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U.S. Government Calls Apple's Opposition to iPhone Unlocking Order a 'Diversion,' Says Fears Are 'Overblown'
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Fbi is desperate. Very desperate... To the point that they look like desperation house wives.
For now. I’m sure that the early implementations of Open firmware could be bypassed by booting from a CD or some method very mundane?
Device level encryption with a password to boot or with all upgrade modes disabled unless phone is unlocked first.
I have a Nexus 6P. You cannot unlock the bootloader unless you have access to the booted device.
When you unlock the bootloader you wipe the device.
Apple only needs to change the way the bootloader functions and close all back doors.
An example:
They only need to have a flag that can only be set by a phone that has the password/fingerprint correctly entered.
The flag is not persistent and only survives a single warm boot to upgrade.
There are many ways to close all backdoors.
Every computer security professional: It most assuredly will
FBI: You guys don't know what you are talking about
If absolute security and privacy is their raison d’etre, why haven’t they done it before?
It's not only that.
They are looking for a precedent. Once Apple does that for DoJ, any foreign government could ask the same .... even Chinese gov....
This is key. The FBI assertions are (1) this is only about this one phone, (2) Apple will destroy the software after this one use, (3) it is only asking for 10 engineers' time for 3 weeks (they chose to quote the low-end estimate of 6 engineers for 2 weeks, but even that is prior to QA and FBI training as Apple detailed it). They then "prove" that the AWA law applies to this case by pointing to previous cases which were "almost" as relevant and "not much" lower in cost to comply with. Which is exactly Apple's point: if Apple does this then the "precedent" bar changes one more rung, and the FBI and various DAs already have tens of thousands of iPhones lined up for this process afterwards. The cost of setting this precedent is not just 30 engineer-weeks, but at least three hundred thousand engineer-weeks, which is to say, 6,000 engineer-years. This is a multi-million-dollar ask, and that is the low-end estimate just of the existing phones the FBI and other federal authorities have lined up.
So, of course, Apple can't devote a team of ten engineers for the next 600 years just to keep recreating the same hack for each individual phone then immediately securely destroy the hack as the FBI asserts is easy to do (because the FBI is full of idiots, apparently). Instead, they would need to create this software once with proper engineering procedures, then keep it on hand for the next ten thousand phones. Which is exactly what Apple says is completely untenable from a software perspective: they need to keep s global "free entry" key under wraps at the Apple campus. This is not a business Apple is in and not one they seek to be in. It is a completely unreasonable request for them to be conscripted to be in this business from now through the end of time by the FBI.
It's been half-gone for years, but we'll find out what's left in early November. In the meantime, why aren't the feds just getting data from PRISM? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism-slide-7.jpg
Is there no longer inter-departmental cooperation? Maybe they should work on getting a key to Room 641A instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
The precedent. You are not considering the effect of setting such a precedent. ANY government agency, from ANY government, will ask the same. Sooner or lather our security will be breached.
Such an ignorant comment....
I don't like Irish government, at all. They are playing a dirty game here in Europe.
But Apple isn't evading any taxes. They are paying accordingly with the agreement with Irish government.
That kind of agreement shouldn't exist since the beginning, so blame Ireland for that....
But don't say TIM COOK IS EVADING TAXES because that's plain false.
I absolutely do not condone Apple being able to compel the FBI to unlock FBIphones either. Happy now?
How much consideration was given to the technical effects of carrying out this order before the order was granted? The FBI went to a judge with a request, and the judge immediately granted that request. The judge didn't even ask Apple for its analysis on the request when it was granted!
To claim that the government is the right place for this capability to be, you have to somehow reconcile the reckless, political, and fear-mongering behavior of the FBI in this one case, and the fact that the judge fell for it hook line and sinker, with your faith that the need to obtain a warrant is protection enough.
The only arguments that Apple legally has are that they are being compelled to do something which is out of bounds of the law and precedent. If they do it this time, that argument completely and permanently goes away. Without that argument, the judge's initial order here stands, so by extension the next ten thousand times this request is made by a federal authority with enough vociferous fear mongering that a judge falls for it, Apple needs to comply and has no grounds to ask that the order be vacated.
To me, the facts of this case and the process it has followed have completely destroyed my faith that the need for a warrant is anything more than a pro forma fig leaf of protection of privacy and constitutional rights. I don't see how someone could look at this and still remain convinced that the system here is "working".
I think Apple has been trying to balance security and end user convenience. I expect iOS 10 and the next iPhone release to really tighten the screws. I think Apple is even more motivated now.
I wanted to keep precedent out of the discussion becasue I felt that has been discussed rather accurately in the multitude of discussions on the subject. In fact, I think precedent is about the only thing the community (here on MR) has gotten right. People largely still seem to be calling this some sort of back door to be built into all iPhones, and that really isn't the case.
