7 ms·

Apple's Tim Cook defends encryption. When will other tech CEOs do so?

141 points by wwayer 11y ago

johansch 11y ago
Apple has a very weak service portfolio (edit: for a company of their stature. When compared to e.g. Yahoo they are doing great!). Their strength is in client UX. Of course they will defend encryption, it's in their financial interest do so.
- coob 11y ago
  Weak Service Portfolio? Off the top of my head: SSO ID Service / Cloud Photo Storage / Cloud Document Sync / Cloud Backup / Email / Instant Messaging / Music Store / Music Streaming Service / Cloud Music Service / Movie/TV Store / App Store / Push Notifications / Payments / Video Conferencing / Game Centre / eBook Store / Shared Calendaring / Notes / Large File Sharing / Personal Assistant / Maps Weak?
  - tazjin 11y ago
    For many people, everything that doesn't have a flashy Javascript-frontend does not count as a service.
  - johansch 11y ago
    Yes, compared to e.g. Google and Microsoft.
- pluckytree 11y ago
  It’s in the financial interest of much of the technology industry to vociferious campaign for encryption, but they don’t. If Google stopped using any encryption, don't you think their business would suffer? It may be in their Apple’s financial interests to do so, but it’s also the right thing to do. As you (partially) say, they care about the user experience. That experience includes taking steps to protect user information and they’ve had a long track record of doing just that. They did this long before it probably had any noticeable effect on the bottom line.
georgestephanis 11y ago
Bruce Schneier has one of the best posts I've ever read on why Encryption is important here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/why_we_encrypt.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/why_we_encryp... -- great resource to share to people who don't understand it.
- lectrick 11y ago
  And Martin Fowler has one of the best posts I've ever read on why privacy is important for a democracy: http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html
tptacek 11y ago
You mean like how Google got ECC forward-secure TLS deployed across the whole Internet? I have nothing but respect for Apple's stance with regard to cryptography, but Google has been more instrumental in getting strong crypto deployed on the Internet, and, just as importantly, in sweeping the minefield of crappy 90s crypto that defined most Internet crypto until recently.
- pluckytree 11y ago
  Agreed, but the article is focused on why these companies that have done significant things to protect users with encryption technologies haven’t been a lot more vocal like Tim Cook has. This issue is so important to them and to everyone that they could spare a little time to speak their minds. Otherwise it just looks like that "kooky Apple" going against the grain. Who cares, they are going out of business soon, right?
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Why are we supposed to play dumb about the subtext behind Cook's comment? I'm sure Cook believes what he's saying, but the real marketing strategy here isn't "crypto versus plaintext"; it's "consumer product company" versus "online service provider". Seen through this lens, there's an argument that what Cook is doing is counterproductive. He's making an argument that Google can't sign on to, and using crypto as a wedge to drive the argument home. "Be a consumer product company, because then you can protect users with crypto". Also: the kind of encryption that Apple is really making a stand for? They do a better job of it than Android, but Android provides the same encryption: what scares the USG about Apple is that iPhones are locked by default, and when they're locked, they can't be imaged easily. That's true of Google's phones as well. Meanwhile, Google is doing a much better job of securing browser crypto than Apple is; Apple is almost an obstacle to better browser crypto.
    - chaz72 11y ago
      I disagree that what Cook is doing is counterproductive. I think Google could take a stronger line to secure user data if they wanted to. They don't have to become a consumer product company to run a messaging system which they cannot read. If Google can't sign on to that, maybe they should change something so that they can.
harryf 11y ago
You might expect Amazon to take a stance to reassure AWS customers. Their AWS sales people like to tout AWS's encryption capabilities and the fact that they weren't part of Snowdens leak
slg 11y ago
I can't be the only one who thinks it is pessimistic to say "if you put a back door in, that back doors for everybody, for good guys and bad guys." Very few people even seem to recognize this as a problem let alone are working to solve it. Maybe we should stop laughing at Clinton and her "Manhattan Project" comment; that might be the only way to get enough tech people on the problem to actually solve it.
- nemothekid 11y ago
  What you think is a problem - is broken cryptography to experts. There is no shortage of minds working on to create backdoors, or develop cryptographic methods that have backdoors, just look at Dual_EC_DRBG. It was a backdoor for the "good guys", but now its backdoor for everyone - eventually people will study the code and see the backdoor exists. The crux of the issue is mathematics has no concept of good guys or bad guys, so as far as mathematics is concerned a back door for anyone is a backdoor for everyone.
  - slg 11y ago
    If we can make encryption that is nearly foolproof, why can't we make a backdoor that is nearly foolproof? Why is a Manhattan Project of backdoors not a possible solution? Also can't the role of the good guy be split up among a group? Similar to the two man rule to prevent rogue agents from launching missiles, can't we have some sort of process that requires agreement among a majority of a few parties including the end user, the company who owns the software, law enforcement, and the (public) judicial system. If all it takes to break down the door to my home are a judge and law enforcement to agree, why can't we accept similar when it comes to data?
    - zaphar 11y ago
