Apple Engineers Contemplate Refusing To Write Code Demanded By Justice Department
from the well-this-could-get-interesting dept
In all the discussions about Apple v. the FBI, a few people occasionally ask what would happen if Apple's engineers just refused to write the code demanded (some also ask about writing the code, but purposely messing it up). And now it appears that at least some Apple engineers are thinking about just this scenario. According to the NY Times:Apple employees are already discussing what they will do if ordered to help law enforcement authorities. Some say they may balk at the work, while others may even quit their high-paying jobs rather than undermine the security of the software they have already created, according to more than a half-dozen current and former Apple employees.As the NY Times notes, these details certainly add some pretty hefty weight to the First Amendment arguments about "compelled speech" that Apple has made (and that the EFF doubled down on in its amicus brief). As for what then would happen... that's up to the court, but it's likely that the court would find Apple in contempt and/or start fining it. But that still leaves open the question of how does it comply if not a single engineer is willing to help out.
This particular legal dispute gets more interesting day by day...
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Filed Under: all writs act, code, doj, engineers, ios, privacy, refuse, security
Companies: apple
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Eminent Domain: Now for property and people.
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As for what then would happen... that's up to the court, but it's likely that the court would find Apple in contempt and/or start fining it. But that still leaves open the question of how does it comply if not a single engineer is willing to help out.
Where the court/FBI would be in the position of forcing Apple directly, and their workers indirectly, to do work for them under the threat of massive fines for refusing to comply.
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Once those engineers are charged, tried and convicted for criminal contempt of court, they could be compelled to write that code.
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And even if it's not circular, if they simply ignore your sentence of "write this code" that you gave as punishment for their contempt for ignoring your first order, what are you going to do, find them in double contempt?
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6. Disclaimer of Warranties.
YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT USE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU. EXCEPT FOR THE LIMITED WARRANTY ON MEDIA SET FORTH ABOVE AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, AND APPLE AND APPLE’S LICENSORS (COLLECTIVELY REFERRED TO AS “APPLE” FOR THE PURPOSES OF SECTIONS 6 AND 7) HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE APPLE SOFTWARE, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OF ACCURACY, OF QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. APPLE DOES NOT WARRANT AGAINST INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE, THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, THAT THE OPERATION OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT DEFECTS IN THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY APPLE OR AN APPLE AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY. SHOULD THE APPLE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR LIMITATIONS ON APPLICABLE STATUTORY RIGHTS OF A CONSUMER, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION AND LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
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When Apple can manage to get an 89 page EULA onto a phone, I think they could do better than that for the government. At least double the number of pages.
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NO WARRANTY PERIOD
And, since the period is spelled out I wouldn't add one as a closing to the sentence.
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Doesn't work out
You have to think about it clearly: The court has not said "Mr Engineer 27, you must do this", rather it is telling Apple they they as a company must help the government out, and that they will be compensated for it. The employees are getting paid to work by their employer, period. They may not like the particular task, they they are not being compelled by anything other than a paycheck.
Essentially, if Apple's employees refuse to do the work, Apple would likely have to fire them with cause. End of benefits, end of vested shares, end of it all. It's unlikely that any engineers would take that risk (unless they got very, very bad legal advice).
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Which presumably includes ensuring the safety and security of their code and upholding the reputation and value of their employer. All of which are compromised if they are forced to enact these changes.
"The court has not said "Mr Engineer 27, you must do this", rather it is telling Apple they they as a company must help the government out"
Yes, and Apple would be required to use their staff to enact the change. If the staff refuse, they may have to find other staff to do this, but initially the impetus would be to compel the existing engineers to make the changes.
Do you honestly not understand issues that take place at multiple levels?
"It's unlikely that any engineers would take that risk (unless they got very, very bad legal advice)."
It figures that making an honest stand on an issue that a person values more highly than money would be a foreign concept to you. Legal advice has nothing to do with it.
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Yes, but the difference is that the courts are not compelling the engineers... Apple is. it would be a stand against their employer, not against the work. Mixed message?
"It figures that making an honest stand on an issue that a person values more highly than money would be a foreign concept to you."
It's not a foreign concept at all. It's just the wrong place to make a stand, because the stand isn't against the court or the order, it would be against the company. If nobody at Apple wants to do the work, Apple may have not choice but to start firing people and hiring new ones willing to work. It seems incredibly silly to lose your job, career, and possibly your future because you don't want to disable a 10 counter.
It's just a bad place to make a stand that will harm the company, and not the FBI or the court that ordered it.
