Apple vs The FBI
On the behalf of all the activists seeking to bring democracy to repressive regimes around the world I would like to say "thank you Apple for defending our lives".
it's not that Apple is refusing to give data they have. They've cooperated fully on that.
It's the FBI asking them to build programming that doesn't exist right now (according to Apple) that creates a backdoor into data. If it is true Apple protects this data to the point they don't even have access to it, I agree with their refusal to create the tool to access it.
It's like building an atomic bomb just for "this one specific situation". Once it's done, it can be copied and used by anyone for all the wrong reasons.
conandrob240 said:
it's not that Apple is refusing to give data they have. They've cooperated fully on that.
It's the FBI asking them to build programming that doesn't exist right now (according to Apple) that creates a backdoor into data. If it is true Apple protects this data to the point they don't even have access to it, I agree with their refusal to create the tool to access it.
It's like building an atomic bomb just for "this one specific situation". Once it's done, it can be copied and used by anyone for all the wrong reasons.
Exactly. The US government has made every company in the world talk about privacy rights and now they want to do away with it. And the US Government has proven they do not care about our privacy (and that has been true with both parties).
mikescott said:
conandrob240 said:
it's not that Apple is refusing to give data they have. They've cooperated fully on that.
It's the FBI asking them to build programming that doesn't exist right now (according to Apple) that creates a backdoor into data. If it is true Apple protects this data to the point they don't even have access to it, I agree with their refusal to create the tool to access it.
It's like building an atomic bomb just for "this one specific situation". Once it's done, it can be copied and used by anyone for all the wrong reasons.
Exactly. The US government has made every company in the world talk about privacy rights and now they want to do away with it. And the US Government has proven they do not care about our privacy (and that has been true with both parties).
Yep
Apple's choice of battlefield is pretty poor in this case and this will not gain much support. The FBI is trying to get more information on terrorists who killed a number of people. It isn't like the FBI is trying to infiltrate a mosque. So, the issues about civil liberties will get buried by complaints that Apple wants to protect murderers.
terp said:
Though I fear to ask this question, I was wondering what people thought about Apple fighting the FBI. The FBI wants Apple to provide software to bypass the iPhone security.
Apple is saying that this would create a back door to their encryption, and be a terrible precedent. What say you?
Why involve Apple? Why not just the NSA? I'm under the impression they have a lot of resources.
tjohn said:
Apple's choice of battlefield is pretty poor in this case and this will not gain much support. The FBI is trying to get more information on terrorists who killed a number of people. It isn't like the FBI is trying to infiltrate a mosque. So, the issues about civil liberties will get buried by complaints that Apple wants to protect murderers.
Maybe I'm not reading broadly enough, but this doesn't reflect the reaction I'm seeing. I've seen/heard a few government officials calling for Apple to comply, but vast majority of reaction I see from the public at large has been decidedly in Apple's favor.
What I heard is that the FBI really doesn't give a damn about what's on this phone. Meta data collection from phone providers already tells phone calls.
FBI management has been whining about getting this type of access forever. They're using this to set precedent, to crack the secure decryption walls accessible to consumers.
Reminds me of the guy who wrote and published PGP, the public key encryption, Philip R. Zimmermann. Then too we had the world is ending because of the distribution of encryption for the masses that government can't break. Our government tried to browbeat Zimmermann by "investigating" him criminally for years.
https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/news/PRZ_case_dropped.html
https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/background/index.html
btw- the world did not end
BrickPig said:
tjohn said:
Apple's choice of battlefield is pretty poor in this case and this will not gain much support. The FBI is trying to get more information on terrorists who killed a number of people. It isn't like the FBI is trying to infiltrate a mosque. So, the issues about civil liberties will get buried by complaints that Apple wants to protect murderers.
Maybe I'm not reading broadly enough, but this doesn't reflect the reaction I'm seeing. I've seen/heard a few government officials calling for Apple to comply, but vast majority of reaction I see from the public at large has been decidedly in Apple's favor.
I thought I saw a poll that indicated the public was largely in favor of Apple Complying with the request. I'll see if I can dig it up.
conandrob240 said:
it's not that Apple is refusing to give data they have. They've cooperated fully on that.
It's the FBI asking them to build programming that doesn't exist right now (according to Apple) that creates a backdoor into data. If it is true Apple protects this data to the point they don't even have access to it, I agree with their refusal to create the tool to access it.
It's like building an atomic bomb just for "this one specific situation". Once it's done, it can be copied and used by anyone for all the wrong reasons.
That is a pretty good answer IMO.
Well, the interesting thing here is that we have proof that the iOS 9 pin locking mechanism is either truly secure, or secure enough that whatever they'd need to work around it is not easily accessible. (Maybe the guy at the NSA that knows about it is on vacation in Bali or something.)
