6 ms·

Am I the only one who reads the quotes in this article as "see Apple, if you don't give us what we want then we may just have operational reasons to not disclos

by janekm 11y ago

Am I the only one who reads the quotes in this article as "see Apple, if you don't give us what we want then we may just have operational reasons to not disclose vulnerabilities to you, wouldn't that be a shame..."?

beams_of_light 11y ago
Yep. The phone has still not been cracked, I'd bet. This is all posturing.
mturmon 11y ago
It does come off a bit like a multidimensional pissing match - with the FBI alternately saying, "We can force you to break this phone", "We can break it ourselves if we want to", "We will break it and not tell you how", "We can insert a succession of stories in the media that will call your security into question."
- williamcotton 11y ago
  It is of course a territorial pissing match. Apple, and most of Silicon Valley, thinks and acts like they are more important and powerful than the country that granted them a corporate charter and the public infrastructure with which to do business.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    Regardless of how Apple considers themselves, I would hope most companies would conduct themselves in a similar manner w/r/t this reaction to the FBI. Of all the reasons to hate on Apple their defending their own devices' collective security should NOT be high on the list.
    - williamcotton 11y ago
      I'm sorry, but I don't buy the collective security reasoning. I'm not convinced that there aren't large custom databases of shared private keys that can be used to grant individual, time adjusted master keys that would allow the FBI to enforce their 4th amendment duties while making it impossible for a single master key to be discovered and instantly break every devices encryption. Apple would be very liable for keeping this giant database of individual private keys safe. So would tbe FBI. But I have no doubt that it could be done. It would just take political will and perhaps a bit of novel cryptography, but if Bitcoin has shown me anything, it is that there are lots of remaining solutions to existing problems using crypto. Your issue is that you're starting with a first principle based on what applied technology can currently do instead of starting with the first principle based on the relationship between an individual, the government, and public. We should be thinking about how we can use new cryptographic technologies to assist humans instead of insisting that humans must be subjected to the technological limitations of a consumer electronics company. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. This clearly states the government has the right to warranted search and seizure for cases in which it needs to protect the public at large. This is what takes precedence, not what Apple's current crop of cryptographers can come up with. --- EDIT: I'm sorry, but I have a rate limited account because my conservative opinions are not valued by the HackerNews community. I have some follow ups to your comments: --- > However, I also don't think Apple has a responsibility—even as a "citizen" of the country—to explicitly allow government access. First, please see my other comment related to the third-party doctrine for reference: I would argue that if we are to allow publicly chartered corporations to store and maintain access to privished works that they would have to be held liable to both the individual as well as the government. Just as banks are liable to both individual customers as well as the government. Apple clearly doesn't want this responsibility. They don't want to be liable to both the individual and the government. Or perhaps anyone. They sell shiny toys. They're really not that important and perhaps they don't really care that much about privacy beyond how it affects sales. --- > That it does. But what it does not state is that the government has a right to create laws mandating that free citizens, not accused of any crime, must only create or possess items that the government can obtain access to. Again, please see my comment related to the third-party doctrine. We're going to need some new laws related to privished works. Right now you don't really have the right to privacy outside of your private person and private property. A bank will let the government open safety deposit boxes. The bank has the keys to the vault and you don't so I think we have already have some historical precedence with which to base these new legal fundamentals. --- > Whilst I don't know whether I agree, this is an argument that needs more exposure on HN. Yeah, I wouldn't hold your breathe... I don't think you realize just how dogmatic this place is. If you say anything about being in support of the government, intellectual property, or dare question the values of the open source community, you're just immediately downvoted to fucking oblivion. Also, I kind of like being a prick to who I imagine are a bunch of stuck up yuppies, so there's that as well. But where the fuck else am I to go in San Francisco? Everywhere I am I'm just surrounded by a bunch of fearful techie drones with their fucking athleisure clothing. Everyone always has fucking headphone on and is glued to their god damned phones, I can't start a conversation with anyone anyways. There's no discourse happening anywhere! All I can do now is just fucking rant and rave on HackerNews comments in the hope that someone out there might be fucking listening for a god damned change!!!! --- > However, your last three paras are quite insufferable and if I were you I would reconsider your relationship with the HN community. I have considered my relationship with HackerNews to be over for quite some time. Right now I'm just seeing how far I can push it before I get banned. That you vehemently disagree with me is WHY I AM SO FUCKING PISSED OFF! Everyone here uses the downvote button for disagreement because they're lazy fucking assholes who can't really approach my arguments. This is the number one place for discussion about technology on the web, or perhaps anywhere. I'm very well qualified to talk about tech and tech policy. Yet my ideas are constantly shit on by a bunch of ignorant and dogmatic cocksuckers. I want to see just how long YOU could put up with this abuse before you FUCKING SPRUNG A GOD DAMNED LEAK IN YOUR BRAIN! This whole "community" is insufferable and my actions are really a quite logical reflection of the kind of discourse that takes place in these forums.
