“In a recent interview about Apple’s ongoing legal battle with the Department of Justice, Tim Cook said that our smartphones have more information about us and our families than any other device we own,” Roberto Baldwin writes for Engadget. “He’s right. And if the FBI is able to compel Apple or any company to circumvent a phone’s encryption, it would tap into a wealth of information.”
“But it’s not just the tiny computers in our pocket we need to be concerned about,” Baldwin writes. “Your home and car tech could also be affected by the ruling if law enforcement deems it necessary.”
“Look around your home, office or car. How many microphones, cameras or sensors are pointed at you right now?” Baldwin writes. “Even if these devices are not connected to a service or server, they’re probably still there watching and listening. Hopefully the manufacturers did their jobs and all those eyes and ears are encrypted. But, if Apple is forced to help the FBI get into that iPhone, even that encryption won’t matter.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The slope is slippery indeed.
SEE ALSO:
The Apple vs. FBI fight is about something more basic than software and laws – February 28, 2016
Apple privacy battle with Washington looms as watershed moment – February 26, 2016
Apple’s lawyer: If we lose, it will lead to a ‘police state’ – February 26, 2016
Apple: The law already exists that protects us from U.S. government demands to hack iPhone – February 26, 2016
Wouldn’t all you need is a local app (sanctioned by Apple but not written by them) with it’s own encryption enabled by the user and controlled by the user to solve this problem? Government may end up killing this golden goose of riches for the mobile tech industry and source of employment for many. Typical.
It’s = It is.
http://learnyourdamnhomophones.com/
Typical.
I get that right 99.99999999999999999999999999% of the time but thanks self-appointed grammar police. Haven’t you got better things to do? Like cleaning out that van down the river?
I agree grammar police are mostly a waste of time.
1) MDN does not have an edit feature
2) most of us think of posts here as just ‘quickies’, we are not writing a doctorate thesis or a business proposal
3) many of us are typing on small iOS devices (with ‘auto correct’ which is often ‘not correct’ ).
4) many of us are used to texting abbreviations and short ‘ungrammatical’ sentences on cellphones etc.
(I didn’t even bother to CAP my sentences here … )
grammar police should only voice out IF THE POST IS SO BADLY WRITTEN THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IS BEING SAID.
Well said. Sometimes you post so quickly you miss something and like you say theres on edit feature to correct it like most elsewhere. (As if most people would appreciate the gesture anyway in these illiterate abbreviated times.)
thought this was relevant.
Thx
Wake up, this is no time for apathy and delusions!
The Obama Regime appears to want to end all rights to privacy.
Why does Obama not talk about this big issue? No leadership from him to set discussion.
Obama is having the FBI doing his talking for him. All the Obama supporters are the “silent” ones. Where is their outrage at this tyrannical action from the Federal Government. Or, are Obama supporters fine with tyranny as long as “their guy” is the tyrant? I think so.
1) when security forces access phones, cameras etc it’s not just the target of the ‘suspect’ in jeopardy but all those around him. What about innocent people in the house, on the phone etc. A doctor might have patient info, a business man corporate plans on his devices etc.
(note if anything Snowden has taught us, Govt. with so many employees can’t keep secrets, and if they gather so much info on people many innocent it’s gonna leak… )
2) It’s not just security forces like FBI we have to be worried about because this is just as leak documents show this is just Governments first step it force backdoors (not just this Apple ‘hacker tool’ ) into many tech devices.
Already bills like those in New York are being proposed for backdoors:
“Any smartphone that is manufactured on or before January 1, 2016, and sold or leased in New York, shall be capable of being decrypted and unlocked by its manufacturer or its operating system provider. ”
Backdoors will be hacked by CRIMINALS who will get through to our bank accounts, cameras, electronic passkeys — like to our houses and cars, our families info etc.
all this extremely troubling.
Don’t tread on me!
Stop treading on others.
“You are being watched. The government has a system. I know because I built it.” Watch “Person Of Interest.”
Ok, mac daily news, what’s with all the Hillary Clinton ads? Keep these political ads up (either party) and I’ll turn my ad blocker back on.
We all see different ads from each other. The ads you see are based on your own internet behavior. Through cookies and other arcane ways that I don’t know, they profile and track you and target you based on how and what you search and the links you click. If you don’t follow politics online and don’t have a profile that says you’re interested in politics, you don’t get political ads. Somehow you’ve generated an online presence that tells the machine that you’re interested in Clinton or politics (either for or against), with the expectation that you’ll click something eventually.
Don’t believe me? Reset Safari, or at least delete your cache and cookies, create a new MDN user, and those ads will likely go back to being random and non-Clinton-related, until you start clicking links again.
I use the Guest User on my Mac, and all I see are ads with scantily clad women.
The reality is that as much as MDN pokes at Google and Android publicly and loudly at every opportunity, the hypocrites use Google Ad Services, which tracks you and pumps annoying advertising in your face based on whatever you or anyone else who used your computer might have looked at.
As long as MDN and others continue to support Google, then I will continue to support AdBlock.
Strange.. All the ads I see on this page are sourced from Amazon advertising services.. Does it matter which browser/OS you use to access this page?
If? Come on, civilized behavior is leaving that nation faster than rats on a sinking ship.