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...because they're being compelled to do so by the courts.
"It's just the wrong place to make a stand, because the stand isn't against the court or the order, it would be against the company"
No, it's against the actions that the court are requiring of them. Just because the court orders filtered through Apple management before they made it to the engineers, that doesn't magically mean that the orders did not come from the court.
This line of argument is pretty weak, even by your standards.
"it would be a stand against their employer, not against the work"
How the hell would making a stand against specific work required of them not be a stand against the work? It seems the engineers are pretty happy with their day to day duties, it's just the extra work they'd be protesting against. The work required of them by the court.
"It seems incredibly silly to lose your job, career, and possibly your future because you don't want to disable a 10 counter."
So, your understanding of the actual issue is completely incorrect as usual. Perhaps instead of finding pedantic ways to be able to say things contrary to every article, your time may be better spent learning what's actually happening and what's really being said.
Also, if a skilled Apple engineer quits his job because he chose to make an ethical stand rather than undermine the quality of the company's product, I doubt very much that he'd have problems finding employment elsewhere.
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So, your understanding of the actual issue is completely incorrect as usual. Perhaps instead of finding pedantic ways to be able to say things contrary to every article, your time may be better spent learning what's actually happening and what's really being said."
So please tell me, without scaremongering and claiming that Apple will have to make everyone's phone insecure (they won't), what the court order says. Last I saw, it said something along the lines of "disable to the 10 counter and any mechanism to slow brute force attempts".
Now, you can invoke all sorts of "encryption sky is falling" scaremongering if you feel the need to suck Apple's teet, but try to answer the question by quoting the court's order, and not Tim Cook's greatest over reaches.
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You could Google it yourself or read the post by sigalrm below. Not my fault you can't be bothered to educate yourself on the issue and the reality of what's being requested. it's rather more complicated than changing a variable.
You can choose to ignore the very real legal and security issues being raised here, but you could at least apply some honesty and facts to your posts (yeah, right...)
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So far, there isn't much there, certainly nothing particularly high end. It would look like stuff Apple probably already has on hand (but doesn't want to admit to), and would require mostly someone to do a specific integration.
"you could at least apply some honesty and facts to your posts"
I learn from you. I do it your way. You are my inspiration - even if you are a retired old git :)
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I somehow doubt you have the level of knowledge required to make this judgement in any meaningful sense.
"even if you are a retired old git :)"
I'm retired? News to me. The fact that you can't even get a basic fact correct that's written clearly in my profile is just the latest evidence of your obsessive dishonesty.
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That you think this can all boil down to a simple one-line order is laughable. That you truely think all the "scaremongering" is just coming from Apple, as opposed to a wide range of people, is hard to believe.
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Especially as the IOS would have to be tested throughly before being used. And it's NOT just one phone. As the FBI has many other phones they want to unlock and are just using this as a precedent.
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You blather on about scaremongering and yet you think this is what would happen to a former Apple employee.
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If compelled, it's not at all in Apple's interest not to produce the mods required.
If the engineers decide to not work, Apple is left in the unhappy position of having to face the wrath of the courts. At some point, they either have to force the engineers to work, or remove them and get ones who will do the job.
It's not something Apple would want to do, but to comply with the court order, they may have to be dicks with their employees to save their own butts.
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Isn't that kind of the whole thrust of this article? The government wants to force Apple to write the code the government demands, at any cost? As has been mentioned in other posts, Apple can't just shut down to avoid the court order like Lavabit, giving the government (effective) eminent domain over Apple.
Consider if Apple was headquartered in Canada - this would be prime grounds for an ISDS dispute as the government directly meddling in the affairs of the company, forcing the company to take steps that will directly and negatively impact the company's revenue. Why is it suddenly ok just because Apple is headquartered in the US?
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Wrong.. The court would be compelling Apple to MAKE their employees do something that Apple themselves fought tooth and nail NOT to do. Therefore the court is specifically compelling the Engineers who work for Apple to perform an action. To state otherwise is a pure dissonance.
>>> It's just a bad place to make a stand that will harm the company, and not the FBI or the court that ordered it.
Again it is like you cannot understand basic ethics. The Engineers are in an ethical quandary of NOT doing something that in their opinion (and a lot of others) would harm society as a whole, or doing something that will ultimately in the long term, no matter what, destroy the company that they work for. This is NOT a hard decision.
