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Apple CEO Tim Cook challenges Obama with impassioned stand on privacy

345 points by mikek 12y ago

TheBiv 12y ago
>> "The Apple boss, who last year publicly acknowledged he is gay, added that “history has shown us that sacrificing our right to privacy can have dire consequences” Why would this detail possibly be relevant to the point Tim Cook was making?
- MarcScott 12y ago
  Cook also said >> "“We still live in a world where all people are not treated equally. Too many people do not feel free to practice their religion or express their opinion or love who they choose,”
- AdeptusAquinas 12y ago
  I agree. Seemed an odd, irrelevant comment to make. Maybe they were suggesting he didn't fit the stereotype of big-business, conservative ceos, in order to suggest his words were not just money-motivated? Even then, it's a big, poor taste stretch.
- harshreality 12y ago
  If he were in certain other countries, his sexual orientation might result in death, or have other severe legal or social consequences. Even in the United States, there is a social cost to being known to be gay. Arguably [in most communities] it's low enough that it's better than the alternative of trying to keep it a secret, but the cost still exists. Certain people will not want to be your friend or do business with you if they know you're gay. You may not care about those lost opportunities... you may have plenty of friends and business opportunities... but it still limits your options. In some small dogmatic communities even in socially liberal countries, you might be ostracized, and your only options are to keep it a secret or to start a new life somewhere else. Privacy in the "cloud" means keeping information secret from people who you'd rather not have judging you based on that information. It could be a close-minded community, or health insurance companies, or even something relatively innocuous and minor like some interest of yours that would raise eyebrows even among your friends.
  - s_q_b 12y ago
    > If he were in certain other countries, his sexual orientation might result in death, or have other severe legal or social consequences. Among those social consequences could be regular physical abuse, or even being beaten to death. In the U.S., the cultural shift on this issue was so fast that it's easy to forget that we're not that far removed from Laramie, Wyoming and the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998 for being gay, or that LGBT individuals couldn't serve openly in the Armed Forces until 2011. [0][1] Today that same state issues and recognizes gay marriages, and DADT is a fading memory. That's head-spinningly fast for a cultural and legal change of that magnitude. Personally I think that this is one area where Tim Cook's sexual orientation probably influences his thinking, and in a very good way. He's smart enough to know that government access to Apple's data is more than enough for the government to build its own "pink lists" today. Like Tim Cook, I believe we are not so close to the precipice that we can't use the normal political process to put a framework around our intelligence services that both safeguards privacy and protects our nation's interests. I (contrary to prevailing opinion here), have great respect for our security agencies, and believe the men and women that staff them are mostly well-meaning public servants performing a valuable service. But as we all know, this is not about today's government. It's about the unknown governments that will come to power in 10, 20, or 100 years, and in countless generations to come. It's easy to design a government that you know will be staffed by decent men and women. But historically that is not an assumption upon which we can rely. As James Madison said, our institutions should be designed to survive being "run by devils." If I confront the issue directly: Do I feel our nation could survive as a free society if today's security apparatus was run by devils? No. No, I do not. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard [1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43859711/ns/us_news-life/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43859711/ns/us_news-life/
    - leesalminen 12y ago
      What a well thought out opinion on why privacy matters. Personally, I have a lot of trouble talking about privacy to my mother. She's firmly seated in the "I've got nothing to hide" camp. I'm forwarding her this thread so she can see some differing opinions (that weren't written by me).
- approbatory 12y ago
  He made a comment about people's lives being in danger if they are in the closet in regions where homosexuality is punishable and have no data privacy. Somewhat related.
- patcon 12y ago
  I think the author is possibly alluding to the fact that gay rights are frequently referenced as an historic example of how the ability to break the law is important to a society's ability to adjust it's cultural norms and make way for change. Sodomy was illegal until quite recently, but if that could have been enforced (as a dragnet allows), we might not be where we are today, because people couldn't test the limits of laws we came to view as unjust :)
- stanley 12y ago
  I'm by no means disagreeing with the point others are making in response to your comment, but I do think that sentence could have been worded better. It's stated out of context and would have been a better fit had the author mentioned that next to Cook's quote regarding equality, rather than in the middle of the statement regarding privacy. I was equally confused when I first read it.
- mpweiher 12y ago
  In the (democratic) Weimar Republic, the authorities collected "pink lists" naming homosexuals. Homosexuality was technically illegal, but not prosecuted, and in fact, the Weimar Republic was known for its tolerance. When the Nazis came to power, they used those previously obtained lists to round up the homosexuals and send them to death camps. A lesson that privacy matters even if you think your current government and/or its use of data is benign. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261
