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Tim Cook: NSA 'Would Have to Cart Us Out in a Box' for Access to Servers

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As part of its publicity push ahead of its interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook tonight, ABC News has posted an excerpt of Cook's discussion with ABC News reporter David Muir.

In the clip, Cook discusses the NSA's surveillance operations and says that the Government does not have any direct access to Apple's servers and that "they would have to cart us out in a box" for that to happen.
DAVID MUIR: "What is your biggest concern -- with the surveillance program here in this country?"

TIM COOK: "I've been pushing very, very hard to open the books and be totally transparent. Much of what has been said isn't true; there is no back door. The government doesn't have access to our servers. They would have to cart us out in a box for that. And that just will not happen. We feel that -- strongly about it. But I do want to be transparent, because I think transparency would help put everything in perspective."

DAVID MUIR: "Do you think Americans, Tim, would be more at ease if you could tell them more?"

TIM COOK: "I do."
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​
This morning, ABC ran a longer preview of the interview during Good Morning America and the full piece will air tonight at 6:30 PM Eastern on World News with Diane Sawyer.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Tim Cook: NSA 'Would Have to Cart Us Out in a Box' for Access to Servers
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/24/tim-cook-nsa-in-a-box/
The problem is, you only get one shot at trust. If you violate it, it's gone.

Even if the NSA / the government promised they'd stop indiscriminate spying/eavesdropping, would anyone believe them now?
 
I think everyone would me more at ease if you told us since the NSA can also get data from other citizens in other countries.
 
Why is this shuffled off to "politics"? Presidents and congresspeople of both parties (including independents) have supported and enabled these programs.

Anyway, how does Tim Cook know there is no "back door"? We've already seen how the NSA and other similar agencies can gain access to data without being detected. And as noted in a comment above, now they are intercepting iPhones before they even get to customers, that's about as big of a door as you could imagine. Also, most major companies, and this probably includes Apple, do not encrypt their data when they send it between their own servers (which they do all the time). The NSA has been tapping these intracorporate lines as well, probably without the knowledge of those companies at all.

When they get their claws into major providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc., they basically have access to everything traveling over the internet in the U.S. And we now know that the NSA paid off the people who made RSA encryption to insert a back door so they can break that encryption at will. And if you think that's the only thing of that type they have going, you are very naive.
 
You don't need to fish from the private lake when the public rivers flow both in and out of it.
 
HiRez said:
Why is this shuffled off to "politics"? Presidents and congresspeople of both parties (including independents) have supported and enabled these programs.

Anyway, how does Tim Cook know there is no "back door"? We've already seen how the NSA and other similar agencies can gain access to data without being detected. And as noted in a comment above, now they are intercepting iPhones before they even get to customers, that's about as big of a door as you could imagine. Also, most major companies, and this probably includes Apple, do not encrypt their data when they send it between their own servers (which they do all the time). The NSA has been tapping these intracorporate lines as well, probably without the knowledge of those companies at all.

When they get their claws into major providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc., they basically have access to everything traveling over the internet in the U.S. And we now know that the NSA paid off the people who made RSA encryption to insert a back door so they can break that encryption at will. And if you think that's the only thing of that type they have going, you are very naive.
Click to expand...

They've done it before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A . And I'm willing to bet they're still doing it.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
There is no back door.

There is only a front door, that the NSA can access once they have physical access to an iPhone.
Click to expand...

I would guess the NSA approach is more "drive by" than asking permission. iOS isn't that hard to hack if encryption is turned on. I'd grease that if an Apple Beta suddenly plugged a hole the NSA was using Tim (or Legal) might get an National Security Letter to quash the patch. But stuff like that is going to go thru legal directly and those come with a gag order.. So Legal cannot even tell the CEO they recieved such a letter.. The manager just pulls the patch as ordered and nobody knows.

Much of the NSA's efforts are at the Telcos because that's only 4-10 CEOs they have to bring in. Tim might get passing updates that the NSA has hooks on his bandwidth... And the NSA sends a NSL to tell Apple "they didn't see anything".

Personal opinion is that the NSA keeps CEOs like Tim in the dark, or gagged with NSL for small things. The NSA then drops the "info bomb" of way too much knowledge on a handful of other workers/CEOs they can bully, badger, bribe and bring in so deep they'll get criminal charges... Like the Quest CEO A few years back made their point with "insider trading" prosecution.
 
Why would they need an exploit the actual product, or even OS when they already have direct access to the internet traffic from ISPs?

Theres no reason to have a backdoor.
 
If you think your iPhone was intercepted by the NSA, hacked and then sent back on its way to you, you probably think you are far more important than you really are. Unless of course you are a sociopath or terrorist who actually does have malicious thoughts and plans against society.

But chances are, the 99.999% of the population is neither being spied on, nor having their conversations taped or iPhones hacked so the government can learn all about your boring life.

I agree that the government has gone much too far in what it does and how it does it, but I'm not just talking spying. There is so much waste in government - and it has nothing to do with what party is in power. The power doesn't exist in a party, it exists in the overall government and continues to build and grow regardless of who is in power.
 
jmgregory1 said:
If you think your iPhone was intercepted by the NSA, hacked and then sent back on its way to you, you probably think you are far more important than you really are. Unless of course you are a sociopath or terrorist who actually does have malicious thoughts and plans against society.
Click to expand...

It's no secret the data is being collected, whether or not they are actually looking at it is a different story.
 
NT1440 said:
Why would they need an exploit the actual product, or even OS when they already have direct access to the internet traffic from ISPs?

Theres no reason to have a backdoor.
Click to expand...

Yep. It's really that simple.

The communication pipeline will always be a weak spot in any plots and organizations.

With the ISP's and Telco's in their back pocket, the NSA already has the biggest and baddest collection source in their back pocket.
 
I think a CEO of a company as big as Apple would have to say what he can to keep the customer base at ease with using products which is why I remain skeptical for the NSA not having a way of or Apple allowing access to user information and data.

Honestly, I don't use iCloud to sync certain kinds of information and glad that I haven't especially since Snowden leaked all of that information.
 
Finally Cook is wearing glasses Apple engineers would have designed (if Apple did glasses)... Lindberg FTW!

Wait, what was this vid about again? :p
 
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Porco said:
You don't need to fish from the private lake when the public rivers flow both in and out of it.
Click to expand...

I think this is the key right here.

Maybe the NSA has (or doesn't have) access to the data that's stored inside the iPhone in your pocket, or the computer sitting on your desk, or Apple's servers inside their server facility.

But all of those things are connected by a very large, very public pipe.

And all anyone has to do is monitor the traffic flowing around on that big fat pipe.
 
jmgregory1 said:
If you think your iPhone was intercepted by the NSA, hacked and then sent back on its way to you, you probably think you are far more important than you really are. Unless of course you are a sociopath or terrorist who actually does have malicious thoughts and plans against society.
Click to expand...

Am I not important enough to keep my personal data private because I want it to stay that way?
 
It's nice that they're trying but you've got to be a fool not to see how much advanced technology exists today. The ability to tap into every single mobile phone on the planet has existed for some time now. Warm and fuzzy PR move though, I'm sure there will be people out there that believe the corporate tag line.
 
As others have pointed out, they don't need to get direct access, only intercept the data on its way to Apple or between data centers. Also, if dev center hack is any indication, if people are intent on getting information, they'll get it. Apple may not be willingly giving it to them, but there may be secret hacks taking place. It's unfortunate, but I'm not sure you can really say that they have to cart you out in a box anymore...
 
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