FBI/government rape of citizen privacy rights, guaranteed by the constitution.
DO NOT SUCCUMB TO FEAR.
Even the Former Director of CIA and NSA Says FBI is Wrong about Apple’s Encryption
You yourself have just succomb to fear.
You’ve been manipulated by the media and Apple. Apple has told you X, and you blindly follow it.
All of you fanboys. You blindly follow what a corporation thinks and tells you, and what the media is saying. You ask no questions of it. You don’t conduct an analysis to see if there’s any merit to the government’s request. Or a legal position.
You don’t discuss the implications of not complying. How times change and law enforcement needs to keep up.
You just believe what Apple tells you. And it creates fear in you. And now you react.
None of you are evolved. You’re easily manipulated. Armchair critic know it alls sitting on the sidelines thinking you’re politicians and law makers and law enforcement. You’re so far removed from all of this to render your comments effectively meaningless. All of your thoughts and actions are based on fear.
The Great Distraction Machine that is the Internet has sucked you in, and so has a corporation. Apple is simply using you soley for its own gain by creating fear in you so you’ll react and help them.
Apple doesn’t care about you. Any of you could write a letter and call on Apple to join your fight against a speeding ticket, foreclosure, car repossession, divorce, or whatever, and all you’d get is an empty telephone.
There are a ton of laws surrounding this. There is a vital importance to law enforcement being able to access evidence so they can properly investigate a crime. None of you know much of anything about this. You are just full of fear.
You don’t have much of a sense of history do you? Our history is full of individual rights being overstepped. How about the internment of American citizens who just happened to have Japanese ancestry. How about the CIA meddling in US domestic activity (discovered and stopped by the Church Committee)? How about J. Edgar Hoover’s blackmail and private vendettas, using the resources of the FBI? There’s more.
This isn’t a matter of “un-evolved fanboys”. This is a matter of the basic tenets of the constitution. Your “Great Distraction Machine” is really the FBI and Justice Department demanding that you give up fundamental rights. You appear to be all too willing to do so.
You are so far from a lawyer…
You are neithef equipped nor competent to conduct a legal analysis. You haven’t even pointed out any specific statutes that would be infringed.
None of you. There is no coherent argument at this point as to why the FBI shouldn’t have their court order upheld.
But I’ll illuminate this for you. People have constitutional rights which affords them some privacy protection. However the Constitution is NOT ABSOLUTE in all respects.
Because you’re not a lawyer. Becauseyou don’t specialize in constitutional law. Because you haven’t spent years doing this and reading millions of pages of case law on the matter. You have no idea what you’re talking about other than your words and actions being based out of fear created by a corporation and the media.
When a person breaks the law, the standard rights that apply to everyone no longer apply to them and criminal law kicks in. They are no longer free to be free: they can be held and detained and potentially imprisoned. They’re liberties can be taken away because society decided this was ok long ago. That people who commit crimes can have their liberties taken away.
The specific issue in this case is that Apple has raised an argument that if they crack the phone, it will basically be IMPOSSIBLE for them to contain the hack, it will leak, and many other people could have their phones hacked.
It is a fantastic proposition coming from a highly secretive company with all kinds of security measures in place. And it also presupposes that such a hack, if created, couldn’t immediately be properly patched and killed.
Let the people who do this for a living do their jobs, and stop fear mongering.
I grew up in a legal household. My father was a judge. And you?
You might just be a fool.
Many people (apparently including you), don’t know the difference between laws and the Constitution. Laws get made all the time and a lot of them are junk. For example, there were laws passed in Kansas that forced the teaching of creationism. Those laws didn’t pass constitutional muster and were thrown out on appeal. There are laws the forbid spitting on the sidewalk and farting in church. If anybody tried to enforce those laws, they’d get laughed out of appeals court or the Supreme Court if it got that far.
The Constitution is the controlling document. The 4th Amendment is pretty clear on our rights as regards illegal search and seizure. The 5th Amendment says that we cannot be forced to testify against ourselves.
Those FBI/Justice Department demands run pretty far afoul of the Constitution. It really doesn’t matter what laws say if they violate those fundamental rights.
Do try to keep up.
This is going to be fun.
What infringements of the constitution are there in this case?
Twinks like you just love word games. Everyone notice the use of hyper-precise language to deflect from the true issues.
