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> Heck, I don't want them to be able to do it. Why? Having talked to a lot of people who hold this position, the only underlying thought I've been able to disc

> Heck, I don't want them to be able to do it. Why? Having talked to a lot of people who hold this position, the only underlying thought I've been able to discern is that you can't conceive of any time someone else holding encrypted data could hurt you. If this phone instead belonged to a living rapist or paedophile instead of a terrorist, and was the only evidence proving their guilt, would you feel the same?

barrkel 11y ago
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; if it's a choice between no encryption and a marginal increase in the conviction rate, or strong encryption and a marginal decrease in the conviction rate, I'm in favour of the latter. But of course bad people can still use extra encryption, so lack of default encryption will mostly hurt good people. This increases the amount by which the detection and conviction rate needs to improve to justify the intrusion. I think it comes down to how willing you are to let bad people get away with their crimes vs lose your own right to privacy in a world where more and more of your private life and thoughts are stored digitally. I know I find myself increasingly self-censoring in case what I write gets taken out of context and used against me. I have to second-guess some third party reading my emails, my private notes, etc., and I really don't like that feeling. It doesn't take long for political winds to change, and we're not long past times where people were put to death for what they wrote or who they were.
- hahainternet 11y ago
  > The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few No, they don't. We live in nations with individual rights. The US specifically is a nation without acceptable levels of healthcare. The needs of the many clearly do not outweigh the needs of a few. > But of course bad people can still use extra encryption, so lack of default encryption will mostly hurt good people This is a non sequitur driven by a false dichotomy. Nobody is suggesting the removal of encryption. > I think it comes down to how willing you are to let bad people get away with their crimes vs lose your own right to privacy in a world where more and more of your private life and thoughts are stored digitally. How many criminals are you willing to let get away with their crimes? Apple has currently built a system that allows child abusers and some rapists to be all but immune from conviction. Are you happy with this? I am certainly not.
  - kingnothing 11y ago
    I disagree with your healthcare analogy. It is in the interest of the many for the US to have widespread, cheap, available healthcare. It would give our citizens longer, healthier lives, which from a purely economic standpoint would allow them to work longer and increase GDP. The US already spends significantly more per capita on healthcare than countries like the UK that have socialized it. Right now, the needs of the few (for insurance companies to make huge amounts of money) are outweighing the needs of the many. I suspect that will change over the coming decades, but there's a long political battle to fight before we see any real change. Edit: one of many sources for info on healthcare spending http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/20/bernie-s/fact-checking-bernie-sanders-claim-us-spends-three/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/...
    - hahainternet 11y ago
      > I disagree with your healthcare analogy. It is in the interest of the many for the US to have widespread, cheap, available healthcare. It would give our citizens longer, healthier lives, which from a purely economic standpoint would allow them to work longer and increase GDP. I agree it is, but my point is that despite this, it is not implemented in any way. The needs of the many in the US do not outweigh the needs of the few. Nor in most cases should they. Individual healthcare has no significant harm to it, but prohibiting the searching of communications and data on someone's primary computer has major harm implications.
  - thesimon 11y ago
    >How many criminals are you willing to let get away with their crimes? So you are saying Apple is only helping criminals with encryptions? And because weakening encryption can not only be used in special cases (you mention child abusers and rapists in an attempt to appeal to emotions), you don't fear encryption being used against the average person? For example if the police would search your phone in a traffic stop, that would be okay? The amount of cases you could solve with a crypto backdoor seem very small in comparison the risks for the average citizen. Privacy is an important right for everyone.
snowwrestler 11y ago
Let's not pretend that this is a new issue for American society. We have almost 250 years of making these sorts of decisions. For example, we know that bad guys use guns to commit crimes, yet we're very very reluctant to ban guns. Bad guys use cars, but we don't require cars to come with remote kill switches. Bad guys use encryption. Shall we therefore ban it? Or destroy its effectiveness? Do any good guys use encryption? And should we take those uses in to consideration as we think about public policy? The President of the U.S. uses an iPad. Millions of federal employees, including FBI agents, use iPhones. Let's think about the implications of punching a hole in the security of those devices. It's very easy to make decisions when one ignores the broader context and consequences. That doesn't mean it's the right way to make decisions.
- grecy 11y ago
  (To play devils advocate, coming from the perspective of my retired LEO friend) legal warrants can we written to seize guns which can then be tested and information extracted from them. Legal warrants can be written to search and seize cars, so they can be searched and extensively examined to extract information/evidence from them. The argument goes that right now, warrants can be written to gain access to basically everything a criminal has/owns/has been in contact with so that it can all be gobbled up and analyzed. People supporting the government in this believe the same is true for digital data - they don't care that it's on a phone or laptop or "online", they just think a warrant should let the government access it. If Apple can do it, then they must. (Note I don't personally agree with that, but I understand it)
  - zeveb 11y ago
    > If Apple can do it, then they must. Which is why they ought to ensure that they cannot do it. And it's why we should resist any law mandating that they be forced to include a pre-emptive backdoor.
- hahainternet 11y ago
  > Bad guys use cars, but we don't require cars to come with remote kill switches. Nobody is asking for a remote kill switch. Searching a car is a common task, searching a phone should be the same. > Let's think about the implications of punching a hole in the security of those devices. Nobody is talking about uploading new software to every device. This is wildly misleading.
zeveb 11y ago
> If this phone instead belonged to a living rapist or paedophile instead of a terrorist, and was the only evidence proving their guilt, would you feel the same? Yes. There are many cases where the only evidence against someone lives inside his own head, and the State has no right to compel someone to give evidence against himself. Likewise, there are cases where someone has encrypted the only evidence against him, and the State has no right to compel him to decrypt that evidence. How often is any crime perfect, anyway?
- hahainternet 11y ago
  > Likewise, there are cases where someone has encrypted the only evidence against him, and the State has no right to compel him to decrypt that evidence. My country does. > How often is any crime perfect, anyway? Significantly more often if Apple gets their way, as they provide guarantees backed by the richest company in the world. Taking a photo of your rape victim used to be idiotic and a way to get caught. Now it's a way to keep power over your victim as Apple will protect that photo.
zaroth 11y ago
The 4th amendment also helps pedophiles and rapists get away with crimes. It's obvious why police need some limits on their investigative powers. Are you also in favor of DNA typing and fingerprinting everyone at birth into a national database? How about requiring all citizens to carry a GPS locator, camera and microphone which are always recording into a national database? We could always just limit access behind a warrant, right? We create limits on police power because police abuse that power and it harms a free society. Backdoors into our personal electronic devices should not be allowed for the same reason.
- hahainternet 11y ago
  > Are you also in favor of DNA typing and fingerprinting everyone at birth into a national database? Yeah this has a lot of benefits and helps catch criminals extremely quickly. It has virtually no privacy implications. I'm fine with it and some nations do it. > How about requiring all citizens to carry a GPS locator, camera and microphone which are always recording into a national database? We could always just limit access behind a warrant, right? This is about the most disproportionate act I can imagine. If you have to reach this far, you don't have any point to defend.
  - zaroth 11y ago
    Glad to see we found some common ground. That smartphone you're carrying... once companies can be compelled to backdoor them that's exactly the world we would be living in.
    - vectorjohn 11y ago
      Well why don't we wait for that to be suggested to start getting outraged. In the case at hand, I don't believe Apple for a second that they would be decreasing the security for any other phone by complying with the FBI request. They're lying or exaggerating as far as I can tell.
      - zaroth 11y ago

