“The roots of the current standoff between Apple Inc. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation reach back to 2008, with the unexpected discovery of a suspect’s iPhone apparently forgotten inside a bag of diapers,” Joe Palazzolo and Devlin Barrett report for The Wall Street Journal. “”
“Lawyers and investigators involved in the 2008 prosecution of Amanda and Christopher Jansen, a young married couple from Watertown, N.Y., remember it as one of the most horrific cases of child sex abuse they had ever seen,” Palazzolo and Barrett report. “History may remember it for another reason. It is believed to be the first case of a federal judge ordering Apple to assist the government in unlocking an iPhone—and the technology giant not only complied; it helped prosecutors draft the court order requiring it to do so.”
“Court documents and interviews with those involved in the Watertown case shed light on a bygone era of cooperation between Apple and the government, before the two sides parted ways on issues of data security and customer privacy,” Palazzolo and Barrett report. “The 2013 leak by Edward Snowden on government surveillance programs prompted the tech industry both to shore up their products’ security features and to view the government’s requests for information more skeptically.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Only one thing need be stated, regardless of whatever case overreaching governments and their media pawns dredge up to promote Big Brother-esque expropriation of liberty:
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
SEE ALSO:
Apple shoots for the impossible: An unbreakable iPhone – April 1, 2016
Inside the little-known Japanese firm helping the FBI crack Apple iPhones – April 1, 2016
Here’s how much the FBI is paying Cellebrite for its iPhone hack – March 25, 2016
Meet Cellebrite, the Israeli company reportedly cracking iPhones for the FBI – March 24, 2016
U.S. Senator Wyden pledges to fight limits on encryption – March 31, 2016
Apple’s new challenge: Learning how the U.S. cracked terrorist’s iPhone – March 29, 2016
Did the FBI just unleash a hacker army on Apple? – March 29, 2016
Apple declares victory in battle with FBI, but the war continues – March 29, 2016
Apple vows to increase security as FBI claims to break into terrorist’s iPhone – March 29, 2016
U.S. government drops Apple case after claiming hack of terrorist’s iPhone – March 29, 2016
Meet Cellebrite, the Israeli company reportedly cracking iPhones for the FBI – March 24, 2016
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Interesting that they mention Snowden: “The 2013 leak by Edward Snowden on government surveillance programs prompted the tech industry both to shore up their products’ security features and to view the government’s requests for information more skeptically.”
He gave a talk via videoconference a little while ago with the following chilling insights:
“When asked about the Panama Papers, Mr. Snowden said they reveal “the most privileged and the most powerful members of society are operating by a different set of rules.
“They’re increasingly guarding knowledge of their operations, of their assets, of their interests,” he said. “At the same time, through programs of mass surveillance revealed in recent years, we, the private citizens, are increasingly transparent to government. The relationship between the governing and the governed has become inverted. And rather than those who represent us in our government being accountable to us, we are now accountable to them.””
That last sentence really hits the nail on the head. “And rather than those who represent us in our government being accountable to us, we are now accountable to them.”
Of course some governments are worse than others, and pretty well everyone from the free and civilized world knows who is as the bottom of the pile. No doubt some of the wee the people know too. I wonder if they are going to do anything about it.
I wonder if Bernie will ask Mr Snowden to be his VP candidate.
Maybe tim cook can help NAMBLA as a cusader for that oganiasation also he seems to want to protect those that want to kill and destroy and maybe rape. Liberals. They sure are progressive
Grow up.
And Apple fully cooperated with the FBI on this case also, until they had to draw the line at being forced to create a master key for all iPhones.
Note: I cannot read the full article since it is behind a paywall.
There’s one thing that a lot of mainstream media outlets fail to mention: In the San Bernardino case, the FBI asked for something far farther reaching than in cases before. When before Apple was asked to unlock one phone, and one phone only, it did so, as far as it could (which was completely with older versions of phones and OS).
But in the San Bernardino case, Apple was not only asked to unlock the phone — it was asked to do THIS way, with THAT function explicitly mentioned. This was not something Apple could do, unless they wrote special software, and signed it to run. This is a fundamentally different request.
Besides, most people in the field were very much aware of what was going on, even without Mr Snowdon leaking it. In fact, a lot of what he ‘leaked’ were common knowledge — he ‘just’ published paper trail evidence. Which is also the reason Apple (or its lawyers) helped write the court order — Apple was already aware of the legal implications even back then, and cooperating on such legal writs helped limit and outline Apple’s contemplations.