Apple has only a large market share in North America (and maybe japan), whereas everywhere else they are competing very badly with Android devices. If the court either orders Apple to comply with the original order, or the US government invoke the other method to acquire source code it will strike a death blow for Apple in the Mobile market worldwide and even in the USA. It could even destroy Apple's Computer market too (though not as fast).
On the Engineers side it's all about Ethics, and if they could live with the role they might play in not only maybe destroying the company they love, but also having other people know that they contributed to something that nearly Every One of their peers thinks is abhorrent.
Me.. I'd quit in a heartbeat and let the court and the media and the DoJ know publicly that that is the specific reason.
Though if I was a cynical person, I might be worried that the DoJ enact some weird wonderful law from the 17oo's that made me have to do the work anyway on pain of incarceration on charges of treason/sedition or something similar.
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And what's to be done if the engineers quit rather than code this?
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I don't mean to insult an entire country (as I've worked with many genius engineers from India), but I've dealt with a lot of H1B hires. They usually come from diploma mills in India, and barely handle the most basic programming tasks. There is no way they can deal with sophisticated security software.
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Employees in the position to make and approve the source code changes refuse to do so and ask for a different position in the company. Suddenly, Apple has no people available to do the work (or the other code maintenance work). So, it goes to the managers, who then also request a change of position, which is granted.
At the end of the day, it's Tim Cook and a bunch of Canadian employees who have never touched the code base before who roll out the custom firmware.
Firmware is installed, bricks device.
Apple sues DoJ for loss of productivity and essentially preventing its skilled workforce from working on their assigned jobs, causing significant development and maint delays, costing shareholders money. Apple Canada also sues the US through the corporate sovereignty trade clause, as it was Apple Canada employees who were put in this position by the US government.
No H1Bs needed.
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However, if Apple has to hire new employees to do this work, wouldn't that demolish that argument? The mere fact that they would have to hire new staff would counter the "already in place staff and skills" aspect of the argument at the very least.
And if Apple has to start firing highly-skilled engineers, with decades of experience, or engage in litigation of those same engineers to force them to honour their contracts and do that work, again, burdensome?
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If anything, I don't see this working out very well for the FBI. Apple already doesn't want to produce the software. And they don't want to lose their employees. "We'd love to comply Mr. FBI, sir, but we told our engineers to write it, but they didn't want to." Any fines to compel them to more extreme measures would have to be pretty hefty to make it worse for their business than losing their engineers or having their products and reputation compromised in this fashion.
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But corporations are people my friend ... and we must think about this clearly. They are saying Mr Apple, you must do this.
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The government can compel Apple to fire employees now too? Sounds like this whole government-thingy is a bit out of control, don't you think?
And why isn't the NSA looking at this? Don't we have the finest minds working over there, day and night, to keep us safe from the boogeyman? What are we paying them for? Are they just playing solitaire all day?
Why do they need Apple?
Have you asked yourself that question?
Why does the most powerful government on the planet with nearly unlimited resources, need a company to do anything for them?
Or, if you're a Trekkie: "Excuse me, but why does god need a starship?"
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Re: Re: Doesn't work out
You still aren't a very good troll, are you?
No, the government can't make Apple fire anyone, but Apple could end up in the odd position of being in contempt of court if nobody is doing the work. At some point, Apple will feel enough pressure that they will have to act, and that could include having to let people go who are blocking the project from completion.
"Why does the most powerful government on the planet with nearly unlimited resources, need a company to do anything for them? "
Why do you need someone to help you pee? No matter how powerful your keyboard warrior status, you are still frail in other ways.
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I rather think that a mass resignation of the very engineers with the knowledge to make the required change would be a very visible demonstration that the court erred on the "burdensome"-ness of this court order. Apple might technically be in contempt of the order, but would have a very strong argument to overturn said order.
> You still aren't a very good troll, are you?
Ah, but look at you! Lots and lots and lots of replies to your comment. You have practice at this!
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For example, if the airport is shut down by a blizzard, the airlines can cancel their flights. Under Whatever's understanding (if one may dignify it with that word) of the law, he can demand that they get him to his destination on time like it says on his ticket.
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So sorry, you little poke doesn't work, but you may want to reconsider your understanding of the law.
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and you may want to reconsider your understanding of the real world.
When the law tries do something impossible it loses.
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Wow. Good way to point out that you really haven't thought about that, have you?
The NSA with all their resources, CAN'T do this?
And you're saying that I'm trolling?
Is that your canned response to "look, I really haven't thought about these things, and I can't say otherwise because of the FBI dick in my mouth."
