6 ms·

I'm actually somewhat torn on this. While I'm against mass surveillance, I think that targeted surveillance can be a good thing. By nature of it being targeted

by exelius 12y ago

I'm actually somewhat torn on this. While I'm against mass surveillance, I think that targeted surveillance can be a good thing. By nature of it being targeted, it is expensive to use on more people than necessary. The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capability. There are bad people out there, and we expect our government to stop them.

smokeyj 12y ago
A universe neatly compartmentalized into good guys and bad guys. How wonderfully simplistic. Let's just hope the good guys always wear capes so the government knows who to hire.
svachalek 12y ago
There are lots of targeted surveillance techniques that don't involve massive federal agencies working to eliminate all possible privacy protections just in case they need to make it easy to spy on anyone, anytime.
ethbro 12y ago
> The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capability. Just like the intelligence gleaned from breaking German WWII encryption was limited? If information can be non-invasively extracted, then there is only an operational limit on use. And isn't knowing mass information just as wrong as acting on mass information? Unless it's a computationally-expensive attack (which are getting more infeasible now that key sizes aren't technically as limited), you run into the encryption problem: either everything being encrypted is okay, or nothing being encrypted is okay. That's the nature of secrecy.
iak8god 12y ago
I'm strongly opposed to sweeping surveillance, but not even a little bit torn on this story. I'm glad it's now public knowledge, but this is exactly the sort of thing our intelligence agencies should be doing. Edit to expand on "should be doing": at the very least, they ought to explore such vulnerabilities as a defensive measure since their counterparts in every other State are clearly doing the same thing whenever they have the capability.
- bediger4000 12y ago
  I really don't think that "Well, Russia's Doing It!" is a very good justification for clearly unethical, and probably illegal, actions. The reason for mass surveillance is control of the populace. Mass surveillance clearly doesn't prevent terrorism: most of this 4th-Amendment-violating dragnet surveillance was in place well before the Boston Bombing, and nobody caught the Tsarnaevs. So, I'm not a little torn, either: the CIA shouldn't be looking to crack iPhones, they should be looking to beef up iPhone security to keep those other nations from doing unethical stuff. Exploiting vulnerabilities for surveillance purposes is a bad thing all around. Close them holes!
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    > well before the Boston Bombing, and nobody caught the Tsarnaevs. They were on the radar but you really can't arrest someone until they do something.
    - leesalminen 12y ago
      That's not true in America anymore. The USG can detain anyone, for any period of time, for any reason without rights "because terrorism". https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/ndaa https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/ndaa Edit:: link for more info
      - happyscrappy 12y ago
        Did you read your own link? That would not have applied to the Tsarnaevs.
        leesalminen 12y ago
        Why would it not have applied to the Tsarnaevs? I did read that link, along with many other linked pages from the original link. See here: https://www.aclu.org/national-security/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law https://www.aclu.org/national-security/president-obama-signs... And here: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detent... There does seem to be a lot of debate on this topic regarding the wording of the bill and how it applies to US citizens. However, to me, the wording seems very vague and open to interpretation. Which was likely on purpose.
appleflaxen 12y ago
Targeted surveillance... like a search warrant? Somehow we have been doing fine under the constitution for 200 years. Now a dozen men kamikaze a building, and we have to take away everyone's freedom in order to protect them? F that. Police and the executive branch are just being lazy. Get off your ass, do some human intelligence, investigate leads, and get a warrant if you have probable cause. Otherwise, get the hell out of my email. When the chances of being killed by police are 55x higher than being killed by a terrorist (or whatever the recent number was) and we want to give the State more power, we are fools.
- stinkytaco 12y ago
  I remember when they busted Ulbricht thinking, "if they were able to catch someone who seemed by most accounts to be fairly careful (used encryption, Tor, etc.), how come we need dragnet surveillance?" I'd be curious to hear if dragnetting is even effective and if so, what the cost/benefit analysis is when you factor in both financial and ethical costs.
- flyryan 12y ago
  The USA has never needed a search warrant to conduct foreign intelligence. A search warrant requirement is a 4th amendment protection afforded to US citizens. Foreign intelligence does not require courts unless you're trying to get foreign information from US companies (like the PRISM program and the FISA courts). The FBI (who is responsible for all intelligence conducted in the USA, against foreigners or Americans) is absolutely required to get a search warrant. The iPhone is one of the most popular phones in the world. Is it that crazy that the CIA is interested in them for intelligence gathering purposes?
  - appleflaxen 12y ago
    I'm fine with the legality foreign intelligence (even if I'm not sure it's the best policy). But what does that have to do with anything? The Snowden disclosures show that they're doing far, far, more: essentially indiscriminant eavesdropping of every possible form of domestic communication.
logn 12y ago
This doesn't sound targeted: by manipulating Xcode, the spies could compromise the devices and private data of anyone with apps made by a poisoned developer — potentially millions of people ... The focus of the security researchers, as described at the CIA conferences, was to target the GID key, which Apple implants on all devices that use the same processors. [...] So, if intelligence agencies extract the GID key, it means they have information useful to compromising any device containing that key.
BurningFrog 12y ago
There are bad people out there, and some of them work at government agencies.
wahsd 12y ago
I could have written that myself, but the problem is that we really have a shadow government, one that is not accountable, not responsible, not regulated, and not in any way representative. If we were really interested in fixing this, we would hold the heinous people of the Bush administration (and even some if not most of the Obama administration) who were responsible for aiding and abetting "terrorism" by playing right into their goals, accountable for their treason through incompetence and stupidity and greed. No other people in the history of our country has ever caused us more damage than the Bush administration.