      You seem to be under the impression that if you just work hard enough you can violate the fundamental constraints of reality. I can't comment on the mathematics involved but let us assume it's mathematically possible. You engineer this mythical nearly foolproof backdoor. You can decrypt this text with any of two keys. (It's my understanding that such algorithms actually exist already.) Congratulations you have achieved your goal. You have a working algorithm. Now let's examine the results of actually using this algorithm: You now have twice the opsec problem you had before. You have transmit this second key to a Government agency securely. You have to trust that Government agency to securely store, use, and dispose? of this key when they obtain it. And what is the number one threat to secure systems? Operational Security. In fact many security professionals will tell you that the hardest part of security isn't the math behind the encryption. It's the opsec. In one fell swoop you double the threat in the most fragile part of your security.
sarciszewski 11y ago
I recently had this conversation: Me, to CEO: Hey, think we should ever build a backdoor into any of our products that employ encryption to help the US government and law enforcement? CEO, to me: No, that's a terrible idea. Me, to CEO: Okay good, just making sure we're on the same page. I don't think there are many honest and competent technology CEOs who would rally against encryption.
- tennysonmach 11y ago
  That scenario becomes a lot more dire when the CEO says CEO, to me: Yes, because we are compelled by law backed by jail time or hefty fines.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    I already discussed that scenario. We'd shut our doors, release all of our code as CC0+WTFPL, and start a new company fresh. At the end of the day, we care about our integrity more than we do dollars.
    - scrollaway 11y ago
      I'd commend you for doing that but it's very easy to say early in the process when you're not faced with the situation. Once three years of your life have been invested in the product and you have tens or hundreds of thousands of users, will your answer be the same?
      - sarciszewski 11y ago
        I appreciate the vote of confidence on our eventual success. I can't predict the future. I'd like to say our answer won't change. If it does, we deserve to fail.
        scrollaway 11y ago
        I get the feeling you are underestimating how difficult of a decision this is. If you really care about doing the right thing down the line, I recommend thinking very long and very hard about it because, down the line if you do succeed, the time you have to take the decision will come and you will not be expecting it by then. Underestimating the situation is a sure-fire way to fail your own expectations. Governments don't care about small startups with little reach. They will ask you when it's hard.
robotcookies 11y ago
The issue I have with Cook's proclaiming support for strong encryption is that Apple still has control over what can and can't install on the user's device. So imagine if some strong agency came and said to a company you can't allow certain apps to install and you can't tell your customers we told you this. "You can allow these apps that claim to encrypt user's messages [list here], but not these [list here]". So some state could still strong arm Apple into compromising privacy and Apple would have their hands clean. It seems that if you really want to guarantee privacy, you have to give the individual control over what they can install. Telling people to just "trust us" is not really good enough. And Cook is saying they are giving the user ultimate control by not having keys to their encryption but in reality that's nonsense... they are still requiring people to trust them.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  I use a lot of web apps on my iphone. They don't have access to all the phone's apis, but they do everything I need, without any hindrance from apple oversight. This is probably the most native looking one of the bunch: https://forecast.io/ https://forecast.io/
  - tonyarkles 11y ago
    From an encryption point of view though, they're relatively useless. Said three-letter agency now doesn't need to block the app, they can instead MITM the traffic to it or compel the organization to inject additional client-side or server-side code to complete the backdoor. Certificate pinning helps against the MITM problem, but code integrity for downloaded client-side code is pretty tricky. Browsers could add some form of signed code pinning for power users, but it'd be tricky to be able to distinguish between legitimate updates and nefarious activity.
free2rhyme214 11y ago
It's ironic Tim Cook is defending encryption when Apple gives backdoors with iMessage - http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/fbi-imessage-encryption/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/fbi-imessage-encryption/
- conradev 11y ago
  Nowhere in the article does it say that Apple actually compromised the end to end nature of an iMessage conversation. All I see is this: > Apple could collaborate with law enforcement to provide a false key, thereby intercepting a specific user’s messages, and the user would be none the wiser. Key word is "could". Apple "could" also use its signing keys to install any kind of software on your phone to do whatever it wants. For example, to read your keychain and pull your private keys.
  - free2rhyme214 11y ago
    In the link I provided Nicholas Weaver explains how iMessage's encryption is compromised.
    - free2rhyme215 11y ago
      It absolutely does not; you need to increase your reading comprehension skills.
      - free2rhyme214 11y ago
        Nice. You made an account name similar to mine to tell me that?
    - conradev 11y ago
      It's compromise-able, meaning Apple could decide to MITM a conversation going forward. But for conversations that have already occurred – Apple does not have the private keys.
  - yuhong 11y ago
mschuster91 11y ago
The only reason why Apple is defending encryption is because they're afraid Android (which is open source and thus can be inspected/hardened) could take away iPhone sales from security minded folks.
- mineshaftgap 11y ago
  I don't think anyone has ever said if you want security use Android, and if they did they should be laughed at.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  I doubt security minded folks would be choosing Android, because of the lack of updates.
mixmastamyk 11y ago
> …against the constant threat of criminal hackers and foreign governments. Foreign govts? Rather, "against the constant threat of criminal governments and hackers."

