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Apple CEO Tim Cook: FBI's Backdoor Would Be 'Software Equivalent of Cancer'

I gather you just know all Apple people will bow down to Tim and on "his" side....

When u look at it like that, it does seem a bit unfair advantage. Know one in the slightest reckon their should be a compromise ? no one ....? umm .ok

Its true the FBI can look in on any other stuff, by what hasn't the government got already?

Isn't all this just to really postpone what can't be had. eventually anyway ? Our shopping centers know too much about all out past and future recommended purchases anyway, so the goose is
cooked i reckon :D

(edits: if i don't stop talking about food, i will get hungry again)
 
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Screen Shot 2016-02-23 at 10.51.57 PM.png "Have you seen me?" (FBI agent...aka pink panther).
 
\-V-/ said:
You went on a long rant about Steve Jobs and how he can't be trusted ... and then used that as a reason to not trust a completely different human being.
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Deeply indoctrinated in "The Apple Way" with years of service side by side with Steve, Tim posseses the same values and burning desire to hold Apple's profits as the highest priority. Others will argue that's what all corporations do, revealing their inability to understand both business and Apple. It's as simple as that.
 
maxsix said:
Deeply indoctrinated in "The Apple Way" with years of service side by side with Steve, Tim posseses the same values and burning desire to hold Apple's profits as the highest priority. Others will argue that's what all corporations do, revealing their inability to understand both business and Apple. It's as simple as that.
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Although I get what you're saying, this is an entirely separate issue though.
 
Was a good interview, I think Tim put his point across well.

One thing I found interesting though is a few years ago Tim said in an interview, I believe with Walt Mosberg or some such. Where he said with regards to governments forcing Apple to put backdoors in their products that they (meaning the government) would have to wheel us (meaning Apple executives/employees etc) out of the building before they did anything like that.

And yet at the end of this interview he says we like any company in America have to follow the law. So he just went back on what he said, he is not willing to be arrested or be in contempt of court for his beliefs like he said on the record previously.

Maybe he said it this way to get some favor with judges in the future as he did say in the interview that they would take it to the supreme court if they had to and he doesn't want anything he says in this interview to hurt their judgements later on down the line but I was a bit disappointed he didn't reiterate what he had said in that prior interview when asked by ABC if he would follow a court judgement to put a backdoor in the iPhone software.
 
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\-V-/ said:
You went on a long rant about Steve Jobs and how he can't be trusted ... and then used that as a reason to not trust a completely different human being.
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It's the Apple hater way. Bend over backwards as far as possible to trash Apple over everything they do, then pretend like you're really a true fan and everyone who disagrees with you is merely a part of the cult.

Things get bizarre when Apple haters get backed into a corner and have to admit that Tim Cook and Apple might have done something right.
 
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CalWizrd said:
Hey Tim,

I have Stage IV Pancreatic cancer. Doubt it.

I think a more appropriate analogy would be something that can spread through contact/exposure. Maybe you are too sensitive to the mention of AIDS/HIV.
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I'm sorry to hear that. Don't forget his best friend died from Pancreatic cancer too, I don't think he is says it in a demeaning way to cancer patients, more as a characteristic of cancer, how it spreads, how hard it it is to get rid off once it happens.
 
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sudo1996 said:
Just make the software, make sure nobody takes it home, and steal the iPhone's information in a closed room. He's probably afraid to do it because then people would know that the iPhone can be broken.

And for the last time, "backdoor" is the wrong term for what he's describing. I know he's just saying it to scare people and take blame off of Apple. It's apparent that someone (Apple or other) can make an alternate iOS and steal information by installing it, so that itself is the security vulnerability. Apple is being asked to exploit a known vulnerability, not create a new one. A backdoor would be if Apple knowingly put a vulnerability into iOS so it could be later exploited.

I'm sick of this guy's BS.
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How do you know so much more than FBI and Apple apparently? It's not a known vulnerability if they have to create it and only Apple could create a new iOS for their iPhone hardware that could unlock it. That makes it an unknown that only they can do that could then be later exploited by anyone...sounds like a Backdoor to most people. It doesn't really matter what it's called because they're refusing to do it. So judge Cook on his stance and actions, not symantics.
 
Digital Skunk said:
So cancer is the new Hitler/Slavery argument killer?
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To be honest it is a perfect analogy.

When you have a perfectly healthy human being and then you have Cancer in their body it creates a weakness that undermines their entire health.

With the phones security it is absolutely impenetrable and thus healthy until you introduce this back-door which undermines the entire security of the phone making it a useless product for storing all your most valuable digital information.

And I say that as someone who currently has Cancer, Lymphoma. I don't think he could have used any better word to describe it really.
 
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The FBI already has 12 more phones they want Apple to unlock. This is certainly not about the San Bernadino killers. No one gives a crap about them. No one is protecting them. If the Government is given a key to unlock every iPhone that exists, then you won't know the next hundred thousand times they use it. What if a certain person becomes president? Will every single Muslim person's phone be opened up? We won't know. What if the Chinese government hacks the US government's computers (again). Now they'll have the key to every iPhone. What if ISIS gets they key through hacking, bribery, torture or infiltration? Are you ok with them having access to high ranking government officials' information? Phones can have financial information, GPS of every place you, your spouse, and children go. Diaries, notes, address books, passwords, social security numbers... For some of us who work boring lives it's not a huge deal but many people have information that isn't just vital to them; it's vital to a lot of folks. Think of what could be on a politician's phone, or a soldier, or a general, or a water treatment manager, or a nuclear inspector. And the government can compel a US company to create this?! China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and others have asked for this type of access before and we've applauded blackberry and others for refusing.
 
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wigby said:
How do you know so much more than FBI and Apple apparently? It's not a known vulnerability if they have to create it and only Apple could create a new iOS for their iPhone hardware that could unlock it. That makes it an unknown that only they can do that could then be later exploited by anyone...sounds like a Backdoor to most people. It doesn't really matter what it's called because they're refusing to do it. So judge Cook on his stance and actions, not symantics.
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What I heard during that interview was Cook stating that had the FBI gone about this differently, not publicly, they might have done it. Apple is very "image" conscious, the last thing they want for people with an iPhone to be aware they could or have done something like what's being asked. If everything is hush hush and completely off the radar, they might have considered it.
 
Mtmspa said:
FBI director Comey hates Apple. He is using the terrorist angle to try this case in the court of public opinion. Proud of Tim and Apple for standing up to that douchebag.
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I agree. I think they have been waiting a long time to get an event like this terrorist massacre to push through a precedent in court to have a backdoor in the iPhone.

All they had to do was wait and they knew something would happen that would be so outrageous that they could get a judge and public opinion to side with them on almost anything and that would be the time to strike.

As we've learned they have many more phones (12 apparently in Federal hands, 100's in state hands) that they want unlocked. They have been biding their time for sure.
 
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What a bunch of whiny babies. So he used an analogy (cancer) you were uncomfortable with, if that's the main takeaway you got from a 30 minute interview on the implications of Apple creating a potential backdoor to "your" iPhone, I don't know what to tell you.

mrgraff said:
I see what he's saying, but I too would prefer a different analogy than "cancer."
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DVNIEL said:
The US government has free lance arms dealers doing their dirty work overseas, you mean to tell me they don't have free lance hackers that can just break into the damn phone already?
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It's not really freelance, it's NSA. NSA has more resources to crack iPhones than Apple has securing them. Then again, this is not about single iPhone. This about privacy and who is allowed to have it. Something is very wrong here if government is allowed to have secrets but not the people. If someone thinks this has anything to do with terrorism then they are mistaken. After 9/11 CIA said the problem with tracking terrorists was their total lack of modern communication methods. Instead of emails, telephone conversations etc. terrorists use couriers. The only way the access to normal peoples general private information would be useful is if one has access to massive amounts of data which can be then cross referenced. Then again thats what NSA did with Prism... I'll bet some idiots will propose that every single OS should be fitted government access in the future. This is just the first steps towards 1984.
 
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Its probably about as deadly as cancer.... i know it would kill me if the FBI got hold of "my" information too.

The FBI can't understand this, because they've never been in this position themselves.
 
I must say I thought Tim Cook had more style and class, more intellect and common sense than to draw a comparison between security and cancer. Just proves he is as ruthless as Steve was.
 
BoxerGT2.5 said:
What I heard during that interview was Cook stating that had the FBI gone about this differently, not publicly, they might have done it. Apple is very "image" conscious, the last thing they want for people with an iPhone to be aware they could or have done something like what's being asked. If everything is hush hush and completely off the radar, they might have considered it.
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Clearly, you do not have the capacity to understand the English language even in the simple form it was presented here in this interview. I guess I shouldn't be surprised; http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/watch-trump-brag-about-uneducated-voters
 
teknikal90 said:
I agree with Bill Gates on this - Apple should look to the supreme court for guidance.
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Yep. They know what they're doin'. They'll get it right. LOL!

I actually despised Cook up until this point. Never liked his "lead from behind" style. Now I'm not so sure.

The guy's got some testicles after all.
 
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