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I've been trying to stir conversation on this point, to little success unfortunately. The whole affair is pretty damning for the tech industry. The people who
by marcoperaza 11y ago
I've been trying to stir conversation on this point, to little success unfortunately. The whole affair is pretty damning for the tech industry. The people who should know better are parroting Apple's deceptive claims, and many more are just hopping on the anti-surveillance anti-FBI/NSA bandwagon because it fits their political narrative.
Just to be clear, I'm against mandated backdoors in products. I should be allowed to make my product as secure as I want to, even against myself. Yes, that might hinder government search and seizure, but that's the government's problem, not mine. I agree with Apple and most other tech companies on this.
But Apple isn't being asked to create a backdoor. The door already exists, and was voluntarily created by Apple. Apple has all of the tools and knowledge in its possession to walk through it. Whether that's the PIN itself (it's not), or the code-signing key and source code needed to disable attack mitigations (without which a 4-digit PIN is worthless), doesn't make a difference. As you observe, they could design the phone such that this attack is not possible. They did not, even though they've been claiming otherwise for years now.
All of the arguments in favor of Apple boil down to a general opposition to government search and seizure, worries about damage to Apple's reputation, a claim that code-signing occupies a privileged legal position (akin to attorney-client privilege), or a slippery-slope argument that the government will ask for mandated backdoors on all iPhones next. None of these has a chance in court. I'm more and more convinced that Apple is well aware of how legally wrong it is, and is just doing this to save face over erroneously advertising that their phones were secure even against Apple itself (and therefore any government coercion of Apple).
If someone is going to challenge me on this, please answer this two-part question: If Apple had the phone's PIN stored in their database, do you think the government should be able to compel them to hand it over? And why is that any different?
- intrasight 11y agoI disagree, and here's why it is different. If Apple had a "thing" and a warrant said "give us this thing", then Apple would be compelled to turn over the thing. But Apple doesn't have this thing (the software to hack their own security). The government is saying "make us this thing", ie asking Apple to execute the warrant - which is unprecedented - it's the governments job to execute the warrant not a private company's.
- marcoperaza 11y agoSo if instead, the government asked for Apple's source code, build system, code-signing key, and flashing hardware, would that be okay to you? It's not completely unprecedented to require active assistance from a third-party. There's a Supreme Court case about this very issue, United States vs New York Telephone Co. The FBI wanted New York Telephone to install monitoring hardware on their premises and assist the government in its operation. The district court issued an order to that effect. The company offered to instead give the FBI only information, which the FBI could then use to install and maintain the system themselves. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the FBI. The main criteria that people have read out of that case is "unreasonable burden". I don't think that the FBI's request to Apple is an "unreasonable burden", especially since the government will pay for any costs. The biggest burden will be on Apple's reputation, but that is self-inflicted from making claims (honestly or not) that ultimately weren't true. I can't imagine the court allowing Apple to keep its technical assistance from the government.
- intrasight 11y agoYeah, actually that would be ok with me. Because those are "things". But if there is a legal precedent for demanding services, then I guess my point is mute. I guess Apple could charge one billion dollars per person/hour. That MIGHT be enough to cover their costs.
- vectorjohn 11y agoYes, Apple does have a "thing". And the thing is the signing certificates. The fact that some work is involved in using the thing makes no difference. Every demand requires some work. The fact that they're being asked to do thing A instead of thing B to get some outcome seems to be a weird place to draw the line. If it took hundreds of man hours to collect and properly separate out data for a single person to hand over to the FBI as evidence, they would be expected to do it. And they will even be compensated for it.
- nickik 11y agoI actually agree with you. Apple should just make it it so that Apple CAN NOT do anything. > If Apple had the phone's PIN stored in their database, do you think the government should be able to compel them to hand it over? And why is that any different? Well, I think, they should not, but I don't claim its different. Apple wants to have it both ways, build it so that they have full control and they can be compelled by nobody to give up that control. I would rather they build a system, where nobody is in control at all.