  - simonh 12y ago
    This is a really key point. Obama and Cameron are telling us that it's ok to let them snoop on all our private communications because we can trust them and they can protect us. Even if we can trust them, they can't protect us. Also, who knows about the next president of the USA, or the next UK Prime Minister? What if we get another Nixon or worse? These things have happened and will happen again. Beyond that, by saying it's ok for governments to snoop on private communications, it's normalising that same behaviour by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, etc. It's not good enough to say that it's alright for the West to do it because they are good guys and not ok for despotic regimes to do it because they are bad guys. It's a matter of principle that it's wrong for everyone to do it. That is the only way to set a standard and hold every government to it. We should figure out what line in terms of privacy and respect for personal rights we would like China, Russia, etc to abide by. It's only ok for our governments to do things that we would accept as being legitimate for those governments to do. That is the only way to normalise respect for the individual and protect our personal freedoms in the long term.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    Related: Why were the Nazis so efficient at rounding up and murdering Jewish people? Because the 1933 Census asked if you were Jewish, and IBM sold them (mechanical) data processing systems.
- morgante 12y ago
  It's incredibly relevant. For one thing, his speech included direct references to the importance of privacy for marginalized groups (including homosexuals), especially in places where it is been illegal. Moreover, I personally think it's one of the reasons that I believe Cook (far more so than other technology people) has a credible commitment to privacy. He's a very private person himself (in fact, he only came out last year), and I think that personal preference for privacy shines through in how he's running Apple.
- Joona 12y ago
  I think it's mainly about telling the readers who Tim Cook is. The name doesn't ring a bell for many, but when you refer to news about him, it's a bit easier to remember.
MarcScott 12y ago
I recently taught a small module on cryptography to some 13 year olds. In one lesson, I asked them to write down what they thought of companies being forced to weaken encryption. This was a very typical response from the group. "I think that encryption should still be allowed because I should have some privacy in my life and everyone else can. No one wants to be watched, stalked, etc. just because a couple of criminals may be able to start a (rare) terrorist attack, there should be other ways to stop them apart from making everyone elses life uncomfortable. You might aswell have no passwords for any website, it's basically the same thing." If kids get it, I fail to see why politicians don't.
- mc32 12y ago
  The problem with that is that when asking kids you get sunshine. I mean, I have an opinion on this, but that's beside the point. You ask kids, what do we do about global warming --stop polluting the atmosphere! Yes obvious, it's just that things aren't as simple as that.
  - mch82 12y ago
    Actually, things are exactly that simple. Look at how the WWII generation responded to the need for behavior change in order to supply raw materials and labor for the war effort. If our generation cared about the environment as much as they cared about winning WWII then we could make similar sacrifices, pay a little extra for fuel, pay a little extra for solar infrastructure, change our diets to be more sustainable, and be well on the way to reversing damage to our environment.
    - Sir_Substance 12y ago
      >then we could make similar sacrifices, pay a little extra for fuel, pay a little extra for solar infrastructure, change our diets to be more sustainable I haven't done the study, but I'd wager that those small price hikes would push the five most marginal percent currently able to afford rent into homelessness. Things are never that simple. A person who presents anything as black and white either hasn't thought about it or is lying to you.
ps4fanboy 12y ago
Tim Cook just earned a lot of respect today.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  How? Apple does not care about privacy. If they did, they would not possess the keys to decrypt anything, even stuff stored on their servers. I am sure apple cares about privacy from government, but they don't seem to care about privacy of their users from them.
  - anko 12y ago
    even Schneier thinks they do a decent job: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/apples_imessage.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/apples_imessa...
    - minthd 12y ago
      If you read the details of schneier's post , he basically says "we don't know".
      - jakobegger 12y ago
        Jesus Christ, unless you etch your own chips and build a computer from scratch, the answer is always "we don't know". There might be a backdoor in the cpu you buy, or in the baseband, or in a driver, or in an open source component that you didn't audit, or in your compiler, or even in your USB stick. You always need to trust somebody.
        towelguy 12y ago
        Pragmatism tells me it's easier to trust my cpu than it is to trust someone's server in the other side of the planet.
Throwaway1224 12y ago
Yea so apple doesn't store and use my information and do creepy shit with stuff i never explicitly gave them my permission to use. Dont fucking insult me, cook.
- tunap 12y ago
  He's not insulting you, he's protecting their back-end from exposure & scrutiny. NSA has become a problem, but Apple, et al, corps' data collections have been eroding & infringing our privacy all along... in the name of monetization/profit, which is quite a bit more nefarious than security, IMO.
beloch 12y ago
