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Bill Gates calls for terror data debate
- inglor 11y agoI wonder what he would have said if he were still at the helm in Microsoft.
- mmrezaie 11y agoI wonder if his talk is just because of competition they have with apple or not. In my opinion he could just look at the problem more realistically and saying the monitoring should be in control of some judicial system that is different than current (return true) by default. Also it is laughable that some people were saying these monitorings are going to be limited to terror act law.
- S_A_P 11y agoThis response really disappoints me. That seemed like he completely deflected the question and didn't answer. Im sure he measured his words carefully so that he wouldn't have to answer the inevitable, "will microsoft provide the same kinds of privacy protection as apple?" Come on Bill G
- nxzero 11y agoMS (that is Gates) has a long history of feeding the Feds anything they want; nothing surprising here to me.
- zwerdlds 11y agoCame here to say this. The feds almost universally use the MS ecosystem.
- sillysaurus3 11y agoOf course they won't. It doesn't even make sense to ask them for this. Microsoft serves the government. The contracts they get from this are a large part of their revenue. Mr Gates reiterated his view that the issue came down to a debate about whether governments can get at data they use to protect citizens. "Should governments be able to access information at all or should they be blind, that's essentially what we are talking about," he told the BBC. Actually, the debate is whether the government should be allowed to force you to create something that does not exist.
- nodata 11y agoIt's a bit of both.
- wfo 11y agoI was under the impression Bill Gates does not speak for MS anymore. He doesn't work there and it would be horribly unprofessional to make promises on behalf of the current CEO.
- kyberias 11y agoBill Gates is still a member of the Microsoft board: http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-board-of-directors/ http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-board-of-directors/
- andromeduck 11y agoHe's back on the board IIRC. That's still quite a bit of influence.
- mattnewton 11y agoWorse, American outlets are reporting it as him taking sides with the FBI, which is all most people will read.
- StreamBright 11y agoI could take his stance on this one a bit more seriously if he was making it available how much revenue of MS comes from federal government.
- sangnoir 11y agoI don't know if I can take Apple's stance seriously either since I don't know how much revenue they (Apple) make off the federal government /s.
- nxzero 11y agoGates isn't calling for a debate, said that the FBI is right, Apple is wrong, and there's no way the FBI would use this as a backdoor for all phones. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11158210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11158210
- josefresco 11y ago“I hope that we have that debate so that the safeguards are built and so people do not opt — and this will be country by country — [to say] it is better that the government does not have access to any information,” he said. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3559f46e-d9c5-11e5-98fd-06d75973fe09.html#axzz40zUs7M2E http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3559f46e-d9c5-11e5-98fd-06d75973fe...
- nxzero 11y agoAgree, thought that was a very odd statement too, and not sure what to make of it.
- alanwatts 11y agoI haven't watched Bill enough to know for sure but he seemed quite evasive in the interview. "Nobody is talking about a back door, so that's not the right question"
- nxzero 11y agoMy impression of Gates is that he's lived most of his life in a bubble, has conflicting interests, but in the end, understands what's going on.
- 2close4comfort 11y agoWOW now this explains why Windows is so easy exploit and fatal security flaws were built in so that Bill could help his county. Seriously, this is a terrible justification it is a shame that he actually feels this is an appropriate response. Too bad he is that out of touch now.
- castell 11y agoBill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone (techcrunch.com) 5 hours ago (92 comments) got down-voted (285.): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11157328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11157328
- trequartista 11y agohttp://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11098592/bill-gates-fbi-apple-comments http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11098592/bill-gates-fbi-ap... - Bill Gates says he was 'disappointed' by reports he backs FBI in Apple fight But he doesn't fully support Apple, either
- nacs 11y ago> "Let's say the bank had tied a ribbon round the disk drive and said, ‘Don't make me cut this ribbon because you'll make me cut it many times.'" What a horrible analogy he tried to draw there. Shows a tremendous amount of ignorance when it comes to the encryption and security in use here.
- frandroid 11y agoBill Gates is a very smart person. This is misdirection, not ignorance.
- systems 11y agojust because someone was smart, doesnt mean he is always smart or is still smart people change and loose skills, yes people can become less smart .. or people who are smart in one field are not necessarily smart in all fields people who are smart in math, can have very dumb ideas about politics ... and vice versa
- vectorjohn 11y ago
- phatbyte 11y agoI'm just going to be a little cynic here: Bill Gates is still too attached to MS, of course, he build it. If Apple did what the feds asked it, this would back-fire Apple consumers. 1. People would just no longer trust Apple, which translates into less devices bought. 2. This won't prevent terrorist or whatever their excuse is. If terrorist know Apple does this, they will just use other devices. At end, only us, the normal consumer loose with this. This would just help MS and other companies to gain more market by screwing up Apple. Until the feds come after these other companies that is...