A law that can’t be understood is no law at all. It is just the strong compelling the week. The clever manipulating the many. People with a perverse need to dominate others just love that about the “law.”
That’s the same reason they hate guns in private hands unless it is their personal bodyguard. They want a monopoly on the use of force.
The fact that the Fourth Amendment gives the government limited flexibility in selectively disregarding some people who are a danger to others doesn’t make it right but merely expedient.
The job of law enforcement is difficult for a reason. It is pure aggression against others that must have extremely rigorous oversight. It isn’t Apples job to grease the skids. And it is straight up extortion that they have spend money on lawyers even if they have a mountain of it.
Quit being a lapdog for a bunch of rent collectors.
Your post really says nothing at all. It’s rhetoric because you’re not educated or employed in association with these matters.
Yes, the standards of things like search and seizure warrants are rigorous. In this case, that standard is met beyond any reasonable doubt.
Terrible crimes were committed and the Police have a search and seizure warrant over the persons and property of the suspects.
No rational person in society would argue against such a search warrant, or the legal framework upon which such search warrants are given. People accept and agree that Police should be able to obtain these rights against criminals in certain circumstances with enough probable cause.
This helps determine truth and guilt; provides remedies for society; and helps remove those people from society who are a danger to others for your protection.
You all are confused and conflating different issues. There is no issue in terms of the search and seizure warrant. It’s just the specific aspect of asking Apple to access the data on the phone.
You all are arguing constitutional issues and you don’t even know why. Constitutional infringements for what? Against whom?
I’ll give you a hint: Did Apple file a Constitutional Question?
Yes, it filed a constitutional question under the 1st, 4th, 5th, 13th, and 14th amendments. The lawyer representing Apple is Ted Olson, who was prevailing counsel in the Citizens United case establishing that constitutional rights apply to corporations, and in the gay marriage cases reinforcing (among other things) the constitutional right to privacy.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Don’t be deliberately dense. It’s very hard to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of a dead person.
The concern here isn’t with this particular phone and you know it.
The concern is the precedent here and the similar demands that will be made overseas should the courts not decide in Apple’s favor.
You think my post says nothing because you simple aren’t listening. You are stuffing your fingers in your ears and reciting the mantra that makes you feel like a good guy.
That’s totally understandable.
I doubt many people are saying that the investigators shouldn’t attempt to get this information if for no other reason to look for clues about the involvement of others or to analyze the killers’s social graph to identify who helped radicalize them.
It’s the coercion here that is wrong. The government is free to put out competitive bids to crack the phone which one presumes is now in their custody as evidence and of no further use to the dead owner.
This of course begs the question. Who are they investigating? The person who ought to be prosecuted is dead.
Therefore they are simply casting a wider net to see if the pair really acted alone. All very responsible and fully within their mandate.
Apple should have no involvement whatever.
It’s not the case that Apple shouldn’t necessarily have any involvement. Apple purposely tries to make their phone unhackable.
It may be the case that Apple has the facility to easily crack iPhones and the government knows about this under confidential agreements like what Apple deals with with the NSA.
Like it or not, Apple isn’t just the maker of the hardware, but of the software. The government is right to ask them to hack the phone not the least of which is because there’s court order demanding Apple do it. Unless something else happens, if Apple doesn’t comply with the court order, they will be in contempt and potenially face charges/punishment. Directors of companies in these cases can all be enjoined and held liable for non-compliance with court orders against a corporation, so if you were wondering, that’s were responsibility lays in companies in situations like this.
It makes no difference if it is the hardware or the software. Apple has no duty to make the no easier unless the owner of the device asks and even then they should be able to decline if it would impact more than that one owner. If they assist they are defrauding other owners of iPhones by implying the phones are secure.
You seem to be operating under the impression that the authorities are always and everywhere honest, or worse that the authorities are, by definition, not criminals because they are IN authority.
Apple has a duty to do it. There is a court order.
What happens next is Apple’s response to the order, which will be submitted. This will be argued in the courts.
I agree with this:
“The newest Apple operating systems allow device access only to users — even Apple itself can’t get in. Murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers and others are already using this technology to cover their tracks.
Apple has often benefited from the protections of U.S. law. It has sought the protection of those laws when it is the victim of a crime. However, in this instance, the company seems to run from those same laws.”