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I know, your question was rhetorical. But I think everyone else is letting the DoJ and FBI get enough rope on this one to hang themselves... the more they let this play out, the bigger the slapdown and potential reforms to the DoJ and FBI when it's time to clean this mess up.
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Letting people go isn't the problem. Finding people who are willing AND able to do the work is the problem.
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Not so surprising is your total dodge of the question. So again, why aren't the NSA doing this? Oh wait, they already told us...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/former-cyber-czar-says-nsa-could-crack-the-san-berna dino-shooters-phone/
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After all, they were paid to do their job... not compelled.
You are a fucking twit, try harder next time you fucking tard!
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Someone might even want to hire ALL of the engineers that quit just so they can brag for PR and marketing purposes that those highly ethical and skilled engineers are working for them.
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I believe it was a bike manufacturing company the story was about. There was a woman in quality control who's job was to inspect all the bikes to make sure they're safe before they go out of the door.
A situation arose of not having enough time to check all the bikes out safely if they were to be sent out to clients in time. The bosses told the woman to skip the safety inspections and sign them all off as passing. She refused and was fired.
When that story got leaked to the press a nearby drug company decided to hire the woman for quality control. Because the drug company understood the huge legal liability they'd be facing if they sent out unsafe products, and wanted employees who would be willing to say "no way" to management who tried to rush stuff out untested.
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Re: Doesn't work out
Well, hopefully that'll work out exactly the way it did for Kim Davis.
If that twit can't be fired from a government position for refusing to do her job, then I can't see how the government can compel a private company to hold their employees to a higher standard.
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IIRC, the reason for that was because it was an elected position and the state's laws meant that she could only be removed via an election, which was not due to take place for another couple of years. Apple's engineers are many things, but they're not elected as public representatives, so different rules will apply.
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Then it'd become a religious exemption. Just like Hobby Lobby.
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If I was that Engineer, my new employer would definitely not be in the United States.
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Software engineers capable of doing this type of coding at Apple's scale are in high demand. In all likelihood, no engineer who quit Apple over this would be unemployed for longer than they chose to be.
Similarly: Because of the caliber of software engineer required, it would quite likely be difficult to replace them on short notice.
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I am not sure how many people would be lining up to hire people who may hold Apple essentially for ransom.
As for the caliber of engineer required, considering this isn't "write an OS" but rather "remove or disable a 10 counter" it's likely that the work could be done by a junior - or someone out of the country for that matter. It's not the highest of high end jobs.
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The court staff will be looking for employment?
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Maybe. But it's also true that there is literally no way we can reasonably speculate on the odds that this is true. Ask literally any software engineer how often it happens that a seemingly trivial change to a piece of software actually requires a substantial amount of engineering effort.
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Trivial changes can be problems, that is true. However, I have faith that Apple's high quality programming and high end engineers wouldn't have coded spaghetti, and that individual modules could stand up to modifications without harming the whole package. If that isn't the case, the Apple has even bigger issues.
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I also see that 4 weeks is pretty much nothing, "deploy" being the key as they would like have to do testing. It's probably why the engineer count is high, because they do different jobs as part of the process.
So 6 to 10 engineers, 4 weeks... at 200k a year each, it's maybe $100,000 or so of work. For a company that literally sells billions a year, it would seem to be a trivial job.
Thanks for helping me confirm that concept.
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That may be so - BUT ITS STILL DOESN'T MAKE THE JOB "DOABLE BY A JUNIOR".
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Urm, no.
From the order:
Arguably, (1) and (3) might be fairly simple, although given that I haven't seen the IOS source code, I can't say for certain.
(2) on the other hand, seems fairly unlikely to be currently implemented - although it may be implemented in debug code that can be turned enabled elsewhere in the code.
All of the above - regardless of how the requirements are implemented - would need to be validated and survive regression testing and quality control before the code could be loaded onto the phone.
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Now, now, I'm sure the FBI guys will be able to find positions as mall security or something.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Doesn't work out
Typing: WPM 10
Excel: Yes I do
Copier Operations: Only Money
Filing: Oh yes, we filed fallacies all the time.
Phone Skills: Trap and Trace, what do you mean answer?
Mail Merge: Is that when the post office copies mail covers for us?
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Every time I think you've demonstrated the true scale of your ignorance, you prove me wrong and outdo yourself.
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Security - you're doing it wrong.
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If requiring the company to do something its employees would refuse to do, requiring their dismissal, that sounds like an undue burden to me.