- qrendel 11y agoOr MS already has custom-made backdoors for governments, and forcing Apple to put them in too would take away Apple's superior positioning when it inevitably gets leaked that MS has been doing this for a long time. No evidence for it, just another possibility
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- stegosaurus 11y agoThe frustrating thing about all of this is the blatant misuse of terminology by the media. London resident. 7/7 killed 50 people and injured 700. Ten years have passed. The Troubles were worse. 'Terror' isn't a thing. It doesn't exist. 'Terrorism', does not exist. The real terrorists are the media companies and politicians that attempt to instill terror in the populace. They try to craft this image of a world to be feared, with danger lying around every corner. Look around you. It's more dangerous for me to eat a Mars bar than it is for me to ride the London Underground, for fuck's sake.
- alanwatts 11y ago"Terrorism is an invention through which any two armed people can take over an entire industry, namely television, with the eager cooperation of its owners." -Marshall McLuhan
- cconroy 11y agoTv is a cool medium of which requires participation. If the audience (public) are not "put on" to terrorism, that is not participating, the the power of idea will cease (and the secondary effects like the issue raised here).
- alanwatts 11y agoYou can't have a hot war on a cool medium. Always a pleasure to meet another McLuhanite!
- fukusa 11y ago(Fear for) 'Terrorism' is the Swiss knife of government/law enforcement. They can use it to justify/enforce ANY policy they would normally not be able to.
- alanwatts 11y ago"The best political weapon is the weapon of terror" -HH
- qrendel 11y agoThe debate has been ongoing since the Snowden leak, and even before that among people who were aware of the disclosures by William Binney, Thomas Drake, et al. Unfortunately, the general public has shown that they really don't care at all. Tech and government people tend to have strong opinions one way or the other, but the "debate" has mostly failed since the broader public couldn't care less, except maybe defaults to "(do|don't) trust your President," depending on whether their chosen political tribe is currently in office.
- nxzero 11y agoMy impression is not that people don't understand or care, but are afraid and feel powerless to do anything.
- kevrone 11y agoI believe that people who know more fear more. And those who don't know simply aren't able to identify the threat well enough to take action. For now, the threat is relatively abstract (some dark agency somewhere maybe has access to some amount of computery things and might stalk me or whatever). And by the time the threat evolves into men with guns in their living room, it won't be associated with the current info wars. Assuming, of course, that true history remains accessible...
- nxzero 11y agoThere's nothing "more" to know, people do not like being spied on and no one would sign-up to have someone watch their home if that meant everything they said was being monitored. People understand and are afraid to say something for fear that it will come back to haunt them.
- kevrone 11y agoI think your perspective is a valid one. However, I don't think everyone realizes they are actually being spied on or to what extent. The media says one thing (not always the same thing) and government denies it. I believe to many people that's enough controversy to avoid thinking too much about it. And to pre-empt any argument that I may be too faithless about people's natural proclivity to protect themselves, consider something as as epic and clear-cut as climate change. I can't think of a better example of something so threatening to society yet so popularly disregarded.
- mtgx 11y ago"Debate" = just let the government have what it wants.
- creshal 11y ago"Terror data"? Hail newspeak.
- ChrisArchitect 11y agoWe have always been at war with Terror data
- arprocter 11y agoThe way the piece oddly calls the shooter a "murderer" and not a terrorist reminded me of this http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/02/weve-always-been-at-war-with-eastasia.html http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/02/weve-always-been-at-war-wi...
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoIsn't the difference, whether they knew their victims? If you target certain people, its murder. If you target innocent (unrelated to the murderer) victims or don't target at all, that's terrorism?