We all remember the Gizmodo incident. Apple sent its own “black coats” to an apartment with a person living there who was associated with the iPhone leak and intimidated the person and tried to get information from them. Apple also looked to prosecute those involved. Chen’s place gets raided by Police with a search warrant all at the behest of Apple.
I also agree with this:
“Apple’s acceptance of the law appears to be uneven; this is not the first time it has sought to avoid compliance with a lawful court order. In Apple’s court filings in a recent New York criminal case, it specifically stated that it was refusing to cooperate with the government and comply with a court order because doing so would cause reputational damage that would tarnish its brand: “Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand.”
All of you fanboys drink the koolaid and think Tim Cook and Apple care about you. They don’t. They care about their brand and making money. Period.
Your logic is circular. Worse, you’ve become incoherent.
Your unquestioning docility must warm the hearts of pyschopaths everywhere. And you sit hear calling other people Kool-Aid drinkers.
I know full well that Apple, like every other entity, LOVES the law when it is to their advantage. That should be a clue to the evil the “law” represents. Like other more obvious forms of coercion, this power is an extreme moral hazard, and each use of it begets new outrageous behaviors.
You’ve spent a life laboring in the vineyard and now forgotten what the grape is for.
dswe, as a legal scholar like you surely knows, Apple only has a duty to obey a final unappealable court order. None such exists at this point. If their lawyers can plausibly argue that the preliminary order issued by the magistrate judge is invalid, they have an affirmative duty to advise their client that it can take it before an actual Federal District Judge and, if necessary, up the appeals chain through the Ninth Circuit to the Supreme Court
What are you so scared about “dswe”? Spend all day here on a Sunday writing newspapers of pure DOJ or FBI crap.
You idiots ran fast to kill Apple, but we’re an army and Apple has more money than the govermnt to pay us all and fight you tooth and nail with the good fight. Did you realky think terorism and fear will win you this fight???? didn’t you know how you went to the county and fuskd up ?
The backlash against the FBI and the goverment will prevail and Apple will be your woe.
Writing special software has nothing to do with a warrant.
http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=5645
And you are tell the audience that you are a lawyer, or, just play one in the iterweb?
How did you come to the conclusion that none of us are lawyers? I graduated from law school in 1974 and prosecuted for over 30 years. I have read lots of cases over the years about the relative place of individual rights and government power.
I have grave doubts that the All Writs Act can be applied to Apple under these circumstances. I am aware of no other statute that could be used to compel a third party to involuntary labor on behalf of the government. Certainly not to write a computer program (a document expressed in words of a language, hence speech) that expresses a meaning that is dictated by the government and repugnant to the speaker. I am not clear how the government can avoid the privacy issues involved in developing a universal burglary tool just by requiring a third party to write it rather than doing so itself.
National security is important. So is personal security. Neither of them justifies riding roughshod over established constitutional rights.
Hi TxUser:
What constitutional rights do you see as having the potential of being infringed here? What I take is that you are referring to not privacy but the effective “forcing” of labour of engineers to write such software. Is this a correct assumption of what you’re referring to?
There’s a few flip sides to this coin. Apple and the very engineers themselves who may be compelled to unlock the phone are the ones who have intentionally made it difficult if not impossible for people to crack the phone. Apple increased its security on the phone just a few years ago.
One can only imagine the letters, discussions, phone calls, and meetings Apple has had with government officials/FBI over the many years they’ve been in business. What Apple did a few years ago with its security could have been partly to spite the FBI and other law enforcement/government. The FBI may have been upset with Apple’s actions and now we’re seeing them battle it out.
The bottom line is, neither you nor I have the applicable access to information to completely understand what is going between Apple and the FBI/US government.
I also will point out a remarkable feature of this is that Google and Microsoft also have some secure software. I realize that this case is about terrible criminal actions but there’s also lots of people using non Apple products who commit crimes. Yet, the FBI is after Apple. Perhaps other companies comply more. But…
So there seems to be something more going on between Apple and the US government and perhaps I may have touched on it. But it’s speculation.
Regardless, for every argument there’s a counter-argument. You should know that. The government could argue that they’re compelling Apple to labor a hack because Apple is the one that intentionally locked them out in the first place. So Apple is the blame and Apple must remedy the situation. So it’s not unreasonable to order it as such. Etc. etc.
I’m sure we could both have an interesting coversation about this. I wish there was private messaging…
dswe — There are laws. Stupid laws.