by exelius 12y ago

smokeyj 12y ago

A universe neatly compartmentalized into good guys and bad guys. How wonderfully simplistic. Let's just hope the good guys always wear capes so the government knows who to hire.

svachalek 12y ago

There are lots of targeted surveillance techniques that don't involve massive federal agencies working to eliminate all possible privacy protections just in case they need to make it easy to spy on anyone, anytime.

ethbro 12y ago

> The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capability. Just like the intelligence gleaned from breaking German WWII encryption was limited? If information can be non-invasively extracted, then there is only an operational limit on use. And isn't knowing mass information just as wrong as acting on mass information? Unless it's a computationally-expensive attack (which are getting more infeasible now that key sizes aren't technically as limited), you run into the encryption problem: either everything being encrypted is okay, or nothing being encrypted is okay. That's the nature of secrecy.

iak8god 12y ago

I'm strongly opposed to sweeping surveillance, but not even a little bit torn on this story. I'm glad it's now public knowledge, but this is exactly the sort of thing our intelligence agencies should be doing. Edit to expand on "should be doing": at the very least, they ought to explore such vulnerabilities as a defensive measure since their counterparts in every other State are clearly doing the same thing whenever they have the capability.

bediger4000 12y ago
I really don't think that "Well, Russia's Doing It!" is a very good justification for clearly unethical, and probably illegal, actions. The reason for mass surveillance is control of the populace. Mass surveillance clearly doesn't prevent terrorism: most of this 4th-Amendment-violating dragnet surveillance was in place well before the Boston Bombing, and nobody caught the Tsarnaevs. So, I'm not a little torn, either: the CIA shouldn't be looking to crack iPhones, they should be looking to beef up iPhone security to keep those other nations from doing unethical stuff. Exploiting vulnerabilities for surveillance purposes is a bad thing all around. Close them holes!
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  > well before the Boston Bombing, and nobody caught the Tsarnaevs. They were on the radar but you really can't arrest someone until they do something.
  - leesalminen 12y ago
    That's not true in America anymore. The USG can detain anyone, for any period of time, for any reason without rights "because terrorism". https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/ndaa https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/ndaa Edit:: link for more info
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      Did you read your own link? That would not have applied to the Tsarnaevs.
      - leesalminen 12y ago
        Why would it not have applied to the Tsarnaevs? I did read that link, along with many other linked pages from the original link. See here: https://www.aclu.org/national-security/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law https://www.aclu.org/national-security/president-obama-signs... And here: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detent... There does seem to be a lot of debate on this topic regarding the wording of the bill and how it applies to US citizens. However, to me, the wording seems very vague and open to interpretation. Which was likely on purpose.

appleflaxen 12y ago

Targeted surveillance... like a search warrant? Somehow we have been doing fine under the constitution for 200 years. Now a dozen men kamikaze a building, and we have to take away everyone's freedom in order to protect them? F that. Police and the executive branch are just being lazy. Get off your ass, do some human intelligence, investigate leads, and get a warrant if you have probable cause. Otherwise, get the hell out of my email. When the chances of being killed by police are 55x higher than being killed by a terrorist (or whatever the recent number was) and we want to give the State more power, we are fools.

stinkytaco 12y ago
I remember when they busted Ulbricht thinking, "if they were able to catch someone who seemed by most accounts to be fairly careful (used encryption, Tor, etc.), how come we need dragnet surveillance?" I'd be curious to hear if dragnetting is even effective and if so, what the cost/benefit analysis is when you factor in both financial and ethical costs.
flyryan 12y ago
The USA has never needed a search warrant to conduct foreign intelligence. A search warrant requirement is a 4th amendment protection afforded to US citizens. Foreign intelligence does not require courts unless you're trying to get foreign information from US companies (like the PRISM program and the FISA courts). The FBI (who is responsible for all intelligence conducted in the USA, against foreigners or Americans) is absolutely required to get a search warrant. The iPhone is one of the most popular phones in the world. Is it that crazy that the CIA is interested in them for intelligence gathering purposes?
- appleflaxen 12y ago
  I'm fine with the legality foreign intelligence (even if I'm not sure it's the best policy). But what does that have to do with anything? The Snowden disclosures show that they're doing far, far, more: essentially indiscriminant eavesdropping of every possible form of domestic communication.

logn 12y ago

This doesn't sound targeted: by manipulating Xcode, the spies could compromise the devices and private data of anyone with apps made by a poisoned developer — potentially millions of people ... The focus of the security researchers, as described at the CIA conferences, was to target the GID key, which Apple implants on all devices that use the same processors. [...] So, if intelligence agencies extract the GID key, it means they have information useful to compromising any device containing that key.

BurningFrog 12y ago

There are bad people out there, and some of them work at government agencies.

wahsd 12y ago

I could have written that myself, but the problem is that we really have a shadow government, one that is not accountable, not responsible, not regulated, and not in any way representative. If we were really interested in fixing this, we would hold the heinous people of the Bush administration (and even some if not most of the Obama administration) who were responsible for aiding and abetting "terrorism" by playing right into their goals, accountable for their treason through incompetence and stupidity and greed. No other people in the history of our country has ever caused us more damage than the Bush administration.