- mark_l_watson 11y agoWow, Bill Gates has an enormous financial incentive to diss on Apple over privacy in order to deflect privacy concerns away from Windows 10. I found it disturbing that the corporate media covers this story with mentioning Gate's conflict of interest. We had General Electric (GE) News Network (also known as MSNBC) on all morning, they covered this story a lot, and never mentioned the conflict of interest.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- drdaeman 11y agoCan someone who really knows it, please explain one thing for me? I've heard different statements and don't know which one is correct. Can Apple - in theory - unlock that phone? Is it a) Unless there's a defect in HSM module (Secure Enclave) that allows the key extraction (like SEM data forensics or whatever), Apple just can't unlock the phone, because it's outside of their control. I mean, I can readily imagine a system where encryption key is completely unknown to the OS, OS doesn't have any access (or has a write-only access using public key encryption) to the user data while the phone is locked, and encryption is performed by a tamper-resistant hardware, that won't do anything without a correct secret (passphrase) and HSM will irreparably erase key material after 10 failures (which is the behavior hard-coded into silicon). or b) Apple technically can unlock the phone by doing an OS update with a specially crafted insecure OS, but doesn't wants to do so, because it would create a bad precedent. I.e. the HSM isn't absolute and can be forced to disclose the key (or accept brute-force attacks) by the OS. To put it simply: in theory, can Apple defeat their own security - if they would really want to - or not? Edit: s/TPM/HSM/g
- sigmar 11y agoObviously it isn't "a" because then Apple would not need to fight the FBI's court order
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- unfamiliar 11y agob is correct. Further, this is a 5C and doesn't have a secure enclave, and even if it was a 6S they could still get access to the phone by doing an OS update.
- fredsir 11y agoOn a 6s that is not correctly(not sure with the 5c). Apple cannot just access a 6s. They have to use the password to get in, just like you, me, the fbi and everyone else does. Apple can only remove some of the things that makes guessing the password harder.
- fukusa 11y agoBill Gates is an influential person and his opinion matters to many people. Some media outlets seem to claim he sided with the FBI. He denies this. It seems to me that he is trying to say that there is a way for Apple to decrypt the phone without providing a backdoor. What's interesting in my opinion is how these so-called independent media outlets are (deliberately?) misinterpreting his words to use the authority of Bill Gates to influence public opinion. I am not saying this is a move by the FBI, but ...
- ck2 11y agoHere's another thought Bill. Can a government order a corporation to make a new product using considerable resources for the governments use. What if an African government didn't like you giving out mosquito nets and said: no - you go to your factory and make us 10,000 nets and give the nets to the government, so we can give give it to our politicans and then if they so desire they can give it to the people so the government looks like a hero. Here's a court order making it so.
- tailgate 11y agoGenerally they would just take the factory: "nationalization". You try getting a businessperson to work for free.
- ck2 11y agoThat's an interesting thought. I wonder how safe the internal apple devs are that could build what the FBI is demanding. If the FBI can identify them, they might "disappear" if the FBI doesn't get their way from Apple. But nah, our government would never do that, right? Only China and Russia, etc. Wish I really believed that.
- mythz 11y ago> "They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case." Was hoping Gates would be less naive in thinking this legal precedent has anything to do with this specific case which has close to 0% chance of providing any real-world information and more to do with the fact that this tragedy is used as political theatre and being exploited for maximum PR and political influence. > "Should governments be able to access information at all or should they be blind, that's essentially what we are talking about" That's one way to frame the debate, the other is "Do We Have a Right to Security?" https://securosis.com/blog/do-we-have-a-right-to-security https://securosis.com/blog/do-we-have-a-right-to-security Given the US Govt is coming from a position of no trust who've shown a willingness to over reach and break the law whilst continuing to deceive and mislead the public - US citizens have every right to privacy that's insulated from the Government: http://blog.easydns.org/2016/02/22/the-us-government-has-no-credibility-to-compel-anybody-to-weaken-security/ http://blog.easydns.org/2016/02/22/the-us-government-has-no-...
- exw 11y ago<<Was hoping Gates would be less naive in thinking this legal precedent has anything to do with this specific case which has close to 0% chance of providing any real-world information and more to do with the fact that this tragedy is used as political theatre and being exploited for maximum PR and political influence.>> Regardless of the merit of the case, I think it's pretty inappropriate that you are calling BillG naive. You really think that somehow you have more insight into the situation than BillG, who has access to pretty much any resource and source of information?
- mythz 11y ago> Regardless of the merit of the case, I think it's pretty inappropriate that you are calling BillG naive. Actions speak louder than words, I don't care who you are. In this case his words are adding to the dangerous narrative the US Govt wants this debate to be framed on: exploiting a tragic case of terrorism to unlock the legal precedent with 175 other phones waiting in the wings: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/york-da-access-175-iphones-criminal-cases-due/story?id=37029693 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/york-da-access-175-iphones-... With the FBI having court orders out for 13 similar cases: http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11098616/apple-fbi-similar-encryption-cases-court-documents http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11098616/apple-fbi-similar... If he's not naive, he's been actively complicit as part of the "Old Microsoft" (before security of user data affected their global Azure business model) who was more than happy to provide what ever access they could to the NSA which saw "Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch" and "Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls": http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...