This is likely a jab at Obama, since Tim Cook is probably sick of all the NSA and FBI spooks plugging black boxes into his servers, not to mention how it's illegal for him to even complain about it publicly. The scary thing is that I'm no longer a bonafide paranoiac for expressing an opinion like this. I'm probably right.
- TaylorAlexander 12y ago
  This is certainly a jab at Obama, who came to Silicon Valley today to tell us all that the government can "keep us safe" if we just let them take our personal data from private companies. Obama has been pushing a plan for "cybersecurity" that involves expanding the NSA spying program and making legal many of the things Edward Snowden revealed them to be doing apparently illegally. I'm politically liberal and voted for Obama twice but the man is fucking lying to us about cyber security. The real solutions to security involve encryption and what Obama is suggesting is that they can protect us by monitoring more. Tim Cook is calling him out as a liar without expressly saying it. I wish he would. We need more prominent people to call attention to how much we are being lied to, because too many people buy the BS as truth.
  - parasubvert 12y ago
    I would be careful about calling policy disagreements "lies". Keep in mind Bill Clinton and his admin did plenty of horrible stuff as well (communications decency act, DMCA, the clipper and v-chip shenanigans, high strength crypto as a munition, the hounding of Phil Zimmerman and PGP, operation sundevil, etc. My point is that digital privacy is not a "liberal" or "conservative" issue, it's a new concern that seems to have adherents across the political spectrum. Both democrats and republicans have been strong supporters of government surveillance and stomping on digital privacy rights. There is no mainstream political party taking up the privacy mantra yet en large because the people of the USA apparently don't want it. It's our job to change that, but that requires changing people's minds that their privacy is worth risking a successful terrorist attack (which is how everyone in the mainstream US perceives the trade off).
    - 12y ago
Iv 12y ago
"We should not share the control we have over our consumers with the NSA!"
- morgante 12y ago
  Apple, unlike other major tech companies, has a business model which is completely compatible with privacy. If anything, I suspect they would prefer a world where consumers demanded strict privacy and fewer online services.
  - hahainternet 12y ago
    > If anything, I suspect they would prefer a world where consumers demanded strict privacy and fewer online services. Because they are shit at building online services and excellent at selling people overpriced devices. Oh and FWIW. Apple also operates iAd, a locked down ad program targeted at their customers specifically.
  - pdkl95 12y ago
    Yes, Apple is different. Their business model is one of the few that is actually worse than the "big data" surveillance companies such as Google. Instead of attacking privacy, Apple has become one of the worst of the rent-seekers trying to control the General Purpose Computer. They have done most of what we feared Microsoft would do, and they have an entire generation of people who now think in terms of their walled garden. I respect Tim Cook quite a bit for making this effort to argue for privacy and the rule of law, but that doesn't excuse the incredible damage his company has done over the last decade.
    - amirmc 12y ago
      They make products people want. Lots of people buy them. As far as I'm aware, there aren't any nefarious tactics involved (eg embrace, extend, extinguish) - so they're not trying to distort the market (pls correct me if I'm wrong). Given that, why do you claim Apple has done damage, when really it's people who chose with their wallets?
  - 12y ago
luke-stanley 12y ago
Doesn't the latest OS X share to Apple what people are searching for on their own computer? (By default).
- maccard 12y ago
  It sends your spotlight commands to the search engine to give you web and iCloud results in spotlight. Equally you could say that Google sends every key press you do in chrome's address back home
- Puts 12y ago
  And IOS 8 takes any chance it gets trying to trick me into enabling Icloud...
- po 12y ago
  Yes, they send your queries out to their servers (not to be confused with sending information about files on your machine out) but the 'session key' they use is apparently not tied to your identity by them or third parties they work with. In their words: You can always opt out of Suggestions and continue to use Spotlight solely for local search on your device. You are also free to opt out of having Spotlight use Location Services any time you want. If you opt out, Spotlight will still use your IP address to determine a general location to make your searches more relevant. Unlike our competitors, we don’t use a persistent personal identifier to tie your searches to you in order to build a profile based on your search history. We also place restrictions on our partners so they don’t create a long-term trail of identifiable searches by you or from your device. https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/
k-mcgrady 12y ago
Much better response imo than just not going to the event like some other tech CEO's.
shiggerino 12y ago
I'm not sure what the US government is complaining about. If the baseband has direct memory access, they should be able to grab any cryptographic key off the phones without Apple or the user ever noticing, that is unless Apple has been getting stroppy lately about who gets to talk on their PCI bus. As for Apple doing the right thing, even if they manage to keep the government out of people's business today, they still hold the key to the universal back door and might give it away tomorrow. Apple certainly has the resources to develop a completely liberated phone, but NeXT and post-merger Apple has always been incredibly hostile to software freedom, and this speech doesn't change any of that. I don't think they are afraid that they won't be able to spy on people, but they are worried about maintaining the public opinion that privacy is for creeps and terrorists. But another interesting effect of closing every back door but the baseband is that there will likely be a power struggle within the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Only the highest ranking officers will be able to push malicious firmware updates, regular police will have no choice but to stick with traditional police work.
