5 ms·
Apple, Jobs especially, has historically been somewhat cozy with Washington. For the sake of argument, let's say that, hypothetically, Apple is doing work for
by beloch 13y ago
Apple, Jobs especially, has historically been somewhat cozy with Washington. For the sake of argument, let's say that, hypothetically, Apple is doing work for the NSA beyond what they've admitted to.
1. Apple is a famously compartmentalized and secretive organization. If Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. could keep what they were doing a secret until the whistle was blown on them, Apple can too.
2. So far, the whistle has not been specifically blown on Apple.
3. The worse it is, the less likely Snowden had access to it.
4. An admission of guilt would shake trust in Apple as badly as being exposed by a whistle blower, so there's no motivation to do the former in order to prevent the latter.
If Apple's gotten their hands dirty, they're not going to admit to it. I'm not accusing Apple of anything. I'm just pointing out that this press release is utterly and totally meaningless unless you trust the NSA and people working with them not to lie to you.
I may sound paranoid but, in a country where the government has given itself the power to coerce companies into spying and legally prevent them or their employees from revealing the truth, there is no room for trust. It is not possible to trust the statements of any U.S. corporation as long as the U.S. government clings to this power. Obama may be trying to sell the U.S. public on the idea that the safety gained is worth the privacy lost, but the real issue is the death of trust.
- lukifer 13y agoI think it's a lot more likely that these companies are compromised from the bottom rather than from the top: moles who have spent years deep undercover as network admins at relevant data centers, either quietly installing backdoors, or physically walking data out the door.
- amirmc 13y ago"For the sake of argument, let's say that, hypothetically, Apple is doing work for the NSA beyond what they've admitted to." If this were the case, why bother with end-to-end encryption in iMessage and Facetime (both fairly recent products)? It's not as though Apple trumpeted this aspect when they announced the products even though it's extra engineering effort. I'm not sure that even BBM is properly end-to-end encrypted outside of a corporate environment.
- rdouble 13y agoSteve Jobs was never cozy with Washington. There's no evidence that he ever interacted with anyone in Washington. Apple didn't even have any lobbyists until Tim Cook became CEO. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-21/apple-chief-talks-taxes-in-pushback-to-heat-in-washington.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-21/apple-chief-talks-t...
- amirmc 13y ago"Apple didn't even have any lobbyists until Tim Cook became CEO." I don't think that's true. From personal anecdote, I've met one of Google's European lobbyists and during the conversation he spoke about how his counterparts in Apple worked. If they had people in Europe, I'm sure they had them in the US. Perhaps they don't spend much on lobbying but it seems almost foolish not to have people on the ground when you're as big a company as Apple. If only to keep an ear to the ground regarding political winds (who wants to be blindsided by regulatory changes?). Edit: This doesn't mean they were 'cozy' with anyone, I'm just pointing that they likely existed.
- rdouble 13y agoI interpreted the article to mean that the lobbyist Cook hired was the first one, but I guess it doesn't really say that. It does say that Apple maintained a very low profile in Washington until recently, and still spends about 1/4 what Facebook does in lobbying.
- Tloewald 13y agoSince when has Apple been cozy with Washington? http://allthingsd.com/20130524/apple-pumping-more-money-into-lobbying/ http://allthingsd.com/20130524/apple-pumping-more-money-into... (Apple doubling its lobbying budget to $4M for 2013.) Contrast with, oh, Google: http://qz.com/90332/google-now-spends-more-on-lobbying-than-lockheed-martin/ http://qz.com/90332/google-now-spends-more-on-lobbying-than-... The whistle was specifically blown on Apple. So aside from your basic assumptions and reasoning, yeah no doubt. Whatever.