Why Apple is making a stand against the FBI

[LuckyTheDog]

Apple has been ordered to help FBI investigators access data on the phone belonging to San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook. The technical solution proposed by the FBI appears to undermine Apple’s earlier claim that they would be unable to help. However, in a strongly worded reply, Apple CEO Tim Cook has indicated that Apple is unwilling to comply with this order, as it would do irreparable damage to all iPhone owners’ security and privacy.

On newer Apple phones like Farook’s (an iPhone 5c, running iOS 9 according to the court motion), data stored on the phone is protected by encryption, using the passcode (which is also used for unlocking the phone) as part of the key. (This is a different issue from “end-to-end encryption”, which concerns iMessages when they are in transit between phones.)

Apple recently claimed that they were unable to decrypt such information at all, as they do not have the passcode. This is also the line it takes in its policy statement on providing information to governments, first posted in May 2014.


MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/why-apple-is-making-a-stand-against-the-fbi/

[True Earthling]

1. To protect the Apple brand...it's a PR move.

Apple has the capability to provide a way for the FBI to extract the data from the terrorist's phone AND protect the privacy all iPhone users at the same time. It's not a one or the other situation. Tim Cook is milking the situation to promote Apple as the defender of individual privacy rights... it's pure posturing... a marketing ploy. Tim Cook's claim that giving the FBI what they want will pose a threat to all iPhone user is hogwash.

The Apple Fight Isn't About Encryption
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-02-17/the-apple-fight-isn-t-about-encryption

Apple, The FBI And iPhone Encryption: A Look At What's At Stake
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/17/467096705/apple-the-fbi-and-iphone-encryption-a-look-at-whats-at-stake

Apple Unlocked iPhones for the Feds 70 Times Before
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/17/apple-unlocked-iphones-for-the-feds-70-times-before.html

[Kablooie]

2. Nope. Not at all.

The previous unlocked phones were an earlier version of the operating system that Apple had access to.
Apple has said that if it has access to the information they will hand it over if a valid warrant is presented.
That's the law.

The current system has encryption that even Apple itself does not have the capability to break.

The FBI want's Apple to write a new, specially modified version of their operating system that will allow the FBI to break in.
If this is possible, (it's not certain that it is), and is done, whoever has a copy of this software can break into any iPhone.

If the software exists there is no way to guarantee that hackers and foreign governments will never get a copy.
In fact I wouldn't even trust our own government to limit it's use to honorable law enforcement.
I'm sure many governments would love to have access to the all world's secret financial and political communications and private hackers will be delighted with all the great info they will be able to blackmail people with.

Once the genie is out in the world it can't be put back in the bottle again.

The primary people who will still be protected will be the serious criminals and bad actors who can use 3rd party encryption tools that are freely available today and are impossible to crack by anyone.

[True Earthling]

11. Wouldn't a criminal need the physical phone AND a copy of the software to crack a phone?

I thought the big worry was hacking online activity. If an iPhone is stolen it can be located with "find my iPhone" or it can be "wiped" remotely as well. The only reason it didn't happen here was the owner died! My daughter had her iPhone stolen last month and within 5 minutes we located the phone in the thief's apartment.

I see a lot of DU'ers condemning the fearmongering of those who want the FBI to have access to the data.. I agree fearmongering is not the way to persuade or influence people's minds but I see a lot of fearmongering on the other side of the argument..beware of the scary, evil government/LE who will be combing through your personal info if Apple gives the FBI what they want.

Also - the argument that people should not worry or be scared of terrorists because the odds of dying from a terrorist attack are less then being struck by a car crossing the street...is a self-centered way of looking at the problem. The person making that argument is saying that terrorism is a problem only if they are attacked. I worry about terrorism because of people I don't even know who may be attacked... why isn't that a concern?

[randome]

14. The phone in question is an earlier version also.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[CommonSenseDemocrat]

3. The administration does not have carte blanche to override the Constitution

This is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Just like I can't make you do a painting, I can't make you write code that you don't want to under duress.

[Egnever]

4. Are you sure it is that clear?

That sort of implies that the public's safety is not important.

We require seat belts in cars to keep people safe how is this different?

[CommonSenseDemocrat]

6. If Apple already had the code, I'd agree with you

Apple, rightly or wrongly, has decided not to make this code.

Computer science is the same as writing a novel or diary. I can force you to produce your diary; I cannot make you write a new entry.