There's too much at stake for Apple to cave in and provide this for the US. Otherwise you'll eventually have a custom iOS written for Russia, China, etc.
Cogent statment:
Any crack in that front could be fatal for tech companies that must operate worldwide. If Apple is forced to open up an iPhone for an American law enforcement investigation, what’s to prevent it from doing so for a request from the Chinese or the Iranians? If Apple is forced to write code that lets the F.B.I. get into the Phone 5c used by Syed Rizwan Farook, the male attacker in the San Bernardino attack, who would be responsible if some hacker got hold of that code and broke into its other devices?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/technology/apples-stance-highlights-a-more-confrontational-tech-industry.html
If the precedent is set by Apple losing its case and Apple actually writes a backdoor, what's to prevent a court in a foreign authoritarian country from ordering backdoor decryption mechanisms of cloud documents?
Such as documents from human rights activists who are considered terrorist by certain governments. The foreign court will say "we know it can be done, Apple did it per court order, we expect the same from you, the cloud owner."
tjohn said:
Apple's choice of battlefield is pretty poor in this case and this will not gain much support. The FBI is trying to get more information on terrorists who killed a number of people. It isn't like the FBI is trying to infiltrate a mosque. So, the issues about civil liberties will get buried by complaints that Apple wants to protect murderers.
terp said:
Though I fear to ask this question, I was wondering what people thought about Apple fighting the FBI. The FBI wants Apple to provide software to bypass the iPhone security.
Apple is saying that this would create a back door to their encryption, and be a terrible precedent. What say you?
I am quite sure many destructive, horrible things had noble initial intentions.
conandrob240 said:
tjohn said:
Apple's choice of battlefield is pretty poor in this case and this will not gain much support. The FBI is trying to get more information on terrorists who killed a number of people. It isn't like the FBI is trying to infiltrate a mosque. So, the issues about civil liberties will get buried by complaints that Apple wants to protect murderers.
terp said:
Though I fear to ask this question, I was wondering what people thought about Apple fighting the FBI. The FBI wants Apple to provide software to bypass the iPhone security.
Apple is saying that this would create a back door to their encryption, and be a terrible precedent. What say you?
I am quite sure many destructive, horrible things had noble initial intentions.
You guys are pretty cynical. Government would never use a power for a different purpose than what it was granted. Or would they? 
French lawmakers have voted to extend the country's state of emergency by another three months, despite growing concerns that the anti-terror measures violate civil liberties. The lower house of parliament extended the measures until May 26th by a vote of 212 to 31 (with three abstentions), after the French senate approved the extension by a similarly large margin earlier this month. The extension comes as lawmakers continue to debate proposals that would expand government surveillance and make it easier for the president to activate a state of emergency in the future.
French President François Hollande initiated the state of emergency following the November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris, which left 130 people dead and 367 injured. The laws give law enforcement authorities expanded powers to conduct house raids, seize personal data, and place people under house arrest, all without judicial oversight. Since the state of emergency went into effect, nearly 3,400 house raids have been carried out and 576 judiciary proceedings have been opened, the interior ministry announced this week, but only six of those cases relate to terrorism.
Possibly, but I just ran several google searches trying to find such a thing and couldn't.
terp said:
I thought I saw a poll that indicated the public was largely in favor of Apple Complying with the request. I'll see if I can dig it up.
tjohn said:
Apple's choice of battlefield is pretty poor in this case and this will not gain much support. The FBI is trying to get more information on terrorists who killed a number of people. It isn't like the FBI is trying to infiltrate a mosque. So, the issues about civil liberties will get buried by complaints that Apple wants to protect murderers.
terp said:
Though I fear to ask this question, I was wondering what people thought about Apple fighting the FBI. The FBI wants Apple to provide software to bypass the iPhone security.
Apple is saying that this would create a back door to their encryption, and be a terrible precedent. What say you?
When police have a warrant to search the home of a suspected counterfeiter and they find a wall safe, they don't go and ask the maker of that safe to have a code that opens all safes because that would mean none of the company's safes are in fact safe. Similarly, government should stop asking computer makers to have backdoors to encryption.
Thought-provoking comments on this issue. Seems like this is case that will have to be appealed to higher courts.
Does anyone know if it is possible to clone a drive on a phone with the encryption intact? Maybe a sector by sector imaging? If this is possible, then the phone just needs to be cloned 1,000 times and then they can go ahead with the brute force attempt since there is just 10,000 options.
jeffhandy said:
Does anyone know if it is possible to clone a drive on a phone with the encryption intact? Maybe a sector by sector imaging? If this is possible, then the phone just needs to be cloned 1,000 times and then they can go ahead with the brute force attempt since there is just 10,000 options.