And natural laws.
Hitler had laws; does not make them right…
Let me know when Lois Lerner is put in jail. Then I might listen to your preaching about those up-standing professional servants of the people.
Sic them pigs on you, oink
dswe, you are, at worst, a complete idiot, or at least un-American: “…the Constitution is NOT ABSOLUTE in all respects.” The Constitution is the ONLY absolutely the United States; EVERYTHING extends from that. You need the learn some history!
Luv:
You are a layman idiot.
Article VI, moron.
Oh Geesh! you’re really more delusional than I originally thought, let’s see where do we begin. First the FBI is DEMANDING! That a privately held company whose very soul lies in its ability to protect it’s users private data, as guaranteed by our constitution, be FORCED to cut its own throat, I personally use Apple products BECAUSE of its track record in user data protection. If Apple is forced to create a special version of their software which would allow the government to be install it “on this 1 iPhone”; then YES! I would forever question the privacy and protection of every single Apple product henceforth. The government could then clone that special OS and use it on any iOS device they desired, they could also hack that code to do considerable more damage, Apple would in effect be handing over their entire trove of security measures to BIG BROTHER, or some unscrupulous government employee could potentially gain access to that special OS. Yes, they claim they would never allow other access to this special OS, but think SNOWDEN! AIMES! And others who had access to secret government activities, and remember, this special OS would be worth Millions of $$$ to anyone who could abscond with it, and possibly be the ruin of one of the greatest companies in recent memory. So think about this before you say anymore.
That is just absurd. From which planet did you just arrive?
Democracy means government IS the people, not “politicians and law makers and law enforcement”. Whether America is a democracy remains open to debate, but this issue will be telling.
dmz
The United States of America is a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy.
In a democracy, it is the people who are the government, not “politicians and law makers and law enforcement”. Whether America is a democracy is still debatable, but if it is, it is the people who rule, NOT the government you seem to place so much trust in.
On another note, just because you are arrested does not make you a criminal. Under the rule of law, and yes, even in the US of A, you are not a criminal until you have been found guilty in a court of law, and the presumption of innocence is still a “thing”.
Please explain how Apple stands to gain financially from this stand as I am a simple, un-evolved fanboy who finds your diatribe confusing.
dmz
The United States of America is a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy.
I didn’t say it wasn’t, and I didn’t say it was a pure democracy. What I said is that in a democracy, as your constitutional republican form of government which is a type of representative democracy, the people choose how they are to be governed framed by your constitution, not the other way around – does the phrase “of the people, by the people and for the people” ring any bells?
Good grief.
dmz
I’m confused. When in this conversation did the Apple Supporter here claim to be Constitutional Law expert in the initial post?
“You don’t discuss the implications of not complying.”
That, and the implications of complying are exactly what many of the articles are about. That’s why Apple is said to be making a *stand* — precisely because there are implications.
Apple is fully aware of and risking the implications of not complying. The govt, however, is not acting as though it is aware of the implications of what it is asking.
Such as, the whole China angle. If the FBI prevails, China and other regimes will expect to be able to breach the privacy of iPhone users within their borders.
As soon as you wrote “fanboys” you lost any credibility you could have had, but then you are just a troll anyway.
So, brave and wise ‘dswe’, who the hell are you?
You want to post your rhetoric as an anonymous coward.
Instant FAIL.
Then there are Breeze and I who at least bother to log in here. You, for all we know your General James Clapper, the bum who lied in public to Congress about the NSA’s blatant violations of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. So, until you grow a pair, shove off matey.
Funny you say that, I just thought the same thing…
Sounds like he’s got an agenda and a half.
Hush! Your ignorance & gullibility are onclear display…,someone, please choke this fool in the shallow water before he goes to far…. oops, too late!
A big THANK YOU Breeze
Arrest the fudgepacker and perp walk him to the slammer with a cattle prod up his ace if need be until he lets law enforcement get access to his perverts iPhones.
The US government has to respect the Constitution. I am not saying it hasn’t, but If an individual (group of people or corporation) believes it hasn’t, he/she has the right/duty to bring the matter to the Supreme Court. There are many legal questions that need to be urgently settled by the Supreme Court.
The US Government has NOT respected the Constitution.
Why can’t you just say it ?
We don’t have to elect Tim Cook. He’s only doing what EVERY American should be doing. Defending the Fourth Amendment.