- comboy 12y ago
  > they still hold the key to the universal back door and might give it away tomorrow Care to elaborate? Do you mean assumption that they can have it if they want to, or is there some information about it?
  - meric 12y ago
    Your encrypted iMessages is one iOS update from being non-encrypted. As far as I can tell.
    - epistasis 12y ago
      And one iOS update from a TLS implementation with low entropy in key generation, allowing the NSA to decrypt all traffic with minimal computational effort. As is Windows, Linux, all open source projects, and all proprietary projects. All software is one update away from completely changing it's purpose, so I think your point is far more general than just Apple's messaging app.
dandare 12y ago
I don't get it. Why is everyone (including Snowden) talking about personal moments, privacy, intimacy etc when the problem is clearly about tyranny, dictatorship and misuse of power? We have very specific and numerous evidence that in the past the state used its powers to spy, threaten and discredit ideological opponents and activists, from M. L. King to all anti-war movements since Vietnam. Since the dawn of history the "state" was always the biggest threat to the safety of it's "citizens", not external aggression. We need to stay safe from our own state, that is why we must not give up our privacy, not because of some silly naked pictures on your phone.
- msabalau 12y ago
  Governments have long had the ability to surveil activists and cultural figures. And activists have long understood this. Heck, Malcolm X joked about government hirelings back in 1964: "Brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can't believe everyone in here is a friend, and I don't want to leave anybody out." Looking around, it seems to be that most people are and have been indifferent to issues of peace and social justice most of the time. They do care about naked picture on their phone. Given that activists have been able to work despite extensive surveillance, why would people whose issue is privacy focus on something that doesn't matter to most people when they can talk about things that many people do care about?
- MetaCosm 12y ago
  Because it resonates with everyone. Personal moments, privacy, intimacy ... these are things everyone understands, everyone can see how it might impact them. Talk about "misuse of power" and you lose the attention of the very people you are trying to convince. It might just be the trivialities (and peoples desire to protect themselves from them) that create more fury and action that talking about the real issues. I think it is smart of Snowden to take the tact that will resonate with the most people. It might be a sideshow, but it is a useful sideshow that might move the ball forward on the big issues.
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    Right. The civil rights movement in the U.S. also dealt with oppression and tyranny, but many of the actual protests revolved around bus seats and the ability to buy lunch.
jackgavigan 12y ago
It's worth remembering that Apple have stated that "conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data."[1] I suspect that Cook is anticipating legislation that would require that Apple re-engineer its services to support "lawful" interception of the content of messages/conversations, but is hoping that adopting a aggressive stance now will result in a compromise end state whereby interception must happen proactively and by exception (and within a clear legal framework - e.g. authorised by a warrant or court order) as opposed to a mass surveillance regime where everything is hoovered up (i.e. intercepted and stored). 1: https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/ https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Are iMessages automatically synced to iCloud on iOS? In that case Apple can see the copies of the messages, from most people. As for Facetime, I think only the voice calls are end-to-end, not the video chats as well.
  - jonhohle 12y ago
    Wrong (from what's known about iMessage). All devices have a distinct history of messages - http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/27/apple-explains-exactly-how-secure-imessage-really-is/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/27/apple-explains-exactly-how-... Apple says FaceTime messages are end-to-end encrypted https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/
- walshemj 12y ago
  id suspect that is the case pity that the other invited tech leaders didn't go - but Tim always struck me that he understands politics in a way Larry Sergei, Eric and Zuckerberg just don't get
  - slasaus 12y ago
    The business model of Facebook and Google is about getting to know as much as possible about you. Apple makes most money without your data.
juancastro 12y ago
This mean if can continue using my iPhone without risk! Lol
- deleted 12y ago
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- jchomali 12y ago
  Yeah!
m12k 12y ago
That little "namaste" gesture that he ended it with - I wonder if he picked up that habit from Jobs?
jchomali 12y ago
Definitely
arh68 12y ago
I think it would be convenient if Apple just 'bent over' and started selling NSAPhones, but nothing will kill foreign customers who value privacy [1] more than to know the KGB, or MI6, etc (or Madagascar Intel, it doesn't matter who, just not their country) runs their phone. I mean, what American would buy a KGBPhone? Apple's just defending a now largely foreign customer base, it seems to me. I'm sure they'll comply with requests, but they can't be a pushover. [1] http://www.cnet.com/news/china-likely-to-top-us-for-apple-iphone-sales/ http://www.cnet.com/news/china-likely-to-top-us-for-apple-ip...
fspacef 12y ago
clickbait title tho