      - nickysielicki 11y ago
        > This clearly states the government has the right to warranted search and seizure for cases in which it needs to protect the public at large. That it does. But what it does not state is that the government has a right to create laws mandating that free citizens, not accused of any crime, must only create or possess items that the government can obtain access to.
      - duaneb 11y ago
        I agree with you on the technological assessment. However, I also don't think Apple has a responsibility—even as a "citizen" of the country—to explicitly allow government access. From a cost, liability, and product standpoint it is in their interest to build themselves out of these legal middleman situations. If you hold this against them that's your right, but it's exactly that reason why I own an iphone. I suspect I'm not alone. I'm firmly of the camp we should be aiming to reduce terrorism by becoming a smaller target, NOT by treating everyone like a potential terrorist. Technology can certainly help with this: look at TOR, twitter, end-to-end encryption, etc. fostering open and fearless conversation allowing us to improve generation over generation. Also, I would be much more sympathetic to the FBI if it seemed like there was something relevant to national security on the phone. I don't recall them ever attempting to convince anyone of that. The San Bernadino incident seemed like a couple going postal rather than a deep-rooted international religious conspiracy. Response to your EDIT (I value your conservative viewpoint, <3): I do not hold Apple liable for writing infallible crypto. In fact, I fully expect them to be hacked. But the stronger their crypto, the more value they have, regardless of their intentions or what they care about. It's kind of beautiful, in a way that makes me uncomfortable: their profits from me are directly correlated to their dedication to crypto. The more energy they put into it, the more money I want to give them. You are exactly correct. I see this as a very efficient free market transaction—something I would expect a (fiscal?) conservative to value. Finally, I view the guarantee of privacy as finally having some kind of bulwark against the arms race governments have been waging against their citizens since the invention of the standing national army. Just because governments have had the luxury of violating my privacy does not mean they should.
        williamcotton 11y ago
  - SixSigma 11y ago
    You can tell that buy the whole "we're not bringing that money in, just to pay tax on it, are you crazy ! We're going to spend millions lobbying for us to be able to not pay that tax instead". And people support them !
    - duaneb 11y ago
      This is unrelated. Apple is a dickwad when it comes to paying taxes. I still trust their hardware more than I trust the FBI.
      - SixSigma 11y ago
        The story maybe but not the comment I was replying to.
  - coroutines 11y ago
    I don't think you actually disagree with how Apple responded, but you do realize the privacy of more than a few billion people was in jeopardy during this 'fight'. I would consider that more important than the wishes of the FBI and our country allowing them to do business here.
  - trhway 11y ago
    > Apple, and most of Silicon Valley, thinks and acts like they are more important and powerful than the country that granted them a corporate charter and the public infrastructure with which to do business. Apple was defending the fundamental rights of the public - "we the people" (i.e. country that granted them a corporate charter) - against an agent of said country who tried to overstep the bounds of the power the country (again "we the people") granted them. The court was the way for the agent to prove what they don't overstep the boundaries of the power that the public granted to the agent, and for all we know the agent failed to do so. to the "venomsnake" below : i didn't say Apple always defends the fundamental rights, i even didn't say that Apple in this case was motivated by the defense of the fundamental rights. The fact that we do know is that Apple in this case defended the fundamental rights - for whatever motivation, probably for profit as a corporation and that would be my guess is that Tim Cook was doing it for the fundamental rights really or may be just to piss off FBI for fun.
    - venomsnake 11y ago
      If apple believed in any form of fundamental rights for their users they would have given root, unlocked boot loader and alternative appstores to the people.
      - wmichelin 11y ago
        If they had given root access, the following things here would be up to the community to create. I don't know why you listed all of these things as if Apple owes them to us.
        venomsnake 11y ago
        Because they do. Otherwise you don't own your device, you just rent it. And all of these are fundamental rights of owenership in the digital era.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    ...public infrastructure with which to do business. Wait, I thought your opinions are supposed to be "conservative"? What's with this parroting of Elizabeth Warren's very lamest "you didn't build that" cant?

