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Yes, Tim Cook is lying (EDIT: perhaps not lying, but being creative with the meaning of "potential"). The software asked for by the FBI would only work on one

by rtpg 11y ago

Yes, Tim Cook is lying (EDIT: perhaps not lying, but being creative with the meaning of "potential"). The software asked for by the FBI would only work on one phone because it would both have a check for the specific phone, and be signed by Apple (so can't be modified). The software would need to be modified and resigned by Apple to be used on another phone.

taneq 11y ago
This is true but, in terms of security, is meaningless. If they can order Apple to unlock one device this way, they can do it again, and once they've got a precedent, the next time won't be national news, it'll just be routine.
ubernostrum 11y ago
Really? You really, honestly, truly and genuinely believe that if Apple just does this for them, just this one time, just for this one phone, then that's the end of it? That the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies would never, not once, not for the rest of the lifetime of the universe (and certainly not, say, about 24 hours later) come back and say "Well, we're glad you helped us with that case, now here's this list of other cases we'd like help with, and now you've proven that you can do this we're going to be bringing you a lot of these"? That's what Tim Cook is worried about: it won't stop with this one phone unless it's stopped before that one phone gets unlocked and becomes the precedent that makes this just another routine thing. Every now-routine violation of privacy and security was originally marketed as "just this one case, this one's unique and special and sensitive and we absolutely have to get it done, just this one, trust us" and eventually morphed into "eh, it's Tuesday, time to ship off another truckload of requests to have this done to people".
- rtpg 11y ago
  Of course the FBI will ask again and again. And Apple could be compelled to comply each and every time. The slippery slope argument being applied here is that FBI search warrants will now work on phones less than the iPhone 5S from now on (until Apple closes the iOS update backdoor I guess). This is far from "China will be able to mass-hack into iPhones from now on"-style comments I've seen from others. The fact is that Apple left a backdoor in their phones and are now being told to exploit it. An argument against having the backdoor in the first place.
  - schismsubv 11y ago
    Apple _will_ be compelled. You either don't understand the US legal doctrine of stare decisis or are being intentionally obtuse. Furthermore, the US legal system encourages elaboration on stare decisis, applying prior case law to novel cases rather than hashing out new decisions. This means that creative applications of this ruling ("give me an uncontrolled backdoor") are simply a question of time once the landmark case is made.
    - rtpg 11y ago
      considering that the single-use nature of this exploit is a fundamental part of the ruling (and of the validity of the search warrant itself), you would not be able to use precedent to just get an uncontrolled backdoor.
      - schismsubv 11y ago
        Whether the exploit is single-use, about a phone, Apple, the 5c, or any other specific parameters is fundamentally irrelevant. What this case is doing is setting precedent that the courts can compel a company to _create_, no matter how trivial one may think that creation may be today. _That_ is the precedent so many draw exception to, because stare decisis is also a doctrine of incrementalism, of gradual expansion of interpretations. Today Apple is compelled to create a very controlled firmware; who's to say in the figurative tomorrow that Samsung won't be compelled to create and send a firmware update to a specific Blu-Ray player that creates an air microphone out of the laser? Where does it stop? To be complete (as was pointed out in another sibling thread) incrementalism may be curtailed if implications are carefully argued and acknowledged by the judge. I am skeptical of the value of that approach, but have no hard argument against it.

by rtpg 11y ago

taneq 11y ago

This is true but, in terms of security, is meaningless. If they can order Apple to unlock one device this way, they can do it again, and once they've got a precedent, the next time won't be national news, it'll just be routine.

ubernostrum 11y ago

Really? You really, honestly, truly and genuinely believe that if Apple just does this for them, just this one time, just for this one phone, then that's the end of it? That the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies would never, not once, not for the rest of the lifetime of the universe (and certainly not, say, about 24 hours later) come back and say "Well, we're glad you helped us with that case, now here's this list of other cases we'd like help with, and now you've proven that you can do this we're going to be bringing you a lot of these"? That's what Tim Cook is worried about: it won't stop with this one phone unless it's stopped before that one phone gets unlocked and becomes the precedent that makes this just another routine thing. Every now-routine violation of privacy and security was originally marketed as "just this one case, this one's unique and special and sensitive and we absolutely have to get it done, just this one, trust us" and eventually morphed into "eh, it's Tuesday, time to ship off another truckload of requests to have this done to people".

rtpg 11y ago
Of course the FBI will ask again and again. And Apple could be compelled to comply each and every time. The slippery slope argument being applied here is that FBI search warrants will now work on phones less than the iPhone 5S from now on (until Apple closes the iOS update backdoor I guess). This is far from "China will be able to mass-hack into iPhones from now on"-style comments I've seen from others. The fact is that Apple left a backdoor in their phones and are now being told to exploit it. An argument against having the backdoor in the first place.
- schismsubv 11y ago
  Apple _will_ be compelled. You either don't understand the US legal doctrine of stare decisis or are being intentionally obtuse. Furthermore, the US legal system encourages elaboration on stare decisis, applying prior case law to novel cases rather than hashing out new decisions. This means that creative applications of this ruling ("give me an uncontrolled backdoor") are simply a question of time once the landmark case is made.
  - rtpg 11y ago
    considering that the single-use nature of this exploit is a fundamental part of the ruling (and of the validity of the search warrant itself), you would not be able to use precedent to just get an uncontrolled backdoor.
    - schismsubv 11y ago
      Whether the exploit is single-use, about a phone, Apple, the 5c, or any other specific parameters is fundamentally irrelevant. What this case is doing is setting precedent that the courts can compel a company to _create_, no matter how trivial one may think that creation may be today. _That_ is the precedent so many draw exception to, because stare decisis is also a doctrine of incrementalism, of gradual expansion of interpretations. Today Apple is compelled to create a very controlled firmware; who's to say in the figurative tomorrow that Samsung won't be compelled to create and send a firmware update to a specific Blu-Ray player that creates an air microphone out of the laser? Where does it stop? To be complete (as was pointed out in another sibling thread) incrementalism may be curtailed if implications are carefully argued and acknowledged by the judge. I am skeptical of the value of that approach, but have no hard argument against it.