345 points by mikek 12y ago

>> "The Apple boss, who last year publicly acknowledged he is gay, added that “history has shown us that sacrificing our right to privacy can have dire consequences” Why would this detail possibly be relevant to the point Tim Cook was making?

MarcScott 12y ago
Cook also said >> "“We still live in a world where all people are not treated equally. Too many people do not feel free to practice their religion or express their opinion or love who they choose,”
AdeptusAquinas 12y ago
I agree. Seemed an odd, irrelevant comment to make. Maybe they were suggesting he didn't fit the stereotype of big-business, conservative ceos, in order to suggest his words were not just money-motivated? Even then, it's a big, poor taste stretch.
harshreality 12y ago
If he were in certain other countries, his sexual orientation might result in death, or have other severe legal or social consequences. Even in the United States, there is a social cost to being known to be gay. Arguably [in most communities] it's low enough that it's better than the alternative of trying to keep it a secret, but the cost still exists. Certain people will not want to be your friend or do business with you if they know you're gay. You may not care about those lost opportunities... you may have plenty of friends and business opportunities... but it still limits your options. In some small dogmatic communities even in socially liberal countries, you might be ostracized, and your only options are to keep it a secret or to start a new life somewhere else. Privacy in the "cloud" means keeping information secret from people who you'd rather not have judging you based on that information. It could be a close-minded community, or health insurance companies, or even something relatively innocuous and minor like some interest of yours that would raise eyebrows even among your friends.
- s_q_b 12y ago
  > If he were in certain other countries, his sexual orientation might result in death, or have other severe legal or social consequences. Among those social consequences could be regular physical abuse, or even being beaten to death. In the U.S., the cultural shift on this issue was so fast that it's easy to forget that we're not that far removed from Laramie, Wyoming and the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998 for being gay, or that LGBT individuals couldn't serve openly in the Armed Forces until 2011. [0][1] Today that same state issues and recognizes gay marriages, and DADT is a fading memory. That's head-spinningly fast for a cultural and legal change of that magnitude. Personally I think that this is one area where Tim Cook's sexual orientation probably influences his thinking, and in a very good way. He's smart enough to know that government access to Apple's data is more than enough for the government to build its own "pink lists" today. Like Tim Cook, I believe we are not so close to the precipice that we can't use the normal political process to put a framework around our intelligence services that both safeguards privacy and protects our nation's interests. I (contrary to prevailing opinion here), have great respect for our security agencies, and believe the men and women that staff them are mostly well-meaning public servants performing a valuable service. But as we all know, this is not about today's government. It's about the unknown governments that will come to power in 10, 20, or 100 years, and in countless generations to come. It's easy to design a government that you know will be staffed by decent men and women. But historically that is not an assumption upon which we can rely. As James Madison said, our institutions should be designed to survive being "run by devils." If I confront the issue directly: Do I feel our nation could survive as a free society if today's security apparatus was run by devils? No. No, I do not. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard [1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43859711/ns/us_news-life/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43859711/ns/us_news-life/
  - leesalminen 12y ago
    What a well thought out opinion on why privacy matters. Personally, I have a lot of trouble talking about privacy to my mother. She's firmly seated in the "I've got nothing to hide" camp. I'm forwarding her this thread so she can see some differing opinions (that weren't written by me).
approbatory 12y ago
He made a comment about people's lives being in danger if they are in the closet in regions where homosexuality is punishable and have no data privacy. Somewhat related.
patcon 12y ago
I think the author is possibly alluding to the fact that gay rights are frequently referenced as an historic example of how the ability to break the law is important to a society's ability to adjust it's cultural norms and make way for change. Sodomy was illegal until quite recently, but if that could have been enforced (as a dragnet allows), we might not be where we are today, because people couldn't test the limits of laws we came to view as unjust :)
stanley 12y ago
I'm by no means disagreeing with the point others are making in response to your comment, but I do think that sentence could have been worded better. It's stated out of context and would have been a better fit had the author mentioned that next to Cook's quote regarding equality, rather than in the middle of the statement regarding privacy. I was equally confused when I first read it.
mpweiher 12y ago
In the (democratic) Weimar Republic, the authorities collected "pink lists" naming homosexuals. Homosexuality was technically illegal, but not prosecuted, and in fact, the Weimar Republic was known for its tolerance. When the Nazis came to power, they used those previously obtained lists to round up the homosexuals and send them to death camps. A lesson that privacy matters even if you think your current government and/or its use of data is benign. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261
- simonh 12y ago
  This is a really key point. Obama and Cameron are telling us that it's ok to let them snoop on all our private communications because we can trust them and they can protect us. Even if we can trust them, they can't protect us. Also, who knows about the next president of the USA, or the next UK Prime Minister? What if we get another Nixon or worse? These things have happened and will happen again. Beyond that, by saying it's ok for governments to snoop on private communications, it's normalising that same behaviour by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, etc. It's not good enough to say that it's alright for the West to do it because they are good guys and not ok for despotic regimes to do it because they are bad guys. It's a matter of principle that it's wrong for everyone to do it. That is the only way to set a standard and hold every government to it. We should figure out what line in terms of privacy and respect for personal rights we would like China, Russia, etc to abide by. It's only ok for our governments to do things that we would accept as being legitimate for those governments to do. That is the only way to normalise respect for the individual and protect our personal freedoms in the long term.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  Related: Why were the Nazis so efficient at rounding up and murdering Jewish people? Because the 1933 Census asked if you were Jewish, and IBM sold them (mechanical) data processing systems.
morgante 12y ago
It's incredibly relevant. For one thing, his speech included direct references to the importance of privacy for marginalized groups (including homosexuals), especially in places where it is been illegal. Moreover, I personally think it's one of the reasons that I believe Cook (far more so than other technology people) has a credible commitment to privacy. He's a very private person himself (in fact, he only came out last year), and I think that personal preference for privacy shines through in how he's running Apple.
Joona 12y ago
I think it's mainly about telling the readers who Tim Cook is. The name doesn't ring a bell for many, but when you refer to news about him, it's a bit easier to remember.