by janekm 11y ago

beams_of_light 11y ago

Yep. The phone has still not been cracked, I'd bet. This is all posturing.

mturmon 11y ago

It does come off a bit like a multidimensional pissing match - with the FBI alternately saying, "We can force you to break this phone", "We can break it ourselves if we want to", "We will break it and not tell you how", "We can insert a succession of stories in the media that will call your security into question."

williamcotton 11y ago
It is of course a territorial pissing match. Apple, and most of Silicon Valley, thinks and acts like they are more important and powerful than the country that granted them a corporate charter and the public infrastructure with which to do business.
- duaneb 11y ago
  Regardless of how Apple considers themselves, I would hope most companies would conduct themselves in a similar manner w/r/t this reaction to the FBI. Of all the reasons to hate on Apple their defending their own devices' collective security should NOT be high on the list.
  - williamcotton 11y ago
    I'm sorry, but I don't buy the collective security reasoning. I'm not convinced that there aren't large custom databases of shared private keys that can be used to grant individual, time adjusted master keys that would allow the FBI to enforce their 4th amendment duties while making it impossible for a single master key to be discovered and instantly break every devices encryption. Apple would be very liable for keeping this giant database of individual private keys safe. So would tbe FBI. But I have no doubt that it could be done. It would just take political will and perhaps a bit of novel cryptography, but if Bitcoin has shown me anything, it is that there are lots of remaining solutions to existing problems using crypto. Your issue is that you're starting with a first principle based on what applied technology can currently do instead of starting with the first principle based on the relationship between an individual, the government, and public. We should be thinking about how we can use new cryptographic technologies to assist humans instead of insisting that humans must be subjected to the technological limitations of a consumer electronics company. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. This clearly states the government has the right to warranted search and seizure for cases in which it needs to protect the public at large. This is what takes precedence, not what Apple's current crop of cryptographers can come up with. --- EDIT: I'm sorry, but I have a rate limited account because my conservative opinions are not valued by the HackerNews community. I have some follow ups to your comments: --- > However, I also don't think Apple has a responsibility—even as a "citizen" of the country—to explicitly allow government access. First, please see my other comment related to the third-party doctrine for reference: I would argue that if we are to allow publicly chartered corporations to store and maintain access to privished works that they would have to be held liable to both the individual as well as the government. Just as banks are liable to both individual customers as well as the government. Apple clearly doesn't want this responsibility. They don't want to be liable to both the individual and the government. Or perhaps anyone. They sell shiny toys. They're really not that important and perhaps they don't really care that much about privacy beyond how it affects sales. --- > That it does. But what it does not state is that the government has a right to create laws mandating that free citizens, not accused of any crime, must only create or possess items that the government can obtain access to. Again, please see my comment related to the third-party doctrine. We're going to need some new laws related to privished works. Right now you don't really have the right to privacy outside of your private person and private property. A bank will let the government open safety deposit boxes. The bank has the keys to the vault and you don't so I think we have already have some historical precedence with which to base these new legal fundamentals. --- > Whilst I don't know whether I agree, this is an argument that needs more exposure on HN. Yeah, I wouldn't hold your breathe... I don't think you realize just how dogmatic this place is. If you say anything about being in support of the government, intellectual property, or dare question the values of the open source community, you're just immediately downvoted to fucking oblivion. Also, I kind of like being a prick to who I imagine are a bunch of stuck up yuppies, so there's that as well. But where the fuck else am I to go in San Francisco? Everywhere I am I'm just surrounded by a bunch of fearful techie drones with their fucking athleisure clothing. Everyone always has fucking headphone on and is glued to their god damned phones, I can't start a conversation with anyone anyways. There's no discourse happening anywhere! All I can do now is just fucking rant and rave on HackerNews comments in the hope that someone out there might be fucking listening for a god damned change!!!! --- > However, your last three paras are quite insufferable and if I were you I would reconsider your relationship with the HN community. I have considered my relationship with HackerNews to be over for quite some time. Right now I'm just seeing how far I can push it before I get banned. That you vehemently disagree with me is WHY I AM SO FUCKING PISSED OFF! Everyone here uses the downvote button for disagreement because they're lazy fucking assholes who can't really approach my arguments. This is the number one place for discussion about technology on the web, or perhaps anywhere. I'm very well qualified to talk about tech and tech policy. Yet my ideas are constantly shit on by a bunch of ignorant and dogmatic cocksuckers. I want to see just how long YOU could put up with this abuse before you FUCKING SPRUNG A GOD DAMNED LEAK IN YOUR BRAIN! This whole "community" is insufferable and my actions are really a quite logical reflection of the kind of discourse that takes place in these forums.
