4 ms·

They also made a political stand on the search warrant for that one iPhone that they could have unlocked. A stand that wasn't even popular among the general pub

by rtpg 9y ago

They also made a political stand on the search warrant for that one iPhone that they could have unlocked. A stand that wasn't even popular among the general public ("companies should help police investigate terrorists" polls very well). Being super pedantic, Apple doesn't care about anything, just like a company can't care... but I think it's safe to say that it's not last on the list of things they prioritize.

willtim 9y ago
It seemed more like a marketing stunt to me. The issue was about a single iPhone with a warrant to search it. Apple made it a very public debate about all iPhones.
- KGIII 9y ago
  It's difficult to do with just one phone and toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube. If they do it for the US, what do they do when it's a dissident in China and the party wants the phone unlocked?
- infogulch 9y ago
  It wasn't about all iPhones? As soon as this case started there were twenty other cases just waiting in the wings to jump on it as soon as the tool that law enforcement wanted Apple to create existed at all. Most of them were trivial cases: drugs, petty crime etc. I've never used an iPhone, but I'm glad Apple put their foot down. The government is a terrible custodian of slippery slopes, don't give them any more.
beaner 9y ago
I don't think this was a particularly difficult thing to do. they're an almost $800 billion company with one of the most valuable brands in the world and the most loyal followers. They have more of an ability to stand up to these things than anyone. And if they lost, it's not like anything particularly bad was going to happen to them. They'd just have to cede the info. And it was the right thing to do anyway. They had basically nothing at stake.
- daveFNbuck 9y ago
  They weren't being asked for info. They were being asked to develop and sign an OS update to bypass any iPhone's security.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- Osmium 9y ago
  > They had basically nothing at stake. Except the human cost and resulting PR nightmare if a terrorist attack happened that they could have in principle prevented (e.g. if the terrorist had collaborators, and information on the phone helped find them). > I don't think this was a particularly difficult thing to do. Very easy to say when you're not the one responsible for that $800bn company ... if you're a decent human being, you're probably not worried about your own wealth in that situation, but the livelihoods of all your employees and other entities that rely on you. Every decision carries weight. The value of your company is not always empowering; the higher its value, the larger the consequences if you're wrong.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    Sorry if I bust your little bubble of joy here but: Apple is not made of decent human beings and do not care for employees that much. Just look at how their devices are manufactured. Apple cares about profits and money, just look at their tax evasion schemes and how they store their cash overseas waiting for a tax break to bring it back to the US.
    - Osmium 9y ago
      > Apple is not made of decent human beings This just isn’t true. Most people are decent human beings. Employees of Apple are no different. Don’t box them in as “the other.” They’re just people. > Just look at how their devices are manufactured. This is a valid criticism. Also an industry wide problem. Apple is very transparent with problems in their supply chain, even when it reflects badly on them. This is a problem we have to confront, but it’s far larger than Apple alone. > tax evasion There’s a difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. It’s not good practice for a company to pay more tax than they need to. The appropriate remedy to this is legislation. > Sorry if I bust your little bubble of joy You didn’t, so it’s okay :)
piyush_soni 9y ago
That was a great 'free' PR boost for them actually, which less informed people take as Apple's great stand on privacy. Apple helped FBI in every possible way for months in their investigation (had also unlocked dozens of phones for them before), even gladly gave away the suspect's iCloud data (so much for customer privacy). It's only when FBI made their next request (to create a backdoor/loophole in brute-force unlocking) public instead of private, when Tim Cook 'had to' show they cared about users' privacy. [0][1] [0] "Apple had asked the F.B.I. to issue its application for the tool under seal. But the government made it public, prompting Mr. Cook to go into bunker mode to draft a response" : https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/technology/how-tim-cook-became-a-bulwark-for-digital-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/technology/how-tim-cook-b... [1] : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-03-20/the-behind-the-scenes-fight-between-apple-and-the-fbi https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-03-20/the-behin...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- simonh 9y ago
  But in the article you link to as [0] it also says Apple had already refused to comply with an All Writs Act request in an unrelated case several months previously. It doesn’t seem that the under seal request would have made any difference to their actual decision, which they’d already made. This pretty much kills dead any suggestion that they somehow changed their mind for PR reasons, in fact they pretty clearly didn’t want to publicise it hence the seal request. Also the PR boost from this is far from free. Aside from the huge cost of engineering all this security into the system, to the point of delaying major new features by years in order to get the security architecture into place, its also costing them a chunk of the Chinese market. The Chinese government is absolutely not happy with this sort of consumer privacy stance and has been cracking down on security services and features on the iOS platform. They’ve banned VPN software and features, banned communications apps, even screwing with Apple by barring the iTunes media business, and stalling Apple Pay. Going up against the US government arguably does Apple no harm, but setting themselves directly at odds with core Chinese government political goals such as pervasive monitoring and censorship of all forms of communications is going to be a real battle. If they just wanted a marketing advantage, they’d just build in some anti add-tracking features and be done. Security and privacy is so appallingly bad on Android even a perfunctory effort there would put them miles ahead at little cost. The extreme lengths they’re going to goes way beyond anything remotely necessary for a marketing advantage. Finally, Apples stance on accessibility shows just how serious they are about serving their users. The cost of their accessibility efforts must be dramatically higher than any possible financial or marketing benefit and they’ve been doing it for decades across platforms to little or no fanfare.
bigbugbag 9y ago
Was is a political stand for user privacy or was it a show of power "government cannot force us to do anything" stand ? They were probably just defending their business model, as a hardware seller the minute it is known worldwide that the US government has a backdoor in their flagship device, apple is over.

by rtpg 9y ago

willtim 9y ago

It seemed more like a marketing stunt to me. The issue was about a single iPhone with a warrant to search it. Apple made it a very public debate about all iPhones.