[Egnever]

7. Again not sure that works

If safe operating range for say a nuclear power plant was determined to be different than what it was set to be controlled at the government couldn't mandate you change the code to reflect the new information?

Perhaps not the best example but hopefully you get the drift.

Also I am pretty sure computer code is not protected as free speech.

[CommonSenseDemocrat]

8. See Bernstein v Justice: The government's position won't stand before the 9th circuit

https://www.eff.org/cases/bernstein-v-us-dept-justice

[Egnever]

9. Ok but that is a separate issue not at all like this one

One is about the right to publish code and the government's ability to restrict the publication.


The other I am sure the government would argue is a public safety issue more like yelling fire in a theater.

I agree with cook that what the government is asking for would absolutely break the security on the phone but I don't think the government cares about that from their perspective this is a public safety issue.

I am don't think I agree with that point of view but I also don't think it is a clear cut first amendment slam dunk. In fact I would be shocked if the first amendment played a part in this particular case at all.

[CommonSenseDemocrat]

10. It's not a fifth amendment issue for Apple, this I think it's a 1st

I'm not a lawyer, much less a constitutional one, but I think if it were not for the first amendment, Apple would not have a leg to stand on. Apple is not incriminating themselves and the original Constititution does not outlaw the All Writs Act passed in 1789. It must be noted the 1st Amendment was adopted in 1791, 2 years AFTER the law on which the Obama/Lynch Justice Department is attempting to use to get a court order.

It's not a trivial exercise for Apple to develop this code. Now, if Congress passed a law stating under Interstate Commerce no phone that is not breakable can be sold in the US, that would be legal, but even there Congress could not force Apple to create such a phone.

I do concede this is not a slam dunk case though, but for a different reason. Do we know Apple has not created this code at all? If they have (say technician Doe created this in the lab), I think he does have to provide that code to the government. I also think the government can depose the Apple employees and ask them questions about their code, but that is a major cry from forcing Apple to WRITE new code.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Exactly, well put.

The underlying issue is also that the National Spy Agency and similar depts. have been pushing HARD for Apple and other companies to NOT provide strong encryption
They don't want VPN use, they don't locked phones or puters.

I am flabbergasted that more people do not grasp, or choose to ignore, the issue at stake here.

[Logical]

5. Oh FFS, not this shit again. nt

[Blue_Tires]

13. And here's the chaser:

Apple is Selling You a Phone, Not Civil Liberties

"....In this post, however, we want to make an argument: Apple is being mischievous here, and the company’s self-presentation as crusading on behalf of the privacy of its customers is largely self-congratulatory nonsense. In reality, the case poses starkly the stakes in the “Going Dark” debate. What’s more, it was entirely predictable; indeed, one of us predicted it with some precision barely a month ago. Far from the “unprecedented” “overreach” of Apple’s rhetoric, given the uncertain state of the law and the stakes in the case in question, it would have been akin to malpractice for the FBI and Justice Department to not fully explore the scope of Apple’s obligation to help the government effectuate a warrant in a major ISIS case.

More particularly, given the company’s simultaneous opposition to any legislation to clarify industry obligations as companies implement stronger encryption systems and its insistence that current law cannot force it to help the government, we submit that Apple is really trying to carve out a zone of impunity for itself that rightly alarms the government and should alarm the very citizens the company (which calls these citizens “customers”) purports to represent. The company’s near-duplicitous posture thus highlights the urgent need for a legislative intervention spelling out who has what obligations in situations like this one, situations that will only grow more common in the coming months and years.

Let’s start with an important fact that Apple elides in its statement: Apple engineered this problem and it did so intentionally. In 2012, Apple specifically decided to encrypt communications end-to-end and data at rest by default on the devices it manufactures and to not maintain any ability to decrypt material unless users specifically gave it the power to recover that material. The categories of data intentionally placed out of Apple's reach—and law enforcement's—expanded signficantly in the years following Snowden and high profile celebrity hacking incidents. It boasted about this decision and used it as a marketing weapon against its competitors. Reasonable people can argue about whether or not Apple did so for good reasons and whether or not doing so was the optimal way for the company to enhance the cybersecurity of its users. But the simple fact remains that Apple used to have the capacity to comply with warrants, and now it cannot without a certain amount of reengineering. And that was a matter of its own choosing made despite repeated warnings from the government that this choice would cause substantial problems for law enforcement, national security investigators, and public safety...."

https://www.lawfareblog.com/apple-selling-you-phone-not-civil-liberties