barrkel 11y ago

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; if it's a choice between no encryption and a marginal increase in the conviction rate, or strong encryption and a marginal decrease in the conviction rate, I'm in favour of the latter. But of course bad people can still use extra encryption, so lack of default encryption will mostly hurt good people. This increases the amount by which the detection and conviction rate needs to improve to justify the intrusion. I think it comes down to how willing you are to let bad people get away with their crimes vs lose your own right to privacy in a world where more and more of your private life and thoughts are stored digitally. I know I find myself increasingly self-censoring in case what I write gets taken out of context and used against me. I have to second-guess some third party reading my emails, my private notes, etc., and I really don't like that feeling. It doesn't take long for political winds to change, and we're not long past times where people were put to death for what they wrote or who they were.

hahainternet 11y ago
> The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few No, they don't. We live in nations with individual rights. The US specifically is a nation without acceptable levels of healthcare. The needs of the many clearly do not outweigh the needs of a few. > But of course bad people can still use extra encryption, so lack of default encryption will mostly hurt good people This is a non sequitur driven by a false dichotomy. Nobody is suggesting the removal of encryption. > I think it comes down to how willing you are to let bad people get away with their crimes vs lose your own right to privacy in a world where more and more of your private life and thoughts are stored digitally. How many criminals are you willing to let get away with their crimes? Apple has currently built a system that allows child abusers and some rapists to be all but immune from conviction. Are you happy with this? I am certainly not.
- kingnothing 11y ago
  I disagree with your healthcare analogy. It is in the interest of the many for the US to have widespread, cheap, available healthcare. It would give our citizens longer, healthier lives, which from a purely economic standpoint would allow them to work longer and increase GDP. The US already spends significantly more per capita on healthcare than countries like the UK that have socialized it. Right now, the needs of the few (for insurance companies to make huge amounts of money) are outweighing the needs of the many. I suspect that will change over the coming decades, but there's a long political battle to fight before we see any real change. Edit: one of many sources for info on healthcare spending http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/20/bernie-s/fact-checking-bernie-sanders-claim-us-spends-three/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/...
  - hahainternet 11y ago
    > I disagree with your healthcare analogy. It is in the interest of the many for the US to have widespread, cheap, available healthcare. It would give our citizens longer, healthier lives, which from a purely economic standpoint would allow them to work longer and increase GDP. I agree it is, but my point is that despite this, it is not implemented in any way. The needs of the many in the US do not outweigh the needs of the few. Nor in most cases should they. Individual healthcare has no significant harm to it, but prohibiting the searching of communications and data on someone's primary computer has major harm implications.
- thesimon 11y ago
  >How many criminals are you willing to let get away with their crimes? So you are saying Apple is only helping criminals with encryptions? And because weakening encryption can not only be used in special cases (you mention child abusers and rapists in an attempt to appeal to emotions), you don't fear encryption being used against the average person? For example if the police would search your phone in a traffic stop, that would be okay? The amount of cases you could solve with a crypto backdoor seem very small in comparison the risks for the average citizen. Privacy is an important right for everyone.

