Tim Cook's letter to customers

[Halvar]

To be fair, Google has been lobbying for strong encryption on devices, too, ever since the Snowden revelations, as well as Facebook, Microsoft and other companies.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/23 ... ion-debate

For all of them, cloud services are a huge factor in their business plans, so they need their customers to trust them with their data. The US government has undermined that trust in a big way with recent legislation, it's no wonder they're all pissed about that.

Which still means they're forced to obey the legislation, and we'll never know what's really going on. In this respect, I don't trust Apple any more than Google, not even mentioning the others.

[c2lknt]

All of them were pretty silent while cooperating with the Patriot Act.

We don't actually know if this is true, though. Any attempt to speak out would have been censored quickly - I mean, imagine it, even if, say, Brin, Gates, Zuckerberg, etc, all got together and tried to go public, the entire infrastructure of that publicity would be accessories to their crimes - and while I'd love to think so highly of every worker, manager, and wire between any of them and any of us, all The Government would need is one weak link, and suddenly there's no story anymore.

Also, "The Government" is a crap way to talk about these issues. If you've worked in the public sector at all, you'll know that it takes years for any organization to talk to any other organization. Just because the NSA has backdoors into anything and everything, that doesn't mean Your Local LEOs--or even the FBI--will ever have access to anything from that at all.

And that's where the real trouble with this Apple thing comes from: They're asking for access at the very bottom of the intelligence pyramid. If you give access to the NSA, you can trust that hardly anyone else will have access to it - only the best and brightest hackers in the world can get in there. If Local Leo has a backdoor in his desk drawer, any freaking prostitute or junkie that gets pulled in has access to it. Suddenly a script kiddie who's dad's a cop sells a backdoor to everything for $700 and a new mechanical keyboard.

[Muirium]

And that's why I don't think even the NSA has the keys to Apple's empire. Let alone the proles at the FBI.

Webwit and company will flap their wings. But there's no proof on either side of the conspiracy argument. I choose to believe in what I usually do: conspiracies don't work. Others will disagree, just as faithfully.

[ohaimark]

If you give access to the NSA, you can trust that hardly anyone else will have access to it - only the best and brightest hackers in the world can get in there.

Whoo! Let's make it easier for Chinese hackers to mess things up.

[matt3o]

from the little I know about Tim Cook I feel the public letter is genuine. He already talked about privacy in the past and he always been crystal clear about how he feels about it. So clear that some republican extremists criticized him for being pro "terrorism" (yeah... right).

I must think that his vision reflects somehow to Apple... but he is not Apple. I said that I "like the man", not Apple. Apple direction and most of their policies are still crap, but that is beside the point.

[webwit]

And that's why I don't think even the NSA has the keys to Apple's empire. Let alone the proles at the FBI.

Webwit and company will flap their wings. But there's no proof on either side of the conspiracy argument. I choose to believe in what I usually do: conspiracies don't work. Others will disagree, just as faithfully.

I'll take the Snowden documents over the fanboys opinion to wave Apple's cooperation away. It's sad that you consider Snowden's work a conspiracy theory, just so you can consume the shiny and not think. He is risking his life.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/intera ... a-document

[andrewjoy]

I hate the " by not doing this you are helping terrorists bla bla bla" message that gets pushed by law enforcement, thats not the point. If they make a backdoor for one they make it for everyone , and lets face it do you think governments and the police are smart enough to keep the backdoor safe when most of them still use IE 6 on windows XP ?

The extent that apple do or do not help law enforcement is not known for sure.

The only way this is going to work is if there are open systems that everyone can audit and everyone can see the code for. You may say this exposes potential holes, as people can see possible exploits in the source but this also means that people can fix said holes whereas a single company can ignore them, and security through obscurity does not work.

I think apples approach ( if what they say is true) is the right one, you cannot unlock something you don't have the key for.

I am also of the opinion that the invasion of privacy and loss of security the back door approach would bring is worse on a whole for a society than the odd explosion.