MarcScott 12y ago

I recently taught a small module on cryptography to some 13 year olds. In one lesson, I asked them to write down what they thought of companies being forced to weaken encryption. This was a very typical response from the group. "I think that encryption should still be allowed because I should have some privacy in my life and everyone else can. No one wants to be watched, stalked, etc. just because a couple of criminals may be able to start a (rare) terrorist attack, there should be other ways to stop them apart from making everyone elses life uncomfortable. You might aswell have no passwords for any website, it's basically the same thing." If kids get it, I fail to see why politicians don't.

mc32 12y ago
The problem with that is that when asking kids you get sunshine. I mean, I have an opinion on this, but that's beside the point. You ask kids, what do we do about global warming --stop polluting the atmosphere! Yes obvious, it's just that things aren't as simple as that.
- mch82 12y ago
  Actually, things are exactly that simple. Look at how the WWII generation responded to the need for behavior change in order to supply raw materials and labor for the war effort. If our generation cared about the environment as much as they cared about winning WWII then we could make similar sacrifices, pay a little extra for fuel, pay a little extra for solar infrastructure, change our diets to be more sustainable, and be well on the way to reversing damage to our environment.
  - Sir_Substance 12y ago
    >then we could make similar sacrifices, pay a little extra for fuel, pay a little extra for solar infrastructure, change our diets to be more sustainable I haven't done the study, but I'd wager that those small price hikes would push the five most marginal percent currently able to afford rent into homelessness. Things are never that simple. A person who presents anything as black and white either hasn't thought about it or is lying to you.

ps4fanboy 12y ago

Tim Cook just earned a lot of respect today.

venomsnake 12y ago
How? Apple does not care about privacy. If they did, they would not possess the keys to decrypt anything, even stuff stored on their servers. I am sure apple cares about privacy from government, but they don't seem to care about privacy of their users from them.
- anko 12y ago
  even Schneier thinks they do a decent job: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/apples_imessage.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/apples_imessa...
  - minthd 12y ago
    If you read the details of schneier's post , he basically says "we don't know".
    - jakobegger 12y ago
      Jesus Christ, unless you etch your own chips and build a computer from scratch, the answer is always "we don't know". There might be a backdoor in the cpu you buy, or in the baseband, or in a driver, or in an open source component that you didn't audit, or in your compiler, or even in your USB stick. You always need to trust somebody.
      - towelguy 12y ago
        Pragmatism tells me it's easier to trust my cpu than it is to trust someone's server in the other side of the planet.

Throwaway1224 12y ago

Yea so apple doesn't store and use my information and do creepy shit with stuff i never explicitly gave them my permission to use. Dont fucking insult me, cook.

tunap 12y ago
He's not insulting you, he's protecting their back-end from exposure & scrutiny. NSA has become a problem, but Apple, et al, corps' data collections have been eroding & infringing our privacy all along... in the name of monetization/profit, which is quite a bit more nefarious than security, IMO.

beloch 12y ago

This is likely a jab at Obama, since Tim Cook is probably sick of all the NSA and FBI spooks plugging black boxes into his servers, not to mention how it's illegal for him to even complain about it publicly. The scary thing is that I'm no longer a bonafide paranoiac for expressing an opinion like this. I'm probably right.