Yes!
This premise:
“We didn’t elect Tim Cook to protect privacy,’ … ‘That’s what governments are for.”
is incredibly stupid.
1. The government – supposedly – are simply our employees.
2. It’s up to EVERYONE, just as it is up to everyone to protect a child being kidnapped in front of our face (if we can) or stop someone being raped or killed, or administer CPR, or maybe block traffic with our car if we see a pedestrian knocked down … etc.
“I’ll just leave it to the officials” is not an acceptable stance, if we can do something ourselves.
Tim for president. Yes please.
How does one choose between Hillary and Donald or Ted? Those are non-choices. Tim, please get into the race for President and stop the acronyms from taking over our once free country.
Hey Minnesotans, gather at the Uptown Minneapolis Apple Store at 5:30 pm Wednesday the 23rd.
Sorry, Wednesday the 24th.
We will end up having to vote between the evil of two lessers.
Unless of course Cruz gets the nomination.
The whole thing is probably futile anyway. If the phone used an Alphanumeric Code (mine does) then even if Apple was to comply with the request it would still take hundreds of years to brute force the passcode and decrypt its data.
Well, it depends upon the password put into the iPhone. The longer the password, the more random the password, the more years it takes to break into the phone. (This of course is if the feds overcome the 10-tries-and-you’re-OUT! The iPhone’s erased).
I’ve been covering the main events of this drama over at my Mac-Security blog. (Click my avatar to get to the link). The more fascinating article I’ve found so far is, oddly, from Bloomberg Business: “Secret Memo Details U.S.’s Broader Strategy to Crack Phones – Bloomberg Business”.
MDN covered it here earlier. My favorite part is the quote below. Note who’s quoted!
“The government’s going to have to get over it,” said Ken Silva, former technical director of the National Security Agency and currently a vice president at Ionic Security Inc., an Atlanta-based data security company. “We had this fight 20 years ago. While I respect the job they have to do and I know how hard the job is, the privacy of that information is very important to people.”
😀
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/former-director-of-cia-and-nsa-says-fbi-is-wrong-about-apples-encryption
EXCELLENT link! I missed that one. I’m trying to gather together links to opinions today to toss on my blog. Hang in there soldier! 😉
I wonder if the court order the government obtained to “compel” Apple to break into its iPhone should be complied as forthrightly as the government would respond? Like, take the Hillary e-mails… Look how long it has taken and they still are not all released. Note when they are released… Finally, see how the privacy of the e-mails is taken when they are released redacted.
Should Apple respond to the court order, but in kind as the government does to “We the People”?!?
The government would like to jeopardize the privacy of millions for the sake of a few regarding terrorists, but fights like Hell when it comes to “water boarding” the few. regarding terrorists, for the sake of millions.
Obama likes to tout the phrase, “That’s not who we are.” Well, regarding the judiciary ordering a private company to clean up the mess created by the bueaucrats and politicians, that is also “not who we are!”
Funny, all this dirty laundry coming about and not one laundry detergent capable enough to clean the lot of them!
Yet the Tide may be turning.
If the government want to compel companies like Apple to build a backdoor then go ahead and legislate for it. The law will probably end up in the Supreme Court and be decided there whether the fourth amendment applies.
The problem is that the politicians spend most of their time trying to score points off each other than they are incapable of doing anything related to running the country.
If Apple loses this case and is forced to create the alternative iOS that the FBI wants and the Apple engineers are forced to write that code for the FBI–that sounds a little bit like that things we fought a civil war over 150 years ago.
This whole situation could have been prevented if the County of San Bernardino had installed their paid-for mobile device management software on this iPhone:
http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:6a931ac9e03a490da06f20fccbcaa36d
94.17% of MDN readers, NOT including ANYONE smart enough to use the MDN app! I haven’t seen one poll ever show up on the app since I’ve been using it. I think some of your stats would be wildly larger if you got word from some of those smart folks as well!!
Tap “View Full Site” at the bottom of any page on the mobile site and vote in the poll. It’s not difficult.