KGIII 9y ago
It's difficult to do with just one phone and toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube. If they do it for the US, what do they do when it's a dissident in China and the party wants the phone unlocked?
infogulch 9y ago
It wasn't about all iPhones? As soon as this case started there were twenty other cases just waiting in the wings to jump on it as soon as the tool that law enforcement wanted Apple to create existed at all. Most of them were trivial cases: drugs, petty crime etc. I've never used an iPhone, but I'm glad Apple put their foot down. The government is a terrible custodian of slippery slopes, don't give them any more.

beaner 9y ago

I don't think this was a particularly difficult thing to do. they're an almost $800 billion company with one of the most valuable brands in the world and the most loyal followers. They have more of an ability to stand up to these things than anyone. And if they lost, it's not like anything particularly bad was going to happen to them. They'd just have to cede the info. And it was the right thing to do anyway. They had basically nothing at stake.

daveFNbuck 9y ago
They weren't being asked for info. They were being asked to develop and sign an OS update to bypass any iPhone's security.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Osmium 9y ago
> They had basically nothing at stake. Except the human cost and resulting PR nightmare if a terrorist attack happened that they could have in principle prevented (e.g. if the terrorist had collaborators, and information on the phone helped find them). > I don't think this was a particularly difficult thing to do. Very easy to say when you're not the one responsible for that $800bn company ... if you're a decent human being, you're probably not worried about your own wealth in that situation, but the livelihoods of all your employees and other entities that rely on you. Every decision carries weight. The value of your company is not always empowering; the higher its value, the larger the consequences if you're wrong.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Sorry if I bust your little bubble of joy here but: Apple is not made of decent human beings and do not care for employees that much. Just look at how their devices are manufactured. Apple cares about profits and money, just look at their tax evasion schemes and how they store their cash overseas waiting for a tax break to bring it back to the US.
  - Osmium 9y ago
    > Apple is not made of decent human beings This just isn’t true. Most people are decent human beings. Employees of Apple are no different. Don’t box them in as “the other.” They’re just people. > Just look at how their devices are manufactured. This is a valid criticism. Also an industry wide problem. Apple is very transparent with problems in their supply chain, even when it reflects badly on them. This is a problem we have to confront, but it’s far larger than Apple alone. > tax evasion There’s a difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. It’s not good practice for a company to pay more tax than they need to. The appropriate remedy to this is legislation. > Sorry if I bust your little bubble of joy You didn’t, so it’s okay :)

piyush_soni 9y ago

That was a great 'free' PR boost for them actually, which less informed people take as Apple's great stand on privacy. Apple helped FBI in every possible way for months in their investigation (had also unlocked dozens of phones for them before), even gladly gave away the suspect's iCloud data (so much for customer privacy). It's only when FBI made their next request (to create a backdoor/loophole in brute-force unlocking) public instead of private, when Tim Cook 'had to' show they cared about users' privacy. [0][1] [0] "Apple had asked the F.B.I. to issue its application for the tool under seal. But the government made it public, prompting Mr. Cook to go into bunker mode to draft a response" : https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/technology/how-tim-cook-became-a-bulwark-for-digital-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/technology/how-tim-cook-b... [1] : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-03-20/the-behind-the-scenes-fight-between-apple-and-the-fbi https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-03-20/the-behin...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
simonh 9y ago
But in the article you link to as [0] it also says Apple had already refused to comply with an All Writs Act request in an unrelated case several months previously. It doesn’t seem that the under seal request would have made any difference to their actual decision, which they’d already made. This pretty much kills dead any suggestion that they somehow changed their mind for PR reasons, in fact they pretty clearly didn’t want to publicise it hence the seal request. Also the PR boost from this is far from free. Aside from the huge cost of engineering all this security into the system, to the point of delaying major new features by years in order to get the security architecture into place, its also costing them a chunk of the Chinese market. The Chinese government is absolutely not happy with this sort of consumer privacy stance and has been cracking down on security services and features on the iOS platform. They’ve banned VPN software and features, banned communications apps, even screwing with Apple by barring the iTunes media business, and stalling Apple Pay. Going up against the US government arguably does Apple no harm, but setting themselves directly at odds with core Chinese government political goals such as pervasive monitoring and censorship of all forms of communications is going to be a real battle. If they just wanted a marketing advantage, they’d just build in some anti add-tracking features and be done. Security and privacy is so appallingly bad on Android even a perfunctory effort there would put them miles ahead at little cost. The extreme lengths they’re going to goes way beyond anything remotely necessary for a marketing advantage. Finally, Apples stance on accessibility shows just how serious they are about serving their users. The cost of their accessibility efforts must be dramatically higher than any possible financial or marketing benefit and they’ve been doing it for decades across platforms to little or no fanfare.

bigbugbag 9y ago

Was is a political stand for user privacy or was it a show of power "government cannot force us to do anything" stand ? They were probably just defending their business model, as a hardware seller the minute it is known worldwide that the US government has a backdoor in their flagship device, apple is over.