Justice Department Officially Drops Lawsuit Against Apple in Ongoing iPhone Unlocking Dispute [Updated]

[teslo]

I'm all for privacy and security, but since it can also be used against us, there needs to be a way for law enforcement to do its job and not be frustrated by super high level encryption. My position is that with the right mix of legal protections and technology, a reasonable balance can be achieved. Maybe not perfect on either side, but a reasonable, workable balance.

what you're advocating for is a giant leap and a bound towards policing our thoughts and non-digital communications. just because there's now a microphone (we privately bought) next to our mouths 24/7 and there's a tiny HD (that we privately bought) that stores our communications doesn't mean the government should be able to legally demand this information in a way that endangers all future safeguards.

this 'middle ground' you keep saying you're looking for doesn't exist. there's a New World in town and we can't create laws for it by slapping modifications on to old ones that were written when "Digital" wasn't even a viable real-world concept.

 

[rowspaxe]

Traitorous fascists. I look forward to the coming civil war.

Now in progress in Northern Europe.

 

[Larry-K]

Except... Check out this recent article. After reading it all I can do is shake my head and look forward to an Administration change.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...-use-court-system-again-to-defeat-encryption/

Careful what you wish for, you have seen what's running, I presume.

 

[dk001]

Careful what you wish for, you have seen what's running, I presume.

Yes.
Crook Clinton - Unless she has, and even then not likely, a full majority in both houses.
Ego Trump - Can you spell "chaos"? Sure you can. He'll be so into fence and empire building this won't even make the radar. Especially on his iPhone.

 

[kdarling]

But if it only takes five minutes to copy the phone and then break the encryption at leisure down the road, than maybe that happens to me next time I travel to China or Russia.

Don't worry. Practically speaking, that's impossible without the iPhone in their hands.

Your passcode is mixed with an id that is hardcoded into your iPhone, but is not directly readable. Without that id, it could literally take billions of years to crack your files.

That's why the FBI needed code that would run on the device itself.

(Unless someone developed a way of reading the id remotely from the chip's electrons while you were going through Chinese or Russian Customs.)

The problem with all these hypothetical situations is that they are so far fetched. It starts with somehow the bad guy has set up and done or is about to do this amazingly bad thing, but we've caught him just enough to have access to his phone but not quite enough to have any other way to stop him.

A primary purpose of reading a bad guy's phone / computer / mail / diary is to possibly find out who else is involved and what other plans have been made.

Except... Check out this recent article. After reading it all I can do is shake my head and look forward to an Administration change.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...-use-court-system-again-to-defeat-encryption/

I can't think of any candidate who would not continue the same policy, at least under seal where Apple cannot protest in public.

If you notice, almost every elected president suddenly turns a shade grayer, and stops yapping about meaningless stuff so much, somewhere between Christmas and their inauguration. That's because that's when they get their first security briefings from all the various alphabet agencies, and learn what's really threatening our country.

 

[2010mini]

Your unimaginative vacuous mind is showing...

Your deft ability to avoid a logical, well thought out discussion has already been shown.

 

[Nuvi]

Unless your a member of isis in Belgium

Terrorism is not a real threat. The number of people ISIS clowns have managed to kill is statistically insignificant. Every two minutes people are injured or killed in DUI accidents. Every day 36 Americans are shot and killed (in 2015 / excluding suicides). Thats over 13 000 people killed with guns per year in US alone (other murders are not included). So, if terrorists manage to kill only insignificant number of people then why should we weaken the privacy that is providing us with meaningful security (financial info, trade secrets etc.) If someone is really worried about terrorists then they need a reality check. The real danger is somewhere else.

 

[Larry-K]

Yes.
Crook Clinton - Unless she has, and even then not likely, a full majority in both houses.
Ego Trump - Can you spell "chaos"? Sure you can. He'll be so into fence and empire building this won't even make the radar. Especially on his iPhone.

How about "End-Times" Ted? Not a big fan of the Dominionists, amazed he's what passes for the "Establishment" candidate, I prefer my theocracies at least a continent away.

I'm sure if Trump gets in, the whole country will look like Atlantic City, shortly. Maybe with very tall, south-facing casinos.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

That is valid while you're alive, not once you're dead like that terrorist is.

Tell that to Kissinger, hahaha.