TaylorAlexander 12y ago
This is certainly a jab at Obama, who came to Silicon Valley today to tell us all that the government can "keep us safe" if we just let them take our personal data from private companies. Obama has been pushing a plan for "cybersecurity" that involves expanding the NSA spying program and making legal many of the things Edward Snowden revealed them to be doing apparently illegally. I'm politically liberal and voted for Obama twice but the man is fucking lying to us about cyber security. The real solutions to security involve encryption and what Obama is suggesting is that they can protect us by monitoring more. Tim Cook is calling him out as a liar without expressly saying it. I wish he would. We need more prominent people to call attention to how much we are being lied to, because too many people buy the BS as truth.
- parasubvert 12y ago
  I would be careful about calling policy disagreements "lies". Keep in mind Bill Clinton and his admin did plenty of horrible stuff as well (communications decency act, DMCA, the clipper and v-chip shenanigans, high strength crypto as a munition, the hounding of Phil Zimmerman and PGP, operation sundevil, etc. My point is that digital privacy is not a "liberal" or "conservative" issue, it's a new concern that seems to have adherents across the political spectrum. Both democrats and republicans have been strong supporters of government surveillance and stomping on digital privacy rights. There is no mainstream political party taking up the privacy mantra yet en large because the people of the USA apparently don't want it. It's our job to change that, but that requires changing people's minds that their privacy is worth risking a successful terrorist attack (which is how everyone in the mainstream US perceives the trade off).
  - 12y ago

Iv 12y ago

"We should not share the control we have over our consumers with the NSA!"

morgante 12y ago
Apple, unlike other major tech companies, has a business model which is completely compatible with privacy. If anything, I suspect they would prefer a world where consumers demanded strict privacy and fewer online services.
- hahainternet 12y ago
  > If anything, I suspect they would prefer a world where consumers demanded strict privacy and fewer online services. Because they are shit at building online services and excellent at selling people overpriced devices. Oh and FWIW. Apple also operates iAd, a locked down ad program targeted at their customers specifically.
- pdkl95 12y ago
  Yes, Apple is different. Their business model is one of the few that is actually worse than the "big data" surveillance companies such as Google. Instead of attacking privacy, Apple has become one of the worst of the rent-seekers trying to control the General Purpose Computer. They have done most of what we feared Microsoft would do, and they have an entire generation of people who now think in terms of their walled garden. I respect Tim Cook quite a bit for making this effort to argue for privacy and the rule of law, but that doesn't excuse the incredible damage his company has done over the last decade.
  - amirmc 12y ago
    They make products people want. Lots of people buy them. As far as I'm aware, there aren't any nefarious tactics involved (eg embrace, extend, extinguish) - so they're not trying to distort the market (pls correct me if I'm wrong). Given that, why do you claim Apple has done damage, when really it's people who chose with their wallets?
- 12y ago

luke-stanley 12y ago

Doesn't the latest OS X share to Apple what people are searching for on their own computer? (By default).

maccard 12y ago
It sends your spotlight commands to the search engine to give you web and iCloud results in spotlight. Equally you could say that Google sends every key press you do in chrome's address back home
Puts 12y ago
And IOS 8 takes any chance it gets trying to trick me into enabling Icloud...
po 12y ago
Yes, they send your queries out to their servers (not to be confused with sending information about files on your machine out) but the 'session key' they use is apparently not tied to your identity by them or third parties they work with. In their words: You can always opt out of Suggestions and continue to use Spotlight solely for local search on your device. You are also free to opt out of having Spotlight use Location Services any time you want. If you opt out, Spotlight will still use your IP address to determine a general location to make your searches more relevant. Unlike our competitors, we don’t use a persistent personal identifier to tie your searches to you in order to build a profile based on your search history. We also place restrictions on our partners so they don’t create a long-term trail of identifiable searches by you or from your device. https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/

k-mcgrady 12y ago

Much better response imo than just not going to the event like some other tech CEO's.

shiggerino 12y ago

I'm not sure what the US government is complaining about. If the baseband has direct memory access, they should be able to grab any cryptographic key off the phones without Apple or the user ever noticing, that is unless Apple has been getting stroppy lately about who gets to talk on their PCI bus. As for Apple doing the right thing, even if they manage to keep the government out of people's business today, they still hold the key to the universal back door and might give it away tomorrow. Apple certainly has the resources to develop a completely liberated phone, but NeXT and post-merger Apple has always been incredibly hostile to software freedom, and this speech doesn't change any of that. I don't think they are afraid that they won't be able to spy on people, but they are worried about maintaining the public opinion that privacy is for creeps and terrorists. But another interesting effect of closing every back door but the baseband is that there will likely be a power struggle within the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Only the highest ranking officers will be able to push malicious firmware updates, regular police will have no choice but to stick with traditional police work.