[seebart]

I'll take the Snowden documents over the fanboys opinion to wave Apple's cooperation away. It's sad that you consider Snowden's work a conspiracy theory, just so you can consume the shiny and not think. He is risking his life.

I happen to agree, therefore here are some of them as PDF links, ignore the German at the top, the PDF's are in english. If you take the time to even read parts of it I guarantee you a grumpy day!

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/snow ... 75885.html

Looks like google is jumping on the bandwagon:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/brendanklinkenb ... .xt86JvrMe

[Halvar]

Webwit is right, and Snowden hasn't been the only one who has exposed the fact that, in the US, the legal situation (patriot act) is such that public authorities can force companies to hand over whatever data they need and remain silent about this order. Lavabit comes to mind, too.

All major silicon valley companies have lobbied against this to some extent, more or less outspoken, but PRISM still has access to their data according to the NSA slides Snowden leaked. Whether they used the Patriot act to gain that access or if they just hacked them we don't know.

The only way for companies to try to circumvent this has been by doing what they should have done in the first place: design their systems in a way that (allows them to credibly claim that) they can't access the customer data themselves. Not all companies have tried to do that, and most have tried it with only a part of their offerings, but Apple has with the iPhone. Now the FBI has challenged that.

So I still think Tim Cook has gone the right way here by trying to again involve the public instead of just lobbying. It will be interesting to see who is going try try to smear Apple and Tim Cook now.

[Chyros]

Most if all I lament the fact that people aren't more outraged at the invasion of their privacy WHATEVER the reason. It's almost as if personal liberty and privacy aren't something we're working towards anymore, but just another thing we're happy to part with as long as terrorist terrorism terror terror terribly terrorism terrorist. The people who do this are arguably no better than the people they're trying to catch, especially considering it was all done without public knowledge and consent.

[andrewjoy]

But thats the point, if you invade privacy and erode civil liberty are you not doing the terrorists job for them ?

[seebart]

Of course, the FBI doesn't really just care about that one iPhone. They want a legal wedge to destroy all encryption, everywhere. Speak up for Christ's sake, tech industry!

Most if all I lament the fact that people aren't more outraged at the invasion of their privacy WHATEVER the reason. It's almost as if personal liberty and privacy aren't something we're working towards anymore, but just another thing we're happy to part with as long as terrorist terrorism terror terror terribly terrorism terrorist. The people who do this are arguably no better than the people they're trying to catch, especially considering it was all done without public knowledge and consent.

That's the actual issue beyond this current San Bernardino iPhone story: forcing Apple to change their approach to get permanent access. Most average users don't question or even think about this anyway just so long as their device is running fine with the least hassle. Disturbing. And the terrorist argument always looms...

[Muirium]

Gee. If only the tech industry had any money. Them god fearing Murcan politicians are as addicted to campaign dollars as a Colombian baron's goodfornuthin firstborn is to hookers and blow. If you know what I mean.

[seebart]

Yup, there are few that can go without that "addiction", one current high profile example...I can guess how he would react to Apple in this situation. Oh of course he already did:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/17/11031 ... -statement

trumpet.jpg (43.47 KiB) Viewed 6309 times

[webwit]

He is not the president. People still think in the right or wrong lizard. The president hired this guy. http://www.cnet.com/news/joe-bidens-pro ... ng-record/
He wanted hard prison time for copyright violators and got it. Obama killed Aaron Swartz, for campaign money. All the hipsters voted the RIAA and copyright industry into the goverment.

[seebart]

More reactions coming in, this is getting slightly more interesting the more parties speak up...

https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-comment- ... ock-iphone

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/e ... ion-battle

https://www.facebook.com/jan.koum/posts ... 7267490011

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/t ... ock-219369

[Muirium]

This is the big one.

Those companies had better be scheming in private (just as everyone assumes they are) and working out whose balls to squeeze. (Dianne Feinstein is high on that metaphorical list.) Because populism is on a roll right now, and the people can't stand having to remember Internet passwords just so bad guys can go crazy with their poor helpless liberty defining guns.

This is no time for democracy.