141 points by wwayer 11y ago

Apple has a very weak service portfolio (edit: for a company of their stature. When compared to e.g. Yahoo they are doing great!). Their strength is in client UX. Of course they will defend encryption, it's in their financial interest do so.

coob 11y ago
Weak Service Portfolio? Off the top of my head: SSO ID Service / Cloud Photo Storage / Cloud Document Sync / Cloud Backup / Email / Instant Messaging / Music Store / Music Streaming Service / Cloud Music Service / Movie/TV Store / App Store / Push Notifications / Payments / Video Conferencing / Game Centre / eBook Store / Shared Calendaring / Notes / Large File Sharing / Personal Assistant / Maps Weak?
- tazjin 11y ago
  For many people, everything that doesn't have a flashy Javascript-frontend does not count as a service.
- johansch 11y ago
  Yes, compared to e.g. Google and Microsoft.
pluckytree 11y ago
It’s in the financial interest of much of the technology industry to vociferious campaign for encryption, but they don’t. If Google stopped using any encryption, don't you think their business would suffer? It may be in their Apple’s financial interests to do so, but it’s also the right thing to do. As you (partially) say, they care about the user experience. That experience includes taking steps to protect user information and they’ve had a long track record of doing just that. They did this long before it probably had any noticeable effect on the bottom line.

georgestephanis 11y ago

Bruce Schneier has one of the best posts I've ever read on why Encryption is important here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/why_we_encrypt.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/why_we_encryp... -- great resource to share to people who don't understand it.

lectrick 11y ago
And Martin Fowler has one of the best posts I've ever read on why privacy is important for a democracy: http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html

tptacek 11y ago

You mean like how Google got ECC forward-secure TLS deployed across the whole Internet? I have nothing but respect for Apple's stance with regard to cryptography, but Google has been more instrumental in getting strong crypto deployed on the Internet, and, just as importantly, in sweeping the minefield of crappy 90s crypto that defined most Internet crypto until recently.

