16 ms·

Same article on the FT: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af23e3ea-07f1-11e6-b6d3-746f8e9cdd33.html#axzz46UpvC84n http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af23e3ea-07f1-11e6-b6d3-746

by oneloop 10y ago

Same article on the FT: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af23e3ea-07f1-11e6-b6d3-746f8e9cdd33.html#axzz46UpvC84n http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af23e3ea-07f1-11e6-b6d3-746f8e9cdd... James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the cost was “worth it”, but added that an accommodation needed to be made with Apple and other technology companies in the future, as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.”

RIMR 10y ago
>paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.” Good! I don't want it to be "scalable". That means they want to expand the data that they are collecting to include more a more phones. There is no need to do that!
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  Yeah. I thought the whole point of court ordered warrants was to NOT be scalable, cause, you know, due process or whatever.
fweespee_ch 10y ago
> James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the cost was “worth it”, but added that an accommodation needed to be made with Apple and other technology companies in the future, as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.” That is exactly what we want. If its clearly in the public interest to expended substantial effort as part of a criminal investigation, they absolutely should do so. The problem is they want scalable access to everything.
- newjersey 10y ago
  Was there something on the phone what made it worth it? I don't know if I understand the hypocrisy of hn. We cry "oh humanity" when Ford pays $50k over sticker for a new Tesla car for reverse engineering but of course if the FBI does something then surely they were judicious with their purse strings. Surely.
  - fweespee_ch 10y ago
    > Was there something on the phone what made it worth it? It doesn't matter to me tbh. They want to investigate, they can. I just don't want them to be able to "scale" their investigations like they seem to want so they can get into all encrypted communications without a serious financial hurdle because they'll abuse it. > I don't know if I understand the hypocrisy of hn. We cry "oh humanity" when Ford pays $50k over sticker for a new Tesla car for reverse engineering but of course if the FBI does something then surely they were judicious with their purse strings. I didn't. Generalizing like that is unhealthy because it causes you to make some silly assumptions.
MichaelGG 10y ago
At what scale are they accessing the hardware of terrorists anyways?
Negative1 10y ago
The only reason it would be 'Worth it' is if they found something of note (something to help prosecution of other criminals or prevent further attacks). Is there any reason to believe that this hack accomplished this? What else would make it 'worth it'? Or is this just politicking?
- euyyn 10y ago
  > Is there any reason to believe that this hack accomplished this? You mean besides the fact that the FBI guy said it was worth it? You don't expect them to publish the intel they got from the phone before being able to act on it, no?
- CHaro 10y ago
  It's just politicking, its "worth it" because they get to flex their muscle and show the world that they don't need apple's cooperation to get what they want.
  - lisper 10y ago
    And because it wasn't their own money.
    - EdHominem 10y ago
      That's an important point. They're paid our money, to plot ways to spend more of our money on marketing and lawyers, to misinform us.
  - colejohnson66 10y ago
    And because they didn't get to see their precious All Wits Act request struck down setting a precedent against them. A few million to be able to keep invoking the AWA would definitely be "worth it" in their eyes.
- adrr 10y ago
  I doubt it was worth it. It wasn't even the terrorist's phone. It was owned by their employer. The terrorists destroyed their personal phones prior to attack.
isleyaardvark 10y ago
> was not “scalable.” This is the same James Comey that said they just were just asking Apple for access to just that one phone.
- intrasight 10y ago
  Indeed. Americans need to wake up to the fact that these spooks simply cannot be trusted. The very concept of trust is alien to their culture. Would be nice of we could count on congress to provide adequate oversight.
  - Nutmog 10y ago
    That won't happen unless American voters want it. They don't want it, as evidenced by their not voting for it, so they won't get it.
    - thoman23 10y ago
      I don't think it's that straightforward. It's hard to vote for something that doesn't come up for a vote. And it doesn't come up for a vote if the right people don't want it to come up for a vote.
      - Ntrails 10y ago
        "The people" aren't given the opportunity to vote on many things, yet the people they elect do vote. The people they elect often side with their supporters (especially financial ones) on issues that are important to said supporters. A candidate can use their NRA/pro gun status as part of their platform and it will have a meaningful impact on the turnout. Logically if the US electorate cared even half as much about [topic x] as they do about guns - candidates would care too and "democracy" would follow... no? (I'm not bashing the US, just taking gun control as an example where a passionate popular view is reflected democratically)
    - jMyles 10y ago