[Redmaus]

Well I've had enough of this subject now that's why I'll say Arrivederci! (for a few hours) and I'd like to add this:

sigh... Steve did win. Apple stock is worth much more than IBM and IBM doesn't really make anything anymore.

But on to privacy, the reason I don't like a backdoor is because other people(hackers) could take advantage of it. I don't trust in the governments ability to properly secure these backdoors.

But remember how they caught Bin Laden? They discovered a network of couriers, so that means terrorists already don't trust electronics and adding in backdoors won't do much to stop terrorism anyhow.

[Muirium]

Psst. We moved on to discussing the illuminati ages ago. Keep up!

[seebart]

This is the big one.

Those companies had better be scheming in private (just as everyone assumes they are) and working out whose balls to squeeze. (Dianne Feinstein is high on that metaphorical list.) Because populism is on a roll right now, and the people can't stand having to remember Internet passwords just so bad guys can go crazy with their poor helpless liberty defining guns.

This is no time for democracy.

Not sure Mu, but there is plenty grumbling going on right now.

Well I've had enough of this subject now that's why I'll say Arrivederci! (for a few hours) and I'd like to add this:

sigh... Steve did win. Apple stock is worth much more than IBM and IBM doesn't really make anything anymore.

Now I would love to see how Steve would have dealt with this encryption situation. He had his very own brilliant way of clearing the table.

Here's the NSA's PR work:

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/nsa-chie ... 40933.html

[webwit]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... efore.html

[matt3o]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... efore.html

"But in a similar case in New York last year, Apple acknowledged that it could extract such data if it wanted to. And according to prosecutors in that case, Apple has unlocked phones for authorities at least 70 times since 2008."

not Tim Cook

[Madhias]

John McAfee would decrypt the San Bernadino iPhone for free:
http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mca ... 016-2?IR=T

I would eat my shoe on the Neil Cavuto show if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino phone. This is a pure and simple fact.

[Halvar]

This link in webwit's linked "Daily beast" article has more about how Apple has "hardened" the iPhone and iOS with recent generations. It's actually pretty impressive, and also unparalleled in the Android world. At least if you forget that Apple did this mainly to protect their own "walled garden".

The author says that, while perfectly possible with the iPhone 5c that they're talking about now or with older generations, it will be more and more laborious if not impossible for Apple to "crack" newer generations of iPhones by implanting special firmware. It might be impossible with the next generation already.

So that's probably another reason why Tim Cook wants this discussion now. Yes it is PR, but not only.

[Muirium]

Ah, McAfee. His name may be synonymous with boring 90s antivirus, but don't let that fool you. The man himself is a prize lunatic:

https://usesthis.com/interviews/john.mcafee/

[Chyros]

Ah, McAfee. His name may be synonymous with boring 90s antivirus, but don't let that fool you. The man himself is a prize lunatic:

https://usesthis.com/interviews/john.mcafee/

Oh dear. That picture at the top isn't a good start, is it? xD

[vivalarevolución]

So let me get this straight. The giant companies that basically store and analyze the data I access on their devices, and use that data for basically whatever they please, are fighting against a government that wants access to that data? You're trying to tell me my privacy hasn't already been violated ten times over?

Does anyone realize that all these companies use manufacturers in China to make their devices, and the Chinese government makes deals with the manufacturers in China to install backdoors in exchange for technology info that the Chinese government espionage machine steals from other countries?

It's possible there already are backdoors in these devices. Check out what heedpantsnow has to say here.

What a bizarre world we live in these days.

[ohaimark]

I'd rather give Google my data as opposed to the U.S. Government... Look what happened with the gigantic hack that stole personal information about, essentially, everyone in the military.

Yep. I'm aware of Chinese backdoors. There have been some pretty crazy ones.

[seebart]

In the next round Facebook and Twitter back Apple in phone encryption battle with FBI:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... o-shooting

Suprised?

[matt3o]

In the next round Facebook and Twitter back Apple in phone encryption battle with FBI:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... o-shooting

Suprised?

now that is ironic