 

[tgara]

what you're advocating for is a giant leap and a bound towards policing our thoughts and non-digital communications. just because there's now a microphone (we privately bought) next to our mouths 24/7 and there's a tiny HD (that we privately bought) that stores our communications doesn't mean the government should be able to legally demand this information in a way that endangers all future safeguards.

this 'middle ground' you keep saying you're looking for doesn't exist. there's a New World in town and we can't create laws for it by slapping modifications on to old ones that were written when "Digital" wasn't even a viable real-world concept.

Nobody is talking about policing thoughts. That's tin foil hat nonsense. But let me as you this legitimate question: how would you address the issue? How would you keep encrypted communications, materials, and other personal data safe and secure for law abiding citizens to prevent access by hackers and other thieves, while at the same time allowing law enforcement and national security services to access the encrypted data of a thief or terrorist when lawfully authorized to do so in order to keep us safe?
[doublepost=1459289481][/doublepost]

Yet you have had no counter to it except for assumptions you draw up in your head instead of looking at the incident on the whole, and relying on your biases instead.

Yet you accuse me of having sloppy thinking and lazy analysis. Case in point: the 'untenable and derelict' position of not trading security and privacy to save people from dying. I'm sure you remember that quote from the aforementioned 1st US Postmaster General, because he maintained that same 'untenable and derelict' position I do, which became one of the founding principles of this country.

You may want to examine your own 'lazy analysis and sloppy thinking' before accusing others of the same.

BL.

Sorry, I left out obtuse posts with no relevance to the topic at hand. That too.

 

[bradl]

Sorry, I left out obtuse posts with no relevance to the topic at hand. That too.

Let me step back a bit and climb back up to FL410 for this.

You don't know who our 1st US Postmaster General is, do you?

BL.

 

[JohnGrey]

Nobody is talking about policing thoughts. That's tin foil hat nonsense. But let me as you this legitimate question: how would you address the issue? How would you keep encrypted communications, materials, and other personal data safe and secure for law abiding citizens to prevent access by hackers and other thieves, while at the same time allowing law enforcement and national security services to access the encrypted data of a thief or terrorist when lawfully authorized to do so in order to keep us safe?

That's the sort of neoconservative warhawk alarmism that I grew up hearing in the eighties. Back then, it was fighting the Soviet menace, and it was no holds barred, law be damned, and despite the fact that the prevailing political 'wisdom' nearly took us to the brink of nuclear armageddon and unleashed consequences which reverberate even to this day; a prime example was the pressure put on the Shah of Iran to flood the market with oil to drive down the oil prices that kept the Soviet economy afloat. It also deflated the Iranian economy and directly contributed to the Islamic Revolution.

You ask what we should do. The answer is simple: you must cut off all aid to states which do not unequivocally condemn terrorism, repeal all treaties and trade deals with benefit those nations which refuse, and there must be concerted efforts toward legitimate energy independence, primarily pebble-bed molten-salt thorium reactors which are far safer, cheaper and more reliable that uranium/heavy water reactors (the only reason to choose that sort given the dangers is to produce fissile plutonium) and which operate at a temperature which allows for the liquifaction of coal into oil for transportation. If you take away the wealth of these nations, then they will not have the money to attack anyone and diplomatic pressure can actually be exerted on hotbeds of Wahhabism like Saudi Arabia which heretofore has not been done because of their oil reserves.

 

[Rocketman]

Notice: It is not right that persons receive benefits for zero input or citizenship. It is not right to say if you come here illegally you should be made legal with no recourse. Selfies are evil. And more.

 

[Buran]

This can already be done with a Configuration profile. I have mine set to 5.

And how does one do this? There is no way to do it in the preferences on the phone and no way to do it in iTunes that I have ever seen.

 

[hudson1]

Cellebrite is located in Israel but it's actually a subsidiary of Sun Corporation which is Japanese company. Anyway, this had nothing to do with ability to hack a mobile device. This was all about harnessing fear of terrorism so that laws could be changed and privacy of every person in this planet could be reduced (if US manages to squeeze in backdoor then every single country will want one too).

The "fear of terrorism"? How about the stark reality of terrorism? In the past month or so, over a thousand people have been killed by Islamic terrorists. I personally have stood in four places where there were later terrorist bombings. That makes it pretty darn real to me if no one else.

 

[Gutwrench]

Do you really believe that the iPhones being sold in China or Russia don't have any backdoor for the government to snoop on its citizen? Do you think for one minute that the Chinese Communist Party would let a locked down, encrypted device to be sold in China with no possibility for the government to spy on its citizen?