      This absurdly reductionist view of participatory politics comes up again and again. What are you trying to add to the conversation? Do you think that this notion is new? Or that the rest of us haven't considered it? Instead of a pithy but pointless HN comment, let me suggest a book for you that might expand your thinking on this topic: http://www.thriftbooks.com/w/do-elections-matter/1470236/?gclid=CjwKEAjw9OG4BRDJzY3jrMng4iQSJABddor1GnER5RdItcJl_5VbZKMKh_bNAFT8a-Fom5anrbW7MBoCGQXw_wcB#isbn=1563244462&pcrid=70112876352&pkw=&pmt=&plc= http://www.thriftbooks.com/w/do-elections-matter/1470236/?gc...
moomin 10y ago
It was worth it to get out of a court case they were obviously losing that would establish precedent.
- gscott 10y ago
  Since they have other similar cases with more friendly judges to the FBI desires.
mwfunk 10y ago
I see two ways to interpret what he said, and I'm kind of appalled at both interpretations: (1) "We can't afford to pay someone every time we need to bypass security, therefore we need the ability to force third parties to do this work for free": um, OK. -or- (2) "Bypassing security takes too much time and effort, therefore we need a backdoor": even more horrifying, even though he's repeatedly denied that this is the endgame. Edit: typo
- orky56 10y ago
  He doesn't want a "backdoor" just special treatment time and again.
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    It's not an either-or. They want the backdoor so they don't have to ask, and they want a new backdoor created anytime they ask.
Joof 10y ago
Making it not scalable is the point. It places a monetary restriction so that they have to pick and choose what devices they think are worth hacking and which ones are not. This is the balance between citizen's rights and government power. Otherwise we just collect everyone's data on everything all the time and have access to everything.
- djrogers 10y ago
  Why would you expect them to be responsible with money that isn't theirs? Your argument would work for an individual, and to a lesser extent a corporation (where money spent comes out of profit and would be balanced against benefit), but the government plays with your money - not their own. If they want to get into a hundred phones, they'll just ask congress for an appropriation for $100m. And since the government is one of its own largest lobbyists, it'll happen.
  - Joof 10y ago
    They don't have unlimited money. If they can bring it down to $1000 per phone to crack, they still can't crack millions of phones without wondering why their budget is allocated this way.
hardwaresofton 10y ago
Along what dimension is this "not scalable"? If you have 100 iPhoneCs and the exploit works on all of them, it sounds like it's very scalable to me. It doesn't scale across every iphone ever made (or that will be made), but honestly, with a few tweaks (maybe a forced OS downgrade, whatever), it could be made to be. Also, if you don't release the attack vector, things get even murkier. Plus, the government happens to be the entity that prints our money, as well as an entity that is essentially limitless in funds because it extracts it's budget from US. Competition from firms may keep the price of breaking the iphone down, well within what the government can pay without anyone noticing (once this dies down). Nevermind companies that would LOVE to sell the NSA a single iphone exploit for anywhere close to $1M.
- reynoldsbd 10y ago
  I think he meant "scalable" in terms of the amount of money, time and effort it will take to overcome each subsequent security obstacle faced by law enforcement. In that sense, this whole Apple-FBI fiasco was certainly not scalable. Also, money is a very real limiting factor. The government can't just print more money to solve its problems.
  - vectored 10y ago
    Could you explain that, please? I had understood that the 3 rounds of QE essentially achieved this?
zanny 10y ago
Can I live in a country that doesn't think a million dollars to break encryption on one phone is worth it? I value my tax dollar way more than they seem to, and way more than 50 thousand dollar air conditioners for jet fighters.
- bendykstra 10y ago
  Air conditioning in most jet fighters is a necessity in order to keep the avionics cool.
ipsin 10y ago
Was it "worth it" because they dodged the potential for setting a precedent that limited the FBI's power? It doesn't seem like it was "worth it" because they found useful evidence on the phone.
stephengillie 10y ago
This also has a paywall. Is there a non-paywalled version of this story, or will this story remain irrelevant to my life forever? (If it were relevant to myself and others, someone would create a non-paywalled version of the story, maybe so simply as just retyping here what they've read elsewhere. Humans see censorship, paywalls, etc as damage and route around them, as long as positive value is generated.)
mtgx 10y ago
That's why you're supposed to use law enforcement resources where you know it makes a difference. The FBI made this whole circus around this phone when everyone already knew they wouldn't found anything. But worst of all, they didn't even bother to check the metadata for that phone, which would've also confirmed whether the phone was used to set-up crimes or not. It was all a ruse to get their precedent for backdoors, and now they're dripping this (probably bullshit) story to the media in a way that further progresses their agenda, after classifying the information in the first place.
ascotan 10y ago
Not scalable as in 'we can't spend a year breaking into every version of OSX', not 'we can't spend a million dollars breaking into every version of OSX'. Because a million bucks is chump change in government spending.
_pmf_ 10y ago
> as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.” It would be fucking hilarious if he used this kind of language to mock the SV lingo.

