If Apple is Ordered to Unlock iPhone for FBI, Some Engineers Might Refuse to Help

[Tech198]

So what is Apple to do when China, or Russia, or Israel, Japan, or England, or Spain, or whatever government you, personally, don't trust comes calling? Say "No, we said yes to the FBI, but screw you, you're not America"? What's to stop China (for example) from saying "oh, in that case, you can't sell your products here anymore"? .

Noting will stop Apple selling products in China, and while i could see Apple may (if they wish) pull out of countries because a government within would cooperate with "no encryption" policy. China would never be one would them... It's Apple's biggest market. Regardless of what happens, why would Apple not do any business in China ? Its a driving force for them.

If they did choose not to do any business in China, where would that leave Apple ?

 

[unplugme71]

Please Apple. Write the code. Use the entire FBI and US politicians and judges who are all "for" this to be the public beta testers.

Then announce this beta so the hackers can unleash hell on their phones. Maybe they'll then realize what security and privacy is.

PLEASE!

 

[dk001]

Then it would come down to this: features rather than security. I would go for edge 7
[doublepost=1458345702][/doublepost]
No fault of yours. I'm actually glad you would ask for clarification.

I wonder how far KNOX would be taken if the FBI won....
Me, I would be looking for a device were I can apply aftermarket non-US encryption.
[doublepost=1458400522][/doublepost]

People are going to go to jail over this. The government will have its way. I think they have come too far to lose face now.

I wonder....
At some point, someone, who hopefully is listened too in the Washington bureaucracy, needs to look at the potential economic impact of the Government winning this case all the way through SCOTUS.
Could be a serious case of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" type of effort.

 

[997440]

It also says: "but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years".

Let me know when they follow that.

And, one should factor in that different judges, using nonobjective standards of their own, arrive at dissimilar conclusions. Despite that, Marbury v Madison says :

....
It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Courts must decide on the operation of each. [p178]

So, if a law be in opposition to the Constitution, if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.
....

[^^^Opinion from Chief Justice Marshall.^^^] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/5/137

 

[pat500000]

I wonder how far KNOX would be taken if the FBI won....
Me, I would be looking for a device were I can apply aftermarket non-US encryption.
[doublepost=1458400522][/doublepost]

I wonder....
At some point, someone, who hopefully is listened too in the Washington bureaucracy, needs to look at the potential economic impact of the Government winning this case all the way through SCOTUS.
Could be a serious case of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" type of effort.

Lol same. Maybe a flip phone?
[doublepost=1458407285][/doublepost]

All of this is giving the governments of the U.K. and France the idea to pass laws to require back doors to be installed in any device sold in those countries. If they pass those laws, what will Apple and Google do then? Stop selling in those countries or build a version with a backdoor?

Good question but I would think they would stop selling phones and iPads to them till the citizens fight back against gov't to get their hands on them.

 

[Z400Racer37]

Yes, but "implied" or "presumably eventually" means not literally. People are generally imprisoned over this kind of thing before they face death threats from the government, so "at gunpoint" is markable as a metaphor in itself. I feel people are too quick to exaggerate using these terms. Once reason I agree Apple is heroic here is because they're carefully not exaggerating.

Right, but it's not simply "presumed eventually," it is there.Every law that is passed and every action of enforcement requires one. There is force being applied to them, the government is attempting to remove their choice not to code this software, and they are doing that with the only tool they have which is a gun. You say that people are generally imprisoned over this kind of thing, but forcing people in a "free" nation to do your bidding has never happened before, and can never happen, because thats not a "free" country, and you're also assuming that they agree to be wrongfully imprisoned. What happens when they resist? They get forced. With guns. What happens when they resist those guns? The alternative which they are facing by this institution is "your life, or your life." Is not an exaggeration, and they are heroically rejecting both.

The only reason anyone pays attention to government, is because the government is the only institution with a legal monopoly on the use of physical force, and the way in which they are using it now is evil.

Moo!

Lulz Siri. #StillInBeta

 

[Larry-K]

People are going to go to jail over this. The government will have its way. I think they have come too far to lose face now.

Naah, they'll chicken out. Like most bullies, they're cowards.

 

[Starfia]

Right, but it's not simply "presumed eventually," it is there.

What… do you think "is" and "there" mean?