pluckytree 11y ago
Agreed, but the article is focused on why these companies that have done significant things to protect users with encryption technologies haven’t been a lot more vocal like Tim Cook has. This issue is so important to them and to everyone that they could spare a little time to speak their minds. Otherwise it just looks like that "kooky Apple" going against the grain. Who cares, they are going out of business soon, right?
- tptacek 11y ago
  Why are we supposed to play dumb about the subtext behind Cook's comment? I'm sure Cook believes what he's saying, but the real marketing strategy here isn't "crypto versus plaintext"; it's "consumer product company" versus "online service provider". Seen through this lens, there's an argument that what Cook is doing is counterproductive. He's making an argument that Google can't sign on to, and using crypto as a wedge to drive the argument home. "Be a consumer product company, because then you can protect users with crypto". Also: the kind of encryption that Apple is really making a stand for? They do a better job of it than Android, but Android provides the same encryption: what scares the USG about Apple is that iPhones are locked by default, and when they're locked, they can't be imaged easily. That's true of Google's phones as well. Meanwhile, Google is doing a much better job of securing browser crypto than Apple is; Apple is almost an obstacle to better browser crypto.
  - chaz72 11y ago
    I disagree that what Cook is doing is counterproductive. I think Google could take a stronger line to secure user data if they wanted to. They don't have to become a consumer product company to run a messaging system which they cannot read. If Google can't sign on to that, maybe they should change something so that they can.

harryf 11y ago

You might expect Amazon to take a stance to reassure AWS customers. Their AWS sales people like to tout AWS's encryption capabilities and the fact that they weren't part of Snowdens leak

slg 11y ago

I can't be the only one who thinks it is pessimistic to say "if you put a back door in, that back doors for everybody, for good guys and bad guys." Very few people even seem to recognize this as a problem let alone are working to solve it. Maybe we should stop laughing at Clinton and her "Manhattan Project" comment; that might be the only way to get enough tech people on the problem to actually solve it.

nemothekid 11y ago
What you think is a problem - is broken cryptography to experts. There is no shortage of minds working on to create backdoors, or develop cryptographic methods that have backdoors, just look at Dual_EC_DRBG. It was a backdoor for the "good guys", but now its backdoor for everyone - eventually people will study the code and see the backdoor exists. The crux of the issue is mathematics has no concept of good guys or bad guys, so as far as mathematics is concerned a back door for anyone is a backdoor for everyone.
- slg 11y ago
  If we can make encryption that is nearly foolproof, why can't we make a backdoor that is nearly foolproof? Why is a Manhattan Project of backdoors not a possible solution? Also can't the role of the good guy be split up among a group? Similar to the two man rule to prevent rogue agents from launching missiles, can't we have some sort of process that requires agreement among a majority of a few parties including the end user, the company who owns the software, law enforcement, and the (public) judicial system. If all it takes to break down the door to my home are a judge and law enforcement to agree, why can't we accept similar when it comes to data?
  - zaphar 11y ago
    You seem to be under the impression that if you just work hard enough you can violate the fundamental constraints of reality. I can't comment on the mathematics involved but let us assume it's mathematically possible. You engineer this mythical nearly foolproof backdoor. You can decrypt this text with any of two keys. (It's my understanding that such algorithms actually exist already.) Congratulations you have achieved your goal. You have a working algorithm. Now let's examine the results of actually using this algorithm: You now have twice the opsec problem you had before. You have transmit this second key to a Government agency securely. You have to trust that Government agency to securely store, use, and dispose? of this key when they obtain it. And what is the number one threat to secure systems? Operational Security. In fact many security professionals will tell you that the hardest part of security isn't the math behind the encryption. It's the opsec. In one fell swoop you double the threat in the most fragile part of your security.

sarciszewski 11y ago

I recently had this conversation: Me, to CEO: Hey, think we should ever build a backdoor into any of our products that employ encryption to help the US government and law enforcement? CEO, to me: No, that's a terrible idea. Me, to CEO: Okay good, just making sure we're on the same page. I don't think there are many honest and competent technology CEOs who would rally against encryption.