The solution isn’t all or nothing because both sides have real concerns. Let’s just get the government to state a limited type of data needed to find associates of the criminal. That could be only communications meta-data(email addresses and phone numbers with associated transmission times. Phone manufacturers should make all other data non-accessible. Of course, this solution is for future releases and doesn’t solve the current situation. We must evolve to a solution for both problems and knock off the typical irrational rants on both sides.
maybe a compromise? Apple receives the suspect phone, hacks it, creates an image of all data, reverses the hack. returns the phone and the data separately. win for FBI, win for Apple their hack remains in house and out of the hands of spies etc etc
the problem is that when this is done there will be numerous other requests from the CIA, NSA, Homeland, politicians… each for a ‘serious crime’ ‘to save lives’ or ‘for national security’.
Can apple refuse to open a phone if a person is kidnapped? if the get the phone of an ISIS leader? If they get the phone of the head a Columbian cartel?
EVENTUALLY with cases piling up the authorities will:
1) either say Apple should pass the key to them because it’s ‘time sensitive’ and it’ll take ‘too long’ to get court orders all the time
2) or Apple should the pass the key to them because it’s ‘top secret’ case and ‘our agents will be endangered if Apple technicians know about it’ ETC ETC.
how can Apple refuse when they have already ‘created a key’ ?
There is zero doubt the courts will then issue an order to force Apple to pass over the key ( “the kidnapped girl will die” etc)
ALSO there is little doubt that eventually with the cases escalating the ‘tool ‘ WILL leak. Snowden has shown us the govt. can’t keep secrets.
When it leaks criminal hackers will get hold of it. All kinds of crimes from invasion of privacy to breaking into bank, credit accounts, stealing of electronic passkeys, security cameras (which might then escalate to violent crimes like using compromised security doors and cams for kidnapping etc).
New York city originally criticized and asked Apple to strengthen it’s phone’s security as stolen and wiped iPhones were spiking serious crime.
Also it’s a precedent for authorities to make is so that they can require companies to ‘build OTHER tools’ for them vs. marely the previous ‘give access’. That seems to be the difference between a landlord served a such warrant allowing authorities to search the premises to the landlord forced to ‘build a battering ram’ for the authorities).
THIS FBI terrorist case is just the FIRST STEP.
Certain lawmakers have been fighting for a long time to have backdoors in ALL tech products. So even the ‘hole’ for the current key is patched eventually it will be covered by new laws requiring backdoors BUILT IN.
Documents reveal the FBI and other agencies have a broad sweeping agenda to push this new laws through. they are using this EMOTIONAL terrorist case (vs the hundreds of locked phones the authorities have in possession for various cases) as a POLITICAL TOOL to start the process.
THE FBI (and the politicians) BELIEVES THIS IS A WIN WIN CASE FOR THEM: IF APPLE AGREES GOOD BUT IF APPLE REFUSES THEY THINK IT WILL SWAY PUBLIC OPINION SO THAT THEY WILL BE ABLE TO PASS LAW(s) TO REQUIRE THE GENERAL BACKDOORS BUILT IN. (built in not just in iPhones but in PCS, routers, cabling etc). they’ve been talking about this new law for a long time.
Space precludes me from going into all the implications of this but one example as many of have pointed out: what about other countries. apple sells in about 100 countries, supposing they all want ‘keys’? Countries like China (apple’s second largest market) has flatly stated they will NOT allow phones compromised by the U.S govt to be sold. Having ‘backdoors’ everywhere will also lead to widespread insecurities everywhere as they will be hacked.
In a constitutional republic, the government is supposed to protect the people’s constitutional rights. This is an extremely screwed up situation: our form of government was designed specifically to defend the people’s rights, not to take them away. We’re lucky that Apple is stepping in to fill the void, but we shouldn’t forget that this situation only exists because of how monumentally the government has failed to fulfill its most important and solemn duty.
The 2001 Patroit Act seems to be were this all started go wrong. This law suspended constitutional rights, to authorize spying on Americans, and it passed despite its blatant violation of the US Constitution and the fundemental rights of every American citizen. We’re still cleaning up the fallout of that disasterous attack on American Freedom. Everyone should take a good hard look at this chapter in history, try to learn from it, so we never let that type of treachery hurt our nation again. Look up the politicians who authorized that attack on the freedom of American civilians, and who supported re-authorizing it many times in the following years. If you voted for them, you need to fess up to your complicity in all this, and start to mend your ways. You should be opposing these people’s presence in every elected office they hold and try to run for, in the name of American freedom.