snowwrestler 11y ago

Let's not pretend that this is a new issue for American society. We have almost 250 years of making these sorts of decisions. For example, we know that bad guys use guns to commit crimes, yet we're very very reluctant to ban guns. Bad guys use cars, but we don't require cars to come with remote kill switches. Bad guys use encryption. Shall we therefore ban it? Or destroy its effectiveness? Do any good guys use encryption? And should we take those uses in to consideration as we think about public policy? The President of the U.S. uses an iPad. Millions of federal employees, including FBI agents, use iPhones. Let's think about the implications of punching a hole in the security of those devices. It's very easy to make decisions when one ignores the broader context and consequences. That doesn't mean it's the right way to make decisions.

grecy 11y ago
(To play devils advocate, coming from the perspective of my retired LEO friend) legal warrants can we written to seize guns which can then be tested and information extracted from them. Legal warrants can be written to search and seize cars, so they can be searched and extensively examined to extract information/evidence from them. The argument goes that right now, warrants can be written to gain access to basically everything a criminal has/owns/has been in contact with so that it can all be gobbled up and analyzed. People supporting the government in this believe the same is true for digital data - they don't care that it's on a phone or laptop or "online", they just think a warrant should let the government access it. If Apple can do it, then they must. (Note I don't personally agree with that, but I understand it)
- zeveb 11y ago
  > If Apple can do it, then they must. Which is why they ought to ensure that they cannot do it. And it's why we should resist any law mandating that they be forced to include a pre-emptive backdoor.
hahainternet 11y ago
> Bad guys use cars, but we don't require cars to come with remote kill switches. Nobody is asking for a remote kill switch. Searching a car is a common task, searching a phone should be the same. > Let's think about the implications of punching a hole in the security of those devices. Nobody is talking about uploading new software to every device. This is wildly misleading.

zeveb 11y ago

> If this phone instead belonged to a living rapist or paedophile instead of a terrorist, and was the only evidence proving their guilt, would you feel the same? Yes. There are many cases where the only evidence against someone lives inside his own head, and the State has no right to compel someone to give evidence against himself. Likewise, there are cases where someone has encrypted the only evidence against him, and the State has no right to compel him to decrypt that evidence. How often is any crime perfect, anyway?

hahainternet 11y ago
> Likewise, there are cases where someone has encrypted the only evidence against him, and the State has no right to compel him to decrypt that evidence. My country does. > How often is any crime perfect, anyway? Significantly more often if Apple gets their way, as they provide guarantees backed by the richest company in the world. Taking a photo of your rape victim used to be idiotic and a way to get caught. Now it's a way to keep power over your victim as Apple will protect that photo.

zaroth 11y ago

The 4th amendment also helps pedophiles and rapists get away with crimes. It's obvious why police need some limits on their investigative powers. Are you also in favor of DNA typing and fingerprinting everyone at birth into a national database? How about requiring all citizens to carry a GPS locator, camera and microphone which are always recording into a national database? We could always just limit access behind a warrant, right? We create limits on police power because police abuse that power and it harms a free society. Backdoors into our personal electronic devices should not be allowed for the same reason.

hahainternet 11y ago
> Are you also in favor of DNA typing and fingerprinting everyone at birth into a national database? Yeah this has a lot of benefits and helps catch criminals extremely quickly. It has virtually no privacy implications. I'm fine with it and some nations do it. > How about requiring all citizens to carry a GPS locator, camera and microphone which are always recording into a national database? We could always just limit access behind a warrant, right? This is about the most disproportionate act I can imagine. If you have to reach this far, you don't have any point to defend.
- zaroth 11y ago
  Glad to see we found some common ground. That smartphone you're carrying... once companies can be compelled to backdoor them that's exactly the world we would be living in.
  - vectorjohn 11y ago
    Well why don't we wait for that to be suggested to start getting outraged. In the case at hand, I don't believe Apple for a second that they would be decreasing the security for any other phone by complying with the FBI request. They're lying or exaggerating as far as I can tell.
    - zaroth 11y ago