- ycosynot 11y ago> Should governments be able to access information at all or should they be blind, that's essentially what we are talking about Actually it is not what we're talking about, because they're not blind, they can use usual means of inquiry, and the technology. How comes already there are no firearm firing sound detectors, or remote-controlled drones with tasers in major streets to react instantly, ect...? There are ways to act which don't strip citizens from their power, as information nowadays is power. A handful of people died because they lacked this power, and this will always be the case that people will die because of their lack of power, no matter what they have. At the end of the day, there is 7 billions people, and only one world, one humanity, one future, so protecting the people from the government is more important than protecting the people from the people, at least as long as it stays manageable. Every month, the world gets more peaceful, and more educated, we just didn't always have the internet flashlight. Making such a backdoor, it's another leak to oligarchy, because security and corporations can ally and spy the rest into uncompetitiveness. Ect... I will worry when I see blood on the street.
- brk 11y agoHow comes already there are no firearm firing sound detectors There are: http://www.shotspotter.com/ http://www.shotspotter.com/ Though results are mixed at best: https://www.cctvcambridge.org/DoesShotSpotterWork https://www.cctvcambridge.org/DoesShotSpotterWork
- tobylane 11y agoSimilar results in Birmingham, UK (second city). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9497318/Police-microphone-network-to-detect-gunshots-does-not-work.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9497318...
- tylaw 11y agoI think OP meant that they don't have those armed with firearms that shoot back.
- scotty79 11y agoThat's actually incredible idea for community hacker project. Create loads of dirt cheap shotspotters with https://nurdspace.nl/ESP8266 https://nurdspace.nl/ESP8266 plant them in your neighborhood. Make them report to community site so false positives could be eliminated by considering only simultaneous detection from nearby sensors. Invite cops to use the site.
- mattnewton 11y agoAt least this article gets that his position is a bit more nuanced, everywhere else in American news I'm reading "Bill Gates backs FBI!!!" http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-gates-sides-with-feds-in-iphone-hack-battle/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-gates-sides-with-feds-in-ip...
- phkahler 11y ago>> Mr Gates said the case was similar to the requests regularly made to phone companies and banks for information. No. This is a request to create something to gain access. If it were simply an information request I doubt Apple would complain much. AFAICT Apple got tired of secret requests to provide access to user information, so made things so they can not comply. To be clear, the authorities can still get a court order to gain access to your phone. They just need to compel the user to provide the access. That's hard in this case because the user is dead, but none of that is really whats at play here and I think Bill G should know better.
- joezydeco 11y agoI kind of wonder if billg doesn't want the FBI bringing up all the previous work that Microsoft has done installing backdoors in their products for the US Government: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/microsoft-programmed-in-nsa-backdoor-in-windows-by-1999.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/microsoft-programmed-...
- murjinsee 11y agoThis is how it sounds to me. I think it is naive to assume Mr. Gates' character is so one-dimensional. He is a critical thinker; I'm sure he realizes the dichotomy he presents is BS. He wants to protect his legacy. Mr. Cook, on the other hand, I truly feel is using this issue for a little free (minus legal fees) publicity, and to tell the FBI not to make such a big, public stink if they want cooperation. Like a contract negotiation. It's easy to believe in someone who says what we want to hear, but necessary to question their motivations. Honne and tatemae, pure and simple.
- ccvannorman 11y agoThis coming from the same guy who advocates for cashless third world economies and a one world government[1]. [1] http://www.infowars.com/bill-gates-calls-for-global-government/ http://www.infowars.com/bill-gates-calls-for-global-governme...
- codeulike 11y agoBill is no fool so he must be taking this side of the debate for tactical reasons - e.g. Microsofts huge contracts with the government, or perhaps something to do with his Foundation and keeping the govt sweet, or perhaps to do with Microsofts installation of back doors in the past. I suspect he has been leaned on to enter the debate. Not defending him, just trying to figure out whats going on here.
- frandroid 11y agoAfter a number of years using the same tactics, your tactics become you. Gates has been so thoroughly embedded for so long that being on the side of government and capital is not a tactic, it's just what he does.
- Kinnard 11y agoDid anyone really need another reason not to use Windows?
- GoodJokes 11y agoOh thanks Bill. NOW we can have the debate! We were super ignoring it till now.