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Supreme Court
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Re: Supreme Court
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No matter which side wins it will be appealed, unless the FBI decides to cut their losses for the reason I noted above, and after enough of that it will reach the point where the SC is the only court left.
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Playing the odds
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Re: Playing the odds
Being forced to hand over the keys so FBI-OS can sign it's code with them is equivalent to being forced to endorse FBI-OS. That would be compelled speech; speech that Apple has shown that it finds offensive.
It may be time for the courts to recognize that your personal signing keys are not just keys to a lock; they are also keys that let you say "I endorse this", which is a form of speech, and thus protectable as a First Amendment right.
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Re: Re: Playing the odds
Again, undue burden.
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Re: Re: Playing the odds
That's arguable. It remains to be seen if a court would see it that way. Remember Ladar Levison. The fact that HTTPS connections are designed to guarantee authenticity and require digital signatures to attest to the fact might be enough to equate a digital signature with consent or endorsement. If the court buys that equivalency, and accepts the precedent as valid, then compelled speech is a done deal.
If we transfer from cyberspace to meatspace, the government can compel you to sign a false confession. Hell they may as well be allowed to compel you to endorse or vote for someone of their choosing. Truly terrifying.
On the other hand, if the courts block this type of compelled speech, I can see the FBI demanding that all future systems that accept software updates must not refuse an unsigned software update, or that they accept one signed by a different key. Imagine all future TPM chips must have a government key baked in.
Backdoors indeed.
On a third hand, the court may not make that leap to equivalency. In which case we (the People) could lose this battle. To combat that legal attack in the future, the tech community could add a cert flag that makes the endorsement explicit. Kinda like how the linux kernel code authors signal their intent as to which license a symbol is usable under (SYMBOL_EXPORT vs SYMBOL_EXPORT_GPL or something like that). These methods have not been tested in court however, and they may be shot down.
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If the Supreme Court rules against Apple, the FBI wins. BUT, it could prove a hollow victory if Apple's own software engineers revolt and decide to quit Apple and refuse to write the code.
The original New York Times article is a very fascinating read. Try as hard as they like, the FBI is fighting one company but it looks like Apple's own staff are going to quit rather than make the software more insecure.
That's what I call real world ethics.
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Re:
economic uncertainty?
because engineers quit > less engineers to do security stuff in general, more holes in apple products > no one trusts apple stops buying them > apple closses
note this is possibly worst case scenario, but still a valid one i think.
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Re:
Since they are compelling Apple and not the engineers, the court would likely add more pressure on Apple (say contempt of court charges, daily fines, perhaps securing Mr Cook for a few days) in order to break the logjam. If Apple is unable to deliver, the potential is honestly unlimited.
Absolute extreme: The court could appoint a trustee. That would be insane, but there is that potential at the very, very extreme end of the rainbow.
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Re: Re:
Highly unlikely. I suspect someone, somewhere is going to grow a working brain cell and force the feds give the case the live grenade treatment: throw it as far and hard as humanly possible.
Either that, or someone in the white house or at (in)justice will order the matter dropped.
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Put them on paid leave
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Burr-Frightstein bill
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Price as discouragement
How about Apple trying a bit of that? A piece of custom software from a major firm like that should be priced in the billions.
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Re: Price as discouragement
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Re: means
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(Printed, 8pt helvetica, double sided, with random redactions.)
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Re:
Then the FBI should be allowed to go in and view it - but not be allowed to take in any recording devices and should not be allowed to take in any notes. The room should be open for just 2hrs per day.
In addition they should allow in only senior FBI managers who have no coding experience.
After all that was deemed enough for cetain trade agreements!
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Re: Re:
It's pretty much a dog-and-pony show, though, because with complex software, if there were some sort of issue then there is almost zero chance that the issue will be spotted by someone spending a few days reading source code. Companies only do it because it makes their customers feel better.
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Re: Re: Re:
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Interesting scenario
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Apple has nothing to lose
They stand to loose their reputation and customers, IP (source code), engineers, cash reserves (fines) and possibly a combination of all of these.
So, Apple has no other option that to fight. Tooth and nail. Desperately.
And win or loose, I'm sure that this entire charade is already making a lot of other companies think about staying in the US.
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Re: Apple has nothing to lose
I think Apple is dead because their big encryption / security / we value your privacy claims will fall apart as people come to realize how weak their security actually is, and how little stood between their supposedly well protected data and exposure.
"So, Apple has no other option that to fight. Tooth and nail. Desperately."