At what point in this case has a gun been pointed at any Apple staff? You're claiming it will happen, which is what "presumed eventually" means.

 

[kdarling]

You assume that anyone with access to the code also has access to all the needed signing keys and to the final build mechanism. That seriously underestimates ordinary business security procedures; and Apple is not ordinary regarding security.

So, does this mean you agree that it's extremely unlikely for a special iOS version to leak from inside Apple?

--

I have a question for everyone:

Let's say that Doctor Evil paid an Apple employee a bazillion dollars to sneak out a copy of the brute force iOS version that Apple kept for investigating iPhones in its possession.

Since Apple's public servers would refuse to sign it, it could not be installed on anything outside of Apple. Isn't that correct?

 

[firewood]

... it could not be installed ...

You use the term "could not", as if that is a priori knowable quantity. Instead the proper description might be what are the comparative risks of human errors or security failures or exploits (etc.!) given N-factor security versus (N-2)-factor security. A requirement for man-months of expert coding and lack of source code are a much stronger lock-out factors than possibly having as little as a few lines of a few database entries somehow modified, as the sole differentiator between two devices.

There is a reason why ordinary people are using 2-factor rather than single factor authentication, even though a naive system description might be that X "could not" access Y without (only) your password.

 

[Larry-K]

I have a question for everyone:

Let's say that Doctor Evil paid an Apple employee a bazillion dollars to sneak out a copy of the brute force iOS version that Apple kept for investigating iPhones in its possession.

Since Apple's public servers would refuse to sign it, it could not be installed on anything outside of Apple. Isn't that correct?

Don't under-estimate Dr. Evil.

 

[Mactendo]

I believe those who ruined iOS and OS X under the commandment of Ive will help. Everyone else who disagree can be just fired as it is usually done at Apple these days.

 

[djgamble]

I knew that would happen, These guys are heroic. Apple and it's employees are literally at gunpoint to produce x because the government wants it. What the hell is happening in The Land of the Free...

Government <> the court... IMO if ordered to do it by a court (and all avenues have been exhausted) they should just do it. If a family member of mine were impacted by a terrorist, paedophile, murderer...etc and Apple breaking the encryption of their phone would lead to their prosecution then I'd be cheering for it to happen.

The irony is that by Apple going public about this and branding it as a civil liberties matter:
1) They've made it public (it coulda just happened privately with 1 or 2 engineers doing it... and the public assuming the FBI had done it without assistance)
2) They probably still coulda argued the matter in court, but asked for it to be a private/unpublished judgment.
3) Apple and employees refusing to follow a court order could find themselves in contempt of court (I'd argue even Cook for going public and making it a trial by media).

I know kids on the web love to think they are all 'libertarian' experts, fighting for our freedom (just like Roger Ramjet). Unfortunately, this is a misplaced opinion that ignores the fact that (while this involves a phone), it's very similar to a normal search warrant.

This isn't an obscure case where the cops are fishing for damning evidence. While I don't want to predict the court's decision on these alleged terrorists - there's photos, videos and witnesses linking them with a serious terrorism-related offence. A precedent saying 'while the Legislation says such orders can be made, this is a libertarian state and we feel that privacy trumps all in criminal investigations' would be ridiculous. The cops are already against it because they need a mens rea and a an actua reus to prove the crime. I would suggest that they likely have a pretty conclusive actus reas and it's just the mental element that could fall apart. If we saw a guy killing lots of people but he got off (or got a significantly lower sentence) due to the absence of a text message where he's discussed his plans/intentions then that's not 'privacy'... that's a blanket defence of 'not gonna let you see my phone' for pretty well any crime. Like it or not, cops need search power for a reason... the cops doing a shake-down on you after you've been charged with a serious criminal offence is NOT breach of your civil rights.

Also, this is not 'creating' a back door. It's a back door that already exists (amongst others). IMO from the perspective of 'civil liberties'... this is far more preferable to the alternatives. They are:
- Making a strict liability offence where the action of refusing to self-incriminate yourself can be viewed as a guilty conscience.
- Forcing the accused to self-incriminate themselves by unclocking the phone using 'pursuasion'.
- The NSA monitoring all data and saying 'lol we don't NEED to unclock this MOFO, all your texts and e-mails are on our servers already and the cops can fiah through them all as they like'.