This is not a left vs right issue. Don’t let anyone trick you with that. Left vs right is their game, for distracting you from the real choices. This is American Freedom vs anti-American oppression. The anti-Americans have power in both parties, and they must be apposed, if we ever want our rights as Americans to be fully restored.
It would be nice to have a website that listed all current representatives that voted for anti-freedom acts, and whether they are for the fbi getting a backdoor to the iPhone. With an easy-to-access list, politicians would be held accountable in future elections.
The FBI has been trying to destroy the fourth and fifth amendments ever since J. Edgar Hoover was prancing around in his dresses and sending suicide demands to Martin Luther King.
They like to pretend they’re “fighting terrorism”, but the fact is the only “terrorists” they catch are suckers who they entrap into half-assed plots that the FBI cooked up themselves.
Hell, it was the FBI that funded the truck bomb used in the first WTC bombing back in ’93.
The FBI is a useless and unconstitutional agency, which should be abolished.
-jcr
I wonder if anyone at MDN actually read Levine’s article and the MDN short edit or did they just scrape it from PED without reading, punctuation and quotations. It gives the totally wrong impression. The MDN quote attributed to PED is actually an exact quote from Levine’s editorial. “http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/opinion/sunday/in-the-government-vs-apple-who-wears-the-black-hat.html?ref=opinion&_r=0”
It is only the “it happens to be my view” that PED weighs in.
Who elected Tim Cook?
We did every time we bought an Apple product.
. . . so did Apple shareholders.
Who elected the FBI or that judge? (yea I know, it was a politician) Let me know when congress votes on this issue.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The county government that owned the iPhone in a high-profile legal battle between Apple Inc. and the Justice Department paid for but never installed a feature that would have allowed the FBI to easily and immediately unlock the phone as part of the terrorism investigation into the shootings that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California.
If the technology, known as mobile device management, had been installed, San Bernardino officials would have been able to remotely unlock the iPhone for the FBI without the theatrics of a court battle that is now pitting digital privacy rights against national security concerns.
The service costs $4 per month per phone.
Instead, the only person who knew the unlocking passcode for the phone is the dead gunman, Syed Farook, who worked as an inspector in the county’s public health department.
The iPhone assigned to Farook also lacked a Touch ID feature, meaning the FBI cannot use the dead gunman’s thumbprint to unlock it now. The FBI found the phone in a car after the shootings.
A U.S. magistrate last week ordered Apple to provide the FBI with highly specialized software that could be loaded onto the work-issued iPhone 5C used by Farook. He died with his wife in a gun battle with police after killing 14 people in December.
The software would help the FBI hack into the phone by bypassing a security time delay and feature that erases all data after 10 consecutive, unsuccessful attempts to guess the unlocking passcode. This would allow the FBI to use technology to rapidly and repeatedly test numbers in what’s known as a brute force attack.
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Common software would have let FBI unlock shooter’s iPhone AP 1 hr 57 mins ago
Exclusive: San Bernardino victims to oppose Apple on iPhone encryption Reuters 2 hrs 38 mins ago
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The FBI said it wants to determine whether Farook had used his phone to communicate with others about the attack.
Apple has said it will protest the ruling and has until Friday to intervene in court.
San Bernardino had an existing contract with a technology provider, MobileIron Inc., but did not install it on any inspectors’ iPhones, county spokesman David Wert said. There is no countywide policy on the matter and departments make their own decisions, he said.
MobileIron has confirmed that if the software were installed it would be able to unlock the phone…………
********************************************************************
ooooops…………….doaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!
The issue of “if the govt agency had only installed mobile device management software” or “if they hand’t changed the password for the iCloud ID”…is totally irrelevant. Hindsight is always 20/20. You may as well say, if someone had known the guy was a terrorist collecting a massive pile of firearms.
You can always go back in time and find pivot points that if done differently, would have made things better. But that’s life.
The issue at hand is a totally different one, a matter of law, on where to draw a line between law enforcement and investigation, vs privacy. I side with Apple on this one, but let’s not use absurd arguments to try to score points in the debate.
Apple is loving this…
‘So secure not FBI or Even Apple can hack it..”
😉
At the end of the day.. The rule of law should prevail.. In a civill society..
Where is/were all these frenzies in the last 30-40 years… 95% of the sensitive / critical info are stored on windows based systems and networks..
Why this frenzy over iphones.
Tim Cook was not elected, he was ordained. :o)