I don;t disagree about your statements on precedent at all. But if this does go through, that doesn't mean all of our phones are going to have some new and innate vulnerability that wasn't there before. A lot of people seem to think that's how it has to work. I can look back on the last half dozen respones to this thread and note this erroneous thought process. I will add that Apple has a lot to do with that too.
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In the US we use "tax evasion", probably erroneously, but politicians do ti too, so it has sort of stuck. Ireland is a tax haven that Apple (and other companies) take advantage of, among others. The entire idea behind a tax haven is keeping money (assets) where you pay the least to own them. It is completely legal but, depending on who you ask, considered a loophole that needs closing (and we can get into an incredibly large politcal discussion on how to close that and why and how it would or wouldn't work).
Anyway, the terminology used is probably technically wrong, but has been used incorrectly so much here, that it really doesn't mean what it is supposed to mean anymore. Evading taxes implies you;ve done something illegal. Apple hasn't (at least not to our knowledge or in the context we are talking about).
Prism? Why not the aliens caged in the Area 51? They should have the same probability to have the same data....
So read the post again. Properly. Now read it again. Properly. Where did I say he was evading taxes?
Oh and BY THE WAY, ignorance of the law is no defence. If Apple have cooked up an illegal agreement they are guilty. The agreememt pretty sure is illegal and this is what the EU are saying.
If the Irish government are playing a dirty game surely you can see that they have to have players on the other team? That other team is Apple. They are entering into an agreement that sees billions of dollars being ‘cleaned', Apple should/could have said to the EU - This is what we are proposing to do, is it Ok?
If all was above board then Apple and the irish would be fine.
Complying with the spirit of the law means not funnelling billions through a small company in which you don’t even have any bloody stores. Please tell me you can see that.
A parallel that you may or not agree with;
- I drive down a road and go over the posted limit of 60mph - I get done for excess speed. That’s the letter of the law.
- I drive down a road and stay under the posted limit of 60mph - I still get done for excess speed but it was due to road conditions. That’s the spirit of the law.
Please don’t suggest that he doesn’t know what he should be doing.
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In the UK we have a distinction.
Tax Evasion means you’ve done something most definitely illegal.
Tax avoidance means you’ve done something at worst underhanded possibly but still legal.
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Oh there's a distinction here too. I'm just saying colloquialism has taking this over, somewhat. Saying someone is evading taxes, outside of some form of legal document, doesn't necessarily imply laws were broken.
Maybe I’m being a bit pedantic then but TC et al are for sure avoiding taxes. Depending on the outcome of this Europe thing thay may also have even been evading tazes.
EDIT : Sorry, evading taxes, not tazes. I wouldn’t blame him for avoiding tazes.
Someone said "the government" can't do that. My reply was in that context. The Legislature is certainly one of the branches of "the government".
No one is asserting that the terrorist's rights are being violated here. The argument is that the justification for the order - the All Writs Act - does not apply here because (1) Apple is too far removed from the crime and the phone for the act to apply, (2) the work being required of Apple is more significant than that required of any previous assertion of the AWA authority, and significantly so, (3) requiring this work violate's Apple's first amendment rights by forcing speech (SCOTUS has previously ruled that computer code is 'speech' and that compelling speech is a violation of the first amendment), (4) forcing Apple to do this would violate Apple's fifth amendment rights to avoid being deprived of property without due process of law, (5) does not apply to this case because Congress considered the legal area and did not write a law to allow what the FBI is asking today in CALEA as well as the never-emerged-from-committee CALEA II, and (6) can not be done to the specs the FBI has specified because the precedent being set would require Apple to devote the same unprecedented resources for each of the remaining tens of thousands of phones in custody and awaiting unlocking.
That is an argument that Apple has also advanced, although it doesn't necessarily apply directly to the law in question. The applicability of the AWA law is really Apple's trump card in the court; the other arguments are interesting and might sway judgement in a near-wash scenario, but primarily are being advanced for public consumption and as prelude to the inevitable Congressional fight once the court agrees with Apple's cast of the AWA's authority in this specific case.
Maybe they are. I don't know for a fact. I was just providing some insure on how the phrase may be used as I know we aren't all native English speakers. And even those that are can find that the phrase may be used differently depending on what part of the world it's coming from.
I don't know enough about the Irish situation or law to give a very valid opinion. I do know there are absolutely valid and legal tax havens that we Americans refer to as tax evasion despite that not being a truly correct term or phrase.
If you follow any of the current (sometimes scary sometimes funny) presidential primary campaigning and debates you will probably hear this very phrase used in the context I am describing once or twice in any given day. At least from a certain candidate who I'll leave unnamed as to not start going (further) off topic.
Yeah I gotcha. We’re all human, that’s the rpoblem.
Know what’s funny, there are lots of people that move from business into politics. Whilst in business they moan about red tape and how the system and laws are outdated. When they get into government they suddenly go quiet on the subject.