I'm NOT a civil libertarian... I'm a realist. However, I love laughing at the hypocricy from libertarians. All information MUST be free!!! Unless I'm getting investigated by the cops and ask to provide data in relation to a number of serious criminal charges... then it's a breach of my privacy.

To achieve true 'freedom' we need to submit to SOME laws (in order to prevent complete anarchy). When a group has been charged with serious terrorism offences, then the power to search their phone for very specific purposes of an investigation is simply not a landmark 'this totally restricts our freedom' matter. It's simply a bunch of lame libertarians jumping up and down about nothing because they have this warped, quasi-Lockean view that everybody has an immediate, inherent, unchallengeable property right to everything they possess. This is clearly not the case in reality. For example, the cops can take and destroy things like child porn, material that assists terrorism, weapons, drugs...etc.

If they couldn't (and no laws existed - which is the panacea of all 'libertarians'. Of course, this is a fun, pre-pubescent/undergrad theory. However, it is severely flawed because such an approach would lead to anarchy. I know 'lebertarians' think things loke:
- Tax should be illegal
- everything you possess should be bound to you (and only you) indefinitely, and unaccessable by others (unless you are the government conducting an investigation, or implementing a policy that requires a lawful, statutory breach of 'privacy')
- there should be no laws that restrict you from doing ANYTHING because we should all be 'free'

It's pretty obvious that when somebody kills a group of people (captured on camera) that they have taken away the freedom of others. By doing so, all civilised countries accept that they forfeit some things that they call 'rights'. The accused are likely sitting in a prison cell, in remand, awaiting a judicial decision because there are serious allegations against them. Without this power to take away 'rights'... police would be completely useless and you couldn't do ANYTHING without the fear of somebody shooting you (without punishment) because their interpretation of the Constitution (written or implied) is that the you've breached a civil liberty, and should be bound by what they consider 'natural justice'.

So rest assured... when somebody rapes your 2 y/o daughter and videos it... or kills your grandmother due to extremist political views:
- They CAN get arrested and searched
- they CAN be locked up
- they CAN have what a libertarian might consider other 'civil liberties' taken away
- for there to be a fair trial and adequate investigation, some of what a libertarian might consider 'rights' can be taken away
- 'but that breaches my privacy bro' can't be used as an excuse for conducting a lawful investigation... and that's what's being asked, is this lawful? The world's biggest company is entitled to challenge this in the highest courts of the land, and that's what they are doing. Since there is a separation of powers between congress, the president and the courts... this is not a pre-determined 'conspiracy' like it might be in countries favoured by libertarian activists (such as Russia and Ecuador).

 

[Jess13]

I was banned for a rules violation post in this thread, hence my late reply.

I guess you mean the meta-data collection.

Metadata collection’s part of it, yes. But it is way, way more than just metadata. It is content too and all kinds of other hacking and spying crimes, including the government forcingly-threatening major U.S. companies to participate in mass spying or be fined into bankruptcy and shut down.

Bust started it and yes Obama didn't end it. So what should we have done with Bush before?

Bush, like Obama, at minimum, should be locked in ADX Florence for life. But Bush deserves far worse. I hate Bush. Yes, Obama continued all Bush’s spying crimes and has further expanded those spying crimes worse than what Bush did. Case-in-point to illustrate this simply, is the PRISM program: Obama forced Apple into participating. (The last known tech company, in 2012.)

Also withholding a 9/11 report, did bush share it? Oh, did Bush lie about WMD which got us in the quagmire in the Middle-East to begin with?

No, Bush did not share it. Bush is the reason the 28 pages were initially classified and withheld; Obama is the reason the 28 pages remain classified and withheld. They both have committed treason by doing so. Read the 1861 New York Times article titled Treason Against the United States. The only real difference from that time, is that prosecutors are more open to plea bargained life sentence no parole instead of seeking death penalty. But prosecutors still seek death penalty for treason crimes. Knowingly protecting 9/11 co-conspirators for helping to mass murder thousands of your citizens, is treason. Bush and his administration did lie intentionally about Iraq, Saddam and WMDs then launched an illegal war of aggression: war crime(s). I protested the Iraq war from before it began and still demand they be held accountable for it. Obama protects them for it.

Overthrowing legitimate governments?

You d realize that the CIA and our government has been doing this for the last 65 years or so? We did it in Central America for the Dole Pineapple Company. We did it for Chaquita Banana. We overthrew Iran in the 1950's because they were aligning themselves with the Russians.