More, they have to try to fight it in areas not related to the actual case at hand, and to use the biggest scaremongering tactics possible. They literally need to distract people away from how simple and basic the court's order is, and how little it really will take to accomplish it. So instead they have to scare people about turnng on everyone's camera and microphone for recording 24 hours per day and for all sorts of wild claims about hackers doing in their phones.
Apple's desperation here is almost entirely economic, and not anywhere near as much about your privacy - that's just something they are selling you for a big profit.
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Re: Re: Apple has nothing to lose
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Re: Re: Apple has nothing to lose
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Re: Re: Re: Apple has nothing to lose
Actually, yes. If you rewind back to the start of this whole discussion, back on Mike's first post about it, I said pretty clearly that one of the big problems for Apple is that they have a security weakness so obvious, that even the FBI can see it.
If Apple had mitigated that issue with a more secure design (generally requiring a longer pincode would do it) there there would likely be no discussion. That their supposedly "secure" one way chip can be modified live to remove it's main security protection (attempts per second) is a pretty big deal. That pincodes are short and they require to have a simplistic 10 counter to lock people out is another.
Apple would certain be in the position to say no if it was not feasible. Their problem entirely rests on the idea that what is asked for is VERY feasible, just perhaps not desirable.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple has nothing to lose
And yet despite the obvious nature, they can't get around it. There's nothing for Apple to mitigate - if the FBI isn't lying that it can't get past the controls, then it would appear that this obvious weakness is working pretty well, no?
It has nothing to do with feasibility. It has everything to do with the FBI fucking up at the very beginning by changing the cloud account password, and wanting Apple to fix their fuck up.
Perhaps we should see those agents who ordered the first fuck up get fired before anything else. Because if you want to argue this as a national security issue, then I'd challenge you to point to a bigger risk than incompetent agents.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple has nothing to lose
Apple are well aware that when people have to type a pin or pass phrase, they will use a short one. They then added further security features to make the use of short pins pretty secure, limit their input to the interactive input device, and limit the number of tries before invalidating their use.
You keep ignoring that security always relies on a layered approach, and this combination seems to have stymied the FBI. The only possible mistake that Apple have made is allowing updates without the user authorising them. but then their target audience does not like little inconveniences like that. Further the code signing requirement seems to be working as the defence against unauthorised updates.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple has nothing to lose
You said nothing of value. You've been consistently spewing the same bullshit through the asshole you actually call mouth (or fingers since it's text messages. And you can't stop the constant stream. It's kind of shocking.
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Re: Re: Apple has nothing to lose
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The world doesn't care
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3496831/New-kind-malware-Apple-devices-disco vered-breaks-computer-installs-malicious-apps.html
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Re:
If anything, this is an example of why Apple needs to keep it's engineers on the task of improving their softwares' security, not creating more holes in it.
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Re:
What if they close this hole, and the FBI demands that they reopen it?
How do you know the FBI didn't develop this malware?
Are you trying to fuck up national security by complaining about Apple not taking user security more seriously?
Fucktard.
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The FBI might have misjudged public sentiment earlier. But they certainly can see the PR disaster of Apple suspending and firing employees for refusing an immoral order. Apple has a lot of employee with cushy-retirement-magnitude stock options. At a dozen people a day, they might have an continuous supply.
What if the FBI just skips that embarrassment and asks for the source code, the signing key and the process to produce a valid signed update? First, that's a huge ask to the court That's the core of Apple's business. Can the government force the turn-over of the most critical trade secrets of a company that wasn't remotely involved in the crime?
And even if they get it, could they build a software update? It would be like asking a football to operate an aircraft carrier. They might be able to start it moving after a decade or two of study. But to use it as intended would be beyond them in this lifetime.
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Re:
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oh, this is your day job?
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Re:
How shockingly unoriginal of you.
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Re: Day job?
and I don't see why everyone else puts up with you, you're like a blanket with permasoak, dripping on our fun, derailing our attempts to have a productive conversation. I'm sure we could dig Nixon up and have a lot more fun, and then there'd be a place for you. And you could commute to your day job.
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This is a side issue...
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Re: This is a side issue...
But the engineers' refusal to do the work - and whatever happens next - is also - de facto - part of the precedent. In the end the courts can huff and puff all they like but they cannot compel an uninvolved 3rd party to do something against their will.
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Seems to me
There is "Emperor's new Clothes"
There is "Mandy Rice-Davies" (Google it if you don't know).
There is also "King Cnut".
THis case seems to fall into the latter category.
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Re: Seems to me
Don't Insult the man as the King was educating