by oneloop 10y ago

RIMR 10y ago

>paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.” Good! I don't want it to be "scalable". That means they want to expand the data that they are collecting to include more a more phones. There is no need to do that!

dclowd9901 10y ago
Yeah. I thought the whole point of court ordered warrants was to NOT be scalable, cause, you know, due process or whatever.

fweespee_ch 10y ago

> James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the cost was “worth it”, but added that an accommodation needed to be made with Apple and other technology companies in the future, as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.” That is exactly what we want. If its clearly in the public interest to expended substantial effort as part of a criminal investigation, they absolutely should do so. The problem is they want scalable access to everything.

newjersey 10y ago
Was there something on the phone what made it worth it? I don't know if I understand the hypocrisy of hn. We cry "oh humanity" when Ford pays $50k over sticker for a new Tesla car for reverse engineering but of course if the FBI does something then surely they were judicious with their purse strings. Surely.
- fweespee_ch 10y ago
  > Was there something on the phone what made it worth it? It doesn't matter to me tbh. They want to investigate, they can. I just don't want them to be able to "scale" their investigations like they seem to want so they can get into all encrypted communications without a serious financial hurdle because they'll abuse it. > I don't know if I understand the hypocrisy of hn. We cry "oh humanity" when Ford pays $50k over sticker for a new Tesla car for reverse engineering but of course if the FBI does something then surely they were judicious with their purse strings. I didn't. Generalizing like that is unhealthy because it causes you to make some silly assumptions.

MichaelGG 10y ago

At what scale are they accessing the hardware of terrorists anyways?

Negative1 10y ago

The only reason it would be 'Worth it' is if they found something of note (something to help prosecution of other criminals or prevent further attacks). Is there any reason to believe that this hack accomplished this? What else would make it 'worth it'? Or is this just politicking?

euyyn 10y ago
> Is there any reason to believe that this hack accomplished this? You mean besides the fact that the FBI guy said it was worth it? You don't expect them to publish the intel they got from the phone before being able to act on it, no?
CHaro 10y ago
It's just politicking, its "worth it" because they get to flex their muscle and show the world that they don't need apple's cooperation to get what they want.
- lisper 10y ago
  And because it wasn't their own money.
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    That's an important point. They're paid our money, to plot ways to spend more of our money on marketing and lawyers, to misinform us.
- colejohnson66 10y ago
  And because they didn't get to see their precious All Wits Act request struck down setting a precedent against them. A few million to be able to keep invoking the AWA would definitely be "worth it" in their eyes.
adrr 10y ago
I doubt it was worth it. It wasn't even the terrorist's phone. It was owned by their employer. The terrorists destroyed their personal phones prior to attack.

isleyaardvark 10y ago

> was not “scalable.” This is the same James Comey that said they just were just asking Apple for access to just that one phone.

intrasight 10y ago
Indeed. Americans need to wake up to the fact that these spooks simply cannot be trusted. The very concept of trust is alien to their culture. Would be nice of we could count on congress to provide adequate oversight.
- Nutmog 10y ago
  That won't happen unless American voters want it. They don't want it, as evidenced by their not voting for it, so they won't get it.
  - thoman23 10y ago
    I don't think it's that straightforward. It's hard to vote for something that doesn't come up for a vote. And it doesn't come up for a vote if the right people don't want it to come up for a vote.
    - Ntrails 10y ago
      "The people" aren't given the opportunity to vote on many things, yet the people they elect do vote. The people they elect often side with their supporters (especially financial ones) on issues that are important to said supporters. A candidate can use their NRA/pro gun status as part of their platform and it will have a meaningful impact on the turnout. Logically if the US electorate cared even half as much about [topic x] as they do about guns - candidates would care too and "democracy" would follow... no? (I'm not bashing the US, just taking gun control as an example where a passionate popular view is reflected democratically)
  - jMyles 10y ago
    This absurdly reductionist view of participatory politics comes up again and again. What are you trying to add to the conversation? Do you think that this notion is new? Or that the rest of us haven't considered it? Instead of a pithy but pointless HN comment, let me suggest a book for you that might expand your thinking on this topic: http://www.thriftbooks.com/w/do-elections-matter/1470236/?gclid=CjwKEAjw9OG4BRDJzY3jrMng4iQSJABddor1GnER5RdItcJl_5VbZKMKh_bNAFT8a-Fom5anrbW7MBoCGQXw_wcB#isbn=1563244462&pcrid=70112876352&pkw=&pmt=&plc= http://www.thriftbooks.com/w/do-elections-matter/1470236/?gc...