comboy 12y ago
> they still hold the key to the universal back door and might give it away tomorrow Care to elaborate? Do you mean assumption that they can have it if they want to, or is there some information about it?
- meric 12y ago
  Your encrypted iMessages is one iOS update from being non-encrypted. As far as I can tell.
  - epistasis 12y ago
    And one iOS update from a TLS implementation with low entropy in key generation, allowing the NSA to decrypt all traffic with minimal computational effort. As is Windows, Linux, all open source projects, and all proprietary projects. All software is one update away from completely changing it's purpose, so I think your point is far more general than just Apple's messaging app.

dandare 12y ago

I don't get it. Why is everyone (including Snowden) talking about personal moments, privacy, intimacy etc when the problem is clearly about tyranny, dictatorship and misuse of power? We have very specific and numerous evidence that in the past the state used its powers to spy, threaten and discredit ideological opponents and activists, from M. L. King to all anti-war movements since Vietnam. Since the dawn of history the "state" was always the biggest threat to the safety of it's "citizens", not external aggression. We need to stay safe from our own state, that is why we must not give up our privacy, not because of some silly naked pictures on your phone.

msabalau 12y ago
Governments have long had the ability to surveil activists and cultural figures. And activists have long understood this. Heck, Malcolm X joked about government hirelings back in 1964: "Brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can't believe everyone in here is a friend, and I don't want to leave anybody out." Looking around, it seems to be that most people are and have been indifferent to issues of peace and social justice most of the time. They do care about naked picture on their phone. Given that activists have been able to work despite extensive surveillance, why would people whose issue is privacy focus on something that doesn't matter to most people when they can talk about things that many people do care about?
MetaCosm 12y ago
Because it resonates with everyone. Personal moments, privacy, intimacy ... these are things everyone understands, everyone can see how it might impact them. Talk about "misuse of power" and you lose the attention of the very people you are trying to convince. It might just be the trivialities (and peoples desire to protect themselves from them) that create more fury and action that talking about the real issues. I think it is smart of Snowden to take the tact that will resonate with the most people. It might be a sideshow, but it is a useful sideshow that might move the ball forward on the big issues.
- humanrebar 12y ago
  Right. The civil rights movement in the U.S. also dealt with oppression and tyranny, but many of the actual protests revolved around bus seats and the ability to buy lunch.

jackgavigan 12y ago

It's worth remembering that Apple have stated that "conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data."[1] I suspect that Cook is anticipating legislation that would require that Apple re-engineer its services to support "lawful" interception of the content of messages/conversations, but is hoping that adopting a aggressive stance now will result in a compromise end state whereby interception must happen proactively and by exception (and within a clear legal framework - e.g. authorised by a warrant or court order) as opposed to a mass surveillance regime where everything is hoovered up (i.e. intercepted and stored). 1: https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/ https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/

higherpurpose 12y ago
Are iMessages automatically synced to iCloud on iOS? In that case Apple can see the copies of the messages, from most people. As for Facetime, I think only the voice calls are end-to-end, not the video chats as well.
- jonhohle 12y ago
  Wrong (from what's known about iMessage). All devices have a distinct history of messages - http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/27/apple-explains-exactly-how-secure-imessage-really-is/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/27/apple-explains-exactly-how-... Apple says FaceTime messages are end-to-end encrypted https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/
walshemj 12y ago
id suspect that is the case pity that the other invited tech leaders didn't go - but Tim always struck me that he understands politics in a way Larry Sergei, Eric and Zuckerberg just don't get
- slasaus 12y ago
  The business model of Facebook and Google is about getting to know as much as possible about you. Apple makes most money without your data.

juancastro 12y ago

This mean if can continue using my iPhone without risk! Lol

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jchomali 12y ago
Yeah!

m12k 12y ago

That little "namaste" gesture that he ended it with - I wonder if he picked up that habit from Jobs?

jchomali 12y ago

Definitely

arh68 12y ago

I think it would be convenient if Apple just 'bent over' and started selling NSAPhones, but nothing will kill foreign customers who value privacy [1] more than to know the KGB, or MI6, etc (or Madagascar Intel, it doesn't matter who, just not their country) runs their phone. I mean, what American would buy a KGBPhone? Apple's just defending a now largely foreign customer base, it seems to me. I'm sure they'll comply with requests, but they can't be a pushover. [1] http://www.cnet.com/news/china-likely-to-top-us-for-apple-iphone-sales/ http://www.cnet.com/news/china-likely-to-top-us-for-apple-ip...

fspacef 12y ago

clickbait title tho