    - nickysielicki 11y ago
      > This clearly states the government has the right to warranted search and seizure for cases in which it needs to protect the public at large. That it does. But what it does not state is that the government has a right to create laws mandating that free citizens, not accused of any crime, must only create or possess items that the government can obtain access to.
    - duaneb 11y ago
      I agree with you on the technological assessment. However, I also don't think Apple has a responsibility—even as a "citizen" of the country—to explicitly allow government access. From a cost, liability, and product standpoint it is in their interest to build themselves out of these legal middleman situations. If you hold this against them that's your right, but it's exactly that reason why I own an iphone. I suspect I'm not alone. I'm firmly of the camp we should be aiming to reduce terrorism by becoming a smaller target, NOT by treating everyone like a potential terrorist. Technology can certainly help with this: look at TOR, twitter, end-to-end encryption, etc. fostering open and fearless conversation allowing us to improve generation over generation. Also, I would be much more sympathetic to the FBI if it seemed like there was something relevant to national security on the phone. I don't recall them ever attempting to convince anyone of that. The San Bernadino incident seemed like a couple going postal rather than a deep-rooted international religious conspiracy. Response to your EDIT (I value your conservative viewpoint, <3): I do not hold Apple liable for writing infallible crypto. In fact, I fully expect them to be hacked. But the stronger their crypto, the more value they have, regardless of their intentions or what they care about. It's kind of beautiful, in a way that makes me uncomfortable: their profits from me are directly correlated to their dedication to crypto. The more energy they put into it, the more money I want to give them. You are exactly correct. I see this as a very efficient free market transaction—something I would expect a (fiscal?) conservative to value. Finally, I view the guarantee of privacy as finally having some kind of bulwark against the arms race governments have been waging against their citizens since the invention of the standing national army. Just because governments have had the luxury of violating my privacy does not mean they should.
      - williamcotton 11y ago
- SixSigma 11y ago
  You can tell that buy the whole "we're not bringing that money in, just to pay tax on it, are you crazy ! We're going to spend millions lobbying for us to be able to not pay that tax instead". And people support them !
  - duaneb 11y ago
    This is unrelated. Apple is a dickwad when it comes to paying taxes. I still trust their hardware more than I trust the FBI.
    - SixSigma 11y ago
      The story maybe but not the comment I was replying to.
- coroutines 11y ago
  I don't think you actually disagree with how Apple responded, but you do realize the privacy of more than a few billion people was in jeopardy during this 'fight'. I would consider that more important than the wishes of the FBI and our country allowing them to do business here.
- trhway 11y ago
  > Apple, and most of Silicon Valley, thinks and acts like they are more important and powerful than the country that granted them a corporate charter and the public infrastructure with which to do business. Apple was defending the fundamental rights of the public - "we the people" (i.e. country that granted them a corporate charter) - against an agent of said country who tried to overstep the bounds of the power the country (again "we the people") granted them. The court was the way for the agent to prove what they don't overstep the boundaries of the power that the public granted to the agent, and for all we know the agent failed to do so. to the "venomsnake" below : i didn't say Apple always defends the fundamental rights, i even didn't say that Apple in this case was motivated by the defense of the fundamental rights. The fact that we do know is that Apple in this case defended the fundamental rights - for whatever motivation, probably for profit as a corporation and that would be my guess is that Tim Cook was doing it for the fundamental rights really or may be just to piss off FBI for fun.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    If apple believed in any form of fundamental rights for their users they would have given root, unlocked boot loader and alternative appstores to the people.
    - wmichelin 11y ago
      If they had given root access, the following things here would be up to the community to create. I don't know why you listed all of these things as if Apple owes them to us.
      - venomsnake 11y ago
        Because they do. Otherwise you don't own your device, you just rent it. And all of these are fundamental rights of owenership in the digital era.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- jessaustin 11y ago
  ...public infrastructure with which to do business. Wait, I thought your opinions are supposed to be "conservative"? What's with this parroting of Elizabeth Warren's very lamest "you didn't build that" cant?