tennysonmach 11y ago
That scenario becomes a lot more dire when the CEO says CEO, to me: Yes, because we are compelled by law backed by jail time or hefty fines.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  I already discussed that scenario. We'd shut our doors, release all of our code as CC0+WTFPL, and start a new company fresh. At the end of the day, we care about our integrity more than we do dollars.
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    I'd commend you for doing that but it's very easy to say early in the process when you're not faced with the situation. Once three years of your life have been invested in the product and you have tens or hundreds of thousands of users, will your answer be the same?
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      I appreciate the vote of confidence on our eventual success. I can't predict the future. I'd like to say our answer won't change. If it does, we deserve to fail.
      - scrollaway 11y ago
        I get the feeling you are underestimating how difficult of a decision this is. If you really care about doing the right thing down the line, I recommend thinking very long and very hard about it because, down the line if you do succeed, the time you have to take the decision will come and you will not be expecting it by then. Underestimating the situation is a sure-fire way to fail your own expectations. Governments don't care about small startups with little reach. They will ask you when it's hard.

robotcookies 11y ago

The issue I have with Cook's proclaiming support for strong encryption is that Apple still has control over what can and can't install on the user's device. So imagine if some strong agency came and said to a company you can't allow certain apps to install and you can't tell your customers we told you this. "You can allow these apps that claim to encrypt user's messages [list here], but not these [list here]". So some state could still strong arm Apple into compromising privacy and Apple would have their hands clean. It seems that if you really want to guarantee privacy, you have to give the individual control over what they can install. Telling people to just "trust us" is not really good enough. And Cook is saying they are giving the user ultimate control by not having keys to their encryption but in reality that's nonsense... they are still requiring people to trust them.

merpnderp 11y ago
I use a lot of web apps on my iphone. They don't have access to all the phone's apis, but they do everything I need, without any hindrance from apple oversight. This is probably the most native looking one of the bunch: https://forecast.io/ https://forecast.io/
- tonyarkles 11y ago
  From an encryption point of view though, they're relatively useless. Said three-letter agency now doesn't need to block the app, they can instead MITM the traffic to it or compel the organization to inject additional client-side or server-side code to complete the backdoor. Certificate pinning helps against the MITM problem, but code integrity for downloaded client-side code is pretty tricky. Browsers could add some form of signed code pinning for power users, but it'd be tricky to be able to distinguish between legitimate updates and nefarious activity.

free2rhyme214 11y ago

It's ironic Tim Cook is defending encryption when Apple gives backdoors with iMessage - http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/fbi-imessage-encryption/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/fbi-imessage-encryption/

conradev 11y ago
Nowhere in the article does it say that Apple actually compromised the end to end nature of an iMessage conversation. All I see is this: > Apple could collaborate with law enforcement to provide a false key, thereby intercepting a specific user’s messages, and the user would be none the wiser. Key word is "could". Apple "could" also use its signing keys to install any kind of software on your phone to do whatever it wants. For example, to read your keychain and pull your private keys.
- free2rhyme214 11y ago
  In the link I provided Nicholas Weaver explains how iMessage's encryption is compromised.
  - free2rhyme215 11y ago
    It absolutely does not; you need to increase your reading comprehension skills.
    - free2rhyme214 11y ago
      Nice. You made an account name similar to mine to tell me that?
  - conradev 11y ago
    It's compromise-able, meaning Apple could decide to MITM a conversation going forward. But for conversations that have already occurred – Apple does not have the private keys.
- yuhong 11y ago

mschuster91 11y ago

The only reason why Apple is defending encryption is because they're afraid Android (which is open source and thus can be inspected/hardened) could take away iPhone sales from security minded folks.

mineshaftgap 11y ago
I don't think anyone has ever said if you want security use Android, and if they did they should be laughed at.
s73v3r 11y ago
I doubt security minded folks would be choosing Android, because of the lack of updates.

mixmastamyk 11y ago

> …against the constant threat of criminal hackers and foreign governments. Foreign govts? Rather, "against the constant threat of criminal governments and hackers."