- deepnet 11y agoWhat if the secret the spies don't want anyone to know is that they are incompetent and that mass surveillance doesn't make us safer ? -- egregiously stolen from Adam Curtis's 'Bugger' http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-... The real danger will be the actual coming threat. Instead of their much trumpeted 'manufactured' stooge plots, our incompetent spies seem to be unable to effectively stop real battle hardened death zealots - despite near total surveillance. Jails are surveilled in a panopticon way but rife with drugs and crime - so mass surveillance is demonstrably ineffective there. The other worry is the nagging doubt that the fears of government are their political opponents rather than enemies of the state - our fears are not aligned with theirs. That our political and surveillance classes are interested in power not our safety is continually evidenced by the horrifying way they use they blood of their own citizens to try to justify more political power. Q.V. the recent attempt to link the crypto debate with the Paris atrocities or the invasion of Iraq. So much of this conflict is manufactured by seeming negligence, the conveniently blind eye. For instance: locking up a young disaffected drug dealer with the number 2 recruiter for Al Quaeda at the time (in France). Locked in the same jail cell together, a few years later the young recruit, recruits others and shoots a cartoonist. In Bitter lake, Adam Curtis posits that Daesh/ ISIS was the product of a super jail in Iraq and much of the ground support of the conflict is from the local who initally supported their liberators but lost due to endless Whitehall red tape about compensation for farmers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bi...
- salimmadjd 11y agoRemember Government vs. MS case, where MS ultimately got what many people called a "slap on the wrist" [1] I have nothing but a conjectures here, however, I always believed MS made a deal with the Government to give them a backdoor in exchange for far lesser settlement [2] So I'm not surprised for Gates position here. It's mainly to justify his and MS earlier decision to give into the government's requests. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... [2] http://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html http://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html
- coldcode 11y agoBill is the world's richest person. If he wants the government to backdoor us all in the name of terrorism I want the one to his wealth. It's not just the government access that's at stake but all the other people (i.e. criminals, other govs) who will use that access to take whatever they want.
- Shivetya 11y agoThe real issue is that they are after more than one phone. The DOJ is after twelve others according to the WSJ and the NY DA has 175 phones he needs unlocked. It is just the tip of the iceberg and it won't be long before someone pushes legislation through Congress mandating a back door or and end to encrypted devices being allowed on US cellular networks Better yet, they are beginning to the story that the next terror attack will be on Cook's shoulders.
- whazor 11y agoI propose to have a smart solution with encryption. For example you could give half of the access key to the local government (maybe 1/4 to courts and 1/4 to police force), other half to Apple. If both parties believe on the case, they unlock the phone. Maybe we can also include the international court.
- pasbesoin 11y agoHere's a simple, troubling aspect. The U.S. Government and state governments (and, I'm sure, foreign governments) increasingly seek to purchase private data for mining, and to sell their data for revenue. The former is used particularly to make an end-run around legal restrictions placed on their own data gathering. And to create a firewall against oversight, with the activities of concern taking place in private entities not subject to public oversight. The latter is... well, many things, but it is particularly a political expedience; when you face opposition raising revenue directly, instead sell off some portion of the public good, as quietly as possible. (Remember, for example, state departments of motor vehicles (DMV) trying to launch plans to sell drivers' data, including photos, a few years back?) And, with the "revolving door" and ongoing sweetheart relationships between private and public positions and power brokers, there is also a large incentive of private and personal profit now driving this, as well. So. Government data collection is no longer really nor just government data collection. It is increasingly -- or, increasingly dominant and pervasive -- a collusion between extant powers for their own purposes. I don't want to be locked out of insurance, a job, etc. because my "profile" doesn't score high enough, or I friended the "wrong" person on Facebook. Nor do I want this to happen to others. In biology, advanced species exhibit increasing levels of autonomy from "the herd." Our species and culture needs to keep that in mind and the foster it; there is strength in diversity. And that is predicated on some autonomy and privacy. The ability and freedom to differentiate and to find new modes, new optimizations. And to find the simple happiness that fosters greater productivity, not to mention a better personal life. As an analogy, no one feels particularly comfortable with someone "staring over their shoulder" constantly -- particularly with a critical or condescending attitude. A happy life does not involve Big Brother guiding, constraining, and homogenizing your every step.
- jimmytucson 11y agoThis is always framed as a conflict between the government and "the people" but it's every bit as much a conflict between the government and a handful of hundred-billion-dollar megacorporations. Some of these entities are going to benefit from having enormous quantities of data at their disposal, it's just a question of which ones. Zuckerberg's sort of aloof reaction to Apple's plight is telling. If it were really about citizens' rights then he would be every bit as outraged as when the FBI orders Facebook to hand data over.
- mrmondo 11y agoJust as gates is trumping on about how it's an isolated special request for data from his competitor Apple the FBI just requested data unlocking from another 6 phones...