Yes I’m quite aware of many crimes CIA has been actively involved in since its inception. In my opinion, since its inception, CIA has been the biggest terrorist organization in modern history, only rivaled by the Cold War-era Soviet KGB. Decades of government subversions and overthrows, coups, and funding, arming, aiding terrorist organizations, death squads, paramilitary groups, dictatorships, etc. You might be able to argue that some objectives were “justified,” i.e., ‘they were trying to counter communism or serious communist threats!’ It still doesn’t make it right.

President's don't commit treason, they change policy.

You need to remember that and you'd sleep better. Quite frankly, I don't trust the lying lot of them.

Presidents do, and have committed treason. Bush and Obama included. There are people in government (and formerly) that I trust, and I support good people on either side, right or left.

 

[MasterRyu2011]

If the court forces Apple to do this and Apple declines, what would be the punishment? a fine. Apple should just pay the fine.

What is the price though? Let's say it's a $4 billion fine. Do you think the shareholders are going to let Apple pay that fine?

 

[Gutwrench]

This just in:

If Apple is Ordered to Unlock iPhone for FBI, Some Engineers Might Hide On the Dark Side of the Moon Until This Blows Over, or,

If Apple is Ordered to Unlock iPhone for FBI, Some Engineers Might Claim Famous Legal 'No Habla' Defense, or,

If Apple is Ordered to Unlock iPhone for FBI, Some Engineers Might Go to Work And Just Do Their Job.

The headline possibilities are unapologetically endless.

 

[Wondercow]

The irony is that by Apple going public about this and branding it as a civil liberties matter:
1) They've made it public (it coulda just happened privately with 1 or 2 engineers doing it... and the public assuming the FBI had done it without assistance)
2) They probably still coulda argued the matter in court, but asked for it to be a private/unpublished judgment.
3) Apple and employees refusing to follow a court order could find themselves in contempt of court (I'd argue even Cook for going public and making it a trial by media).

I'm just going to address a few things: Apple didn't go public, nor did they make it a 'trial by media'--the FBI did. Apple asked for it to be kept private but the FBI wanted the public engaged.

I know kids on the web love to think they are all 'libertarian' experts, fighting for our freedom (just like Roger Ramjet). Unfortunately, this is a misplaced opinion that ignores the fact that (while this involves a phone), it's very similar to a normal search warrant.

No, not at all. A normal search warrant does not require the manufacturer of a product to disassemble it. And, if you want to equate the FBI's search of the phone to any other search, then you must accept that if I write in code and law enforcement can't decipher said code, then they simply don't get my written data. If I build a safe that they can't penetrate then the simply don't get the contents, and, in the history of the U.S., no safe manufacturer has ever been required through any kind of law to help authorities open their product.

 

[firewood]

... when somebody ... kills your grandmother ... they CAN be locked up ...

But, in the U.S. at least, if they are citizens, they still can't be forced to testify against themselves. Even violent murderers have 1st Amendment rights (and perhaps other court protected Constitutional Rights as well). In fact, if the courts determine that all the evidence proving that they killed your grandmother was collected in violation of those Constitutional rights, they might not even be locked up, but let to walk free. Thus, Constitutional Rights trumps even potential murder convictions. In the U.S. at least. Perhaps you are from some country without civil rights?

 

[stylinexpat]

I'm just saying there are people who want to control others.

Yes.. These days many. They want control to see what is on your smartphone when ever they wish along with access to it for when ever they want. Aside from that they want place a ban on what you can protest or boycott as well. I posted something similar in another thread. America is becoming very in American these days. This is not what America was built upon. People should stand behind Apple and back Apple on this case. If everyone remains quiet everyone will lose all their rights slowly and start living life like they are in a communist country/state or one run under dictatorship.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/remember-the-famous-palestinian-israeli-maps.1962149/

http://reason.com/blog/2016/03/17/u-california-banning-anti-zionism-campus

 

[Tech198]

Lets all go back to using flip phones..... They'll teach the FBI. If they insist on getting access, then that won't have access.

Phil Collins has allot to answer for.

 

[nicho]

Lets all go back to using flip phones..... That'll teach the FBI. If they insist on getting access, then that won't have access.

Weren't flip phones a lot easier to hack...