moomin 10y ago

It was worth it to get out of a court case they were obviously losing that would establish precedent.

gscott 10y ago
Since they have other similar cases with more friendly judges to the FBI desires.

mwfunk 10y ago

I see two ways to interpret what he said, and I'm kind of appalled at both interpretations: (1) "We can't afford to pay someone every time we need to bypass security, therefore we need the ability to force third parties to do this work for free": um, OK. -or- (2) "Bypassing security takes too much time and effort, therefore we need a backdoor": even more horrifying, even though he's repeatedly denied that this is the endgame. Edit: typo

orky56 10y ago
He doesn't want a "backdoor" just special treatment time and again.
- EdHominem 10y ago
  It's not an either-or. They want the backdoor so they don't have to ask, and they want a new backdoor created anytime they ask.

Joof 10y ago

Making it not scalable is the point. It places a monetary restriction so that they have to pick and choose what devices they think are worth hacking and which ones are not. This is the balance between citizen's rights and government power. Otherwise we just collect everyone's data on everything all the time and have access to everything.

djrogers 10y ago
Why would you expect them to be responsible with money that isn't theirs? Your argument would work for an individual, and to a lesser extent a corporation (where money spent comes out of profit and would be balanced against benefit), but the government plays with your money - not their own. If they want to get into a hundred phones, they'll just ask congress for an appropriation for $100m. And since the government is one of its own largest lobbyists, it'll happen.
- Joof 10y ago
  They don't have unlimited money. If they can bring it down to $1000 per phone to crack, they still can't crack millions of phones without wondering why their budget is allocated this way.

hardwaresofton 10y ago

Along what dimension is this "not scalable"? If you have 100 iPhoneCs and the exploit works on all of them, it sounds like it's very scalable to me. It doesn't scale across every iphone ever made (or that will be made), but honestly, with a few tweaks (maybe a forced OS downgrade, whatever), it could be made to be. Also, if you don't release the attack vector, things get even murkier. Plus, the government happens to be the entity that prints our money, as well as an entity that is essentially limitless in funds because it extracts it's budget from US. Competition from firms may keep the price of breaking the iphone down, well within what the government can pay without anyone noticing (once this dies down). Nevermind companies that would LOVE to sell the NSA a single iphone exploit for anywhere close to $1M.

reynoldsbd 10y ago
I think he meant "scalable" in terms of the amount of money, time and effort it will take to overcome each subsequent security obstacle faced by law enforcement. In that sense, this whole Apple-FBI fiasco was certainly not scalable. Also, money is a very real limiting factor. The government can't just print more money to solve its problems.
- vectored 10y ago
  Could you explain that, please? I had understood that the 3 rounds of QE essentially achieved this?

zanny 10y ago

Can I live in a country that doesn't think a million dollars to break encryption on one phone is worth it? I value my tax dollar way more than they seem to, and way more than 50 thousand dollar air conditioners for jet fighters.

bendykstra 10y ago
Air conditioning in most jet fighters is a necessity in order to keep the avionics cool.

ipsin 10y ago

Was it "worth it" because they dodged the potential for setting a precedent that limited the FBI's power? It doesn't seem like it was "worth it" because they found useful evidence on the phone.

stephengillie 10y ago

This also has a paywall. Is there a non-paywalled version of this story, or will this story remain irrelevant to my life forever? (If it were relevant to myself and others, someone would create a non-paywalled version of the story, maybe so simply as just retyping here what they've read elsewhere. Humans see censorship, paywalls, etc as damage and route around them, as long as positive value is generated.)

mtgx 10y ago

That's why you're supposed to use law enforcement resources where you know it makes a difference. The FBI made this whole circus around this phone when everyone already knew they wouldn't found anything. But worst of all, they didn't even bother to check the metadata for that phone, which would've also confirmed whether the phone was used to set-up crimes or not. It was all a ruse to get their precedent for backdoors, and now they're dripping this (probably bullshit) story to the media in a way that further progresses their agenda, after classifying the information in the first place.

ascotan 10y ago

Not scalable as in 'we can't spend a year breaking into every version of OSX', not 'we can't spend a million dollars breaking into every version of OSX'. Because a million bucks is chump change in government spending.

_pmf_ 10y ago

> as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.” It would be fucking hilarious if he used this kind of language to mock the SV lingo.