Assuming a 4-digit PIN, yes. But the iPhone supports longer PINs, and they can be alphanumeric rather than numbers only. So it kind of depends on how tech-savvy Farook was.
BG9 said:
What I heard is that the FBI really doesn't give a damn about what's on this phone. Meta data collection from phone providers already tells phone calls.
FBI management has been whining about getting this type of access forever. They're using this to set precedent, to crack the secure decryption walls accessible to consumers.
Reminds me of the guy who wrote and published PGP, the public key encryption, Philip R. Zimmermann. Then too we had the world is ending because of the distribution of encryption for the masses that government can't break. Our government tried to browbeat Zimmermann by "investigating" him criminally for years.
https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/news/PRZ_case_dropped.html
https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/background/index.html
btw- the world did not end
this is the first explanation about this story that makes any sense.
Tim Cook's explanation about opening up back doors and threatening their entire customer base makes absolutely zero sense.
On the other hand, it's equally bizarre that the FBI is trying to force Apple to write software for them. Is there any precedent at all for the FBI forcing someone to work for them?
Very weird story.
I'd like to get more technical details on what exactly is being asked for though. It seems like the FBI simply wants to turn off the "brick the phone after 10 failed pin attempts" feature. I find it unbelievable that they are not able to reverse engineer the code for something as simple as this.
Bizarro time.
tjohn said:
Thought-provoking comments on this issue. Seems like this is case that will have to be appealed to higher courts.
I honestly was not following this as closely as I should have been. This is a great thread. Very thought-provoking. Thanks, terp. (I'll bet you don't hear that very often... )
marylago said:
I honestly was not following this as closely as I should have been.
I'm totally captivated by this story. Like, unhealthily addicted to it.
drummerboy said:
BG9 said:
What I heard is that the FBI really doesn't give a damn about what's on this phone. Meta data collection from phone providers already tells phone calls.
FBI management has been whining about getting this type of access forever. They're using this to set precedent, to crack the secure decryption walls accessible to consumers.
Reminds me of the guy who wrote and published PGP, the public key encryption, Philip R. Zimmermann. Then too we had the world is ending because of the distribution of encryption for the masses that government can't break. Our government tried to browbeat Zimmermann by "investigating" him criminally for years.
https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/news/PRZ_case_dropped.html
https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/background/index.html
btw- the world did not end
this is the first explanation about this story that makes any sense.
Tim Cook's explanation about opening up back doors and threatening their entire customer base makes absolutely zero sense.
On the other hand, it's equally bizarre that the FBI is trying to force Apple to write software for them. Is there any precedent at all for the FBI forcing someone to work for them?
Very weird story.
I'd like to get more technical details on what exactly is being asked for though. It seems like the FBI simply wants to turn off the "brick the phone after 10 failed pin attempts" feature. I find it unbelievable that they are not able to reverse engineer the code for something as simple as this.
Bizarro time.
Not everything is reverse engineered possible.
For example, public key encryption. The encryption and decryption source code is widely available in books and on the internet in Java, C, C++.
Yet, its not possible to timely break an encryption by "reverse" engineering even when you know the decryption code used to do the decryption.
One hackers take. Oh and the FBI is citing the All Writs act of 1789.
http://truthinmedia.com/mcafee-will-decrypt-san-bernardino-phone-free/
drummerboy said:
Tim Cook's explanation about opening up back doors and threatening their entire customer base makes absolutely zero sense.
I'd like to get more technical details on what exactly is being asked for though. It seems like the FBI simply wants to turn off the "brick the phone after 10 failed pin attempts" feature. I find it unbelievable that they are not able to reverse engineer the code for something as simple as this.
I'm not sure why you say this about Cook's explanation. One of Apple's key selling points has been the security of their devices. Throwing up their hands and saying "sure, we'll just rewrite our software (or create new software) to make our products more vulnerable to security breeches" would be a pretty big about-face.
Essentially the FBI is asking for three things: They want Apple's "assistance" to 1) disable auto-erase, so that the phone doesn't brick itself after 10 failed attempts at the passcode, 2)to make it possible to submit passcodes electronically, and 3) to eliminate the 80 millisecond (?) delay between passcodes entered.
wedjet said:
One hackers take. Oh and the FBI is citing the All Writs act of 1789.
http://truthinmedia.com/mcafee-will-decrypt-san-bernardino-phone-free/
Ouch. And... ouch.
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Though I fear to ask this question, I was wondering what people thought about Apple fighting the FBI. The FBI wants Apple to provide software to bypass the iPhone security.
Apple is saying that this would create a back door to their encryption, and be a terrible precedent. What say you?