I would guess China can learn about every byte of data that flows to and from a cell phone within their borders; so chances are, the government doesn't need to have a back door.

 

[alexgowers]

Looks like the iPhone is not as secure as Apple is telling everyone. So much for their attempts to dominate the lucrative terrorist cellphone market.

I think it safe to say it was a very risky and probably physical attack involving de-encapsulating chips. It's not like they have a backdoor or anything. iOS is the most secure thing out there.

 

[Gutwrench]

Let me step back a bit and climb back up to FL410 for this.

You don't know who our 1st US Postmaster General is, do you?

BL.

Please, enough with the derp.

 

[hiddenmarkov]

The "fear of terrorism"? How about the stark reality of terrorism? In the past month or so, over a thousand people have been killed by Islamic terrorists. I personally have stood in four places where there were later terrorist bombings. That makes it pretty darn real to me if no one else.

And in other news people died to violent but not terror related crimes too. Not trying to minimalize those lost to terrorism but as mentioned before end of day its just another statistic competing with other statistics. And its at the lower end of them.

I say this as a government worker overseas. Logically I am higher target chance. Not hard to spot or track (tall big white guy in a Japanese prefecture where you can assume most white, black, Hispanic foreigners are military related...I don't live in say Tokyo region where they could just as well be an English teacher from Europe). Easier base access if they opt to kill me and take my ID and car with base plates (2 year ID cycle, spit some lines about yeah I was a fat ass back then but that jenny craig does wonders in 1.5 years).

TBH I have more concerns for a lack of better wording about random crime on a US trip I am planning. I may fly into Newark. ranked high or has been #1 for car jacks in the past. Wrong turn out the airport in an area I never saw before ..lots of things can happen. I hope to see NYC...I will roll my dice on those odds for street crime. Drunk drivers, sleepy truck drivers, careless/reckless drivers at 70 MPH and higher on US highways....face those odds as well.

 

[tuxon86]

I would guess China can learn about every byte of data that flows to and from a cell phone within their borders; so chances are, the government doesn't need to have a back door.

They may need the files that are stored locally, just like the FBI did. And since they are built by foxconn how can you be certain that there isn't already a CCP required backdoor. Do you think the NSA is the only one fiddling with communication devises?
[doublepost=1459295036][/doublepost]

Terrorism is not a real threat. The number of people ISIS clowns have managed to kill is statistically insignificant. Every two minutes people are injured or killed in DUI accidents. Every day 36 Americans are shot and killed (in 2015 / excluding suicides). Thats over 13 000 people killed with guns per year in US alone (other murders are not included). So, if terrorists manage to kill only insignificant number of people then why should we weaken the privacy that is providing us with meaningful security (financial info, trade secrets etc.) If someone is really worried about terrorists then they need a reality check. The real danger is somewhere else.

Why don't you go and tell that to a grieving relative of one of the victims, directly in his or her face and see what that will get you...

 

[Gutwrench]

They may need the files that are stored locally, just like the FBI did. And since they are built by foxconn how can you be certain that there isn't already a CCP required backdoor. Do you think the NSA is the only one fiddling with communication devises?

Honest answer, I'm not concerned one bit with what China does in their country in this regard. Those who are should probably not seek a VISA. No?

 

[Michael Scrip]

No, they realized they were gonna lose in court and that's not an option for them. They'll be getting the laws they want passed in some other way, either though another case or just by going to congress with a bill.

Gosh... if the FBI thought they were gonna lose this case even though it involved an iPhone and a terrorist who killed 14 people... what is it gonna take for the FBI to actually win against Apple?

 

[robeddie]

Why don't you go and tell that to a grieving relative of one of the victims, directly in his or her face and see what that will get you...

Loaded argument alert!
Tell families of drunk home invasion victims that they're numbers are relatively low, tell victims of building fires that that's not a major concern. If you base laws on the few who have been victimized by A, B, or C, D, or Z, regardless how statistically it may rank in terms of actualy threat to the general population ... then almost EVERYTHING would be outlawed and every person would be monitored and refused any rights ... in the interest of keeping them safe.

 

[69650]

There is a difference between protecting civil liberties and aiding criminals. I don't think Apple has the right balance on this one.

 

[TheJae]

Check and Mate.

The DoJ dropped this because if they didn't, they would have to disclose how Cellibrite did it in the court case. So this isn't too surprising.

Actually, why can't Apple sue them back for breach of EULA? Am referring to Psytar, while very different cases but undying issue is still the same, unauthorized modification of software.