 

[Tech198]

true, yet the reach of how much u could do with as many ways from a security perspective is sufficiently reduced.

I have a question for everyone:

Let's say that Doctor Evil paid an Apple employee a bazillion dollars to sneak out a copy of the brute force iOS version that Apple kept for investigating iPhones in its possession.

Since Apple's public servers would refuse to sign it, it could not be installed on anything outside of Apple. Isn't that correct?

I would say correct.... phones would need to be updated to accept.

but whats not possible today may be possible tomorrow..

 

[djgamble]

But, in the U.S. at least, if they are citizens, they still can't be forced to testify against themselves. Even violent murderers have 1st Amendment rights (and perhaps other court protected Constitutional Rights as well). In fact, if the courts determine that all the evidence proving that they killed your grandmother was collected in violation of those Constitutional rights, they might not even be locked up, but let to walk free. Thus, Constitutional Rights trumps even potential murder convictions. In the U.S. at least. Perhaps you are from some country without civil rights?

1. First amendment is freedom of speech and religion. The court's gonna think you're a nut job if you're charged with murder and you say 'this was me expressing my freedom of speech and religion'. If anything, this would help prove the mens rea because your motive for killing was quasi-religious/political.
2. While irrelemant to this matter [the first amendment that is], the first amendment is not as broad as most web kiddies/libertarians think. In the USA you can actually get charged with 'obscene' speech.

This matter has nothing to do with the constitution. The constitution provides heads of power for subordinate laws - the application of which is being challenged. In this case, the USA has signed up to the Cybercrime Convention, which involves giving courts the power to compel private persons to decrypt devices that could be used as evidence.

Think about it this way... the cops can bash down your door if they have a warrant. I really don't think that 'bashing down the door' of a suspected criminal's phone brings up broader constitutional issues. Unless you are saying that the Cybercrime Convention is unconstitutional? You'd better start reading it because even if one part is unconstitutional, the other parts of the Acts still stand.

A leading figure within Silk Road was Australian. The US Government used the Cybercrime Convention to decrypt Silk Road's backend, dox all of the leaders and deport this guy from Australia to the USA, where he was convicted. This was all held to be lawful (the defence of 'you're not allowed to decrypt my gear' was given... as it is by many criminals [mostly paedophiles] but this law has regularly been upheld).

 

[vampyr]

I have a couple of questions???:

Why couldn't Apple develop something ONLY for that specific phone... and then destroy all information pertaining to the work developed to circumvent the security??

Finally, from what I have been reading, the FBI is NOT requesting that Apple develop an OS that is less secure for ALL FUTURE PHONES... only requesting that Apple cooperate in retrieving the information from that one particular phone.
So why are articles like this on this website being written as though Apple is going to 'push out' an update to everyone's phone that can make it easier for the FBI to access your phone??

So I'm kind of confused as to why this is a big dead.
1.) it's just 1 phone. The ability to 'crack it' would require physical access to your phone, and if the FBI come knocking at your door. Then be smart and take a hammer to your iphone.

2.) For the millions of iPhones that are currently already owned by 'would be' terrorists... I would imagine that any updates being pushed by Apple could simply be ignored.

3.) Finally, people make up these ideas that if Apple somehow creates a 'backdoor' to their iPhone, that suddenly the code will fall into every cyber criminals usb thumbdrive. Seriously... if Apple engineers can do it, what makes them any different from perhaps Google engineers secretly reverse engineering iOS and creating a backdoor as well?


My point is... I understand the concern over security. But the FBI still needs to have physical access to your phone to attempt to gain access. And unless you are one of those people who have a reason to worry about the FBI seizing your property, I wouldn't worry too much about your phone becoming a problem.

Truth is... if you are really that concerned about your privacy and security... why are you even using a device that tracks your every movement??

 

[firewood]

This matter has nothing to do with the constitution.

Obama's own Constitutional law professor thinks otherwise. Tell, which law school do you teach at, before I consider your theory ahead of hers?
[doublepost=1458594728][/doublepost]

Why couldn't Apple develop something ONLY for that specific phone... and then destroy all information pertaining to the work developed to circumvent the security??

What's to prevent the Chinese government (and thousands of other EU, U.S. federal and state prosecutors) from making the exact same request, after they find out that these legal requests are granted (with an nice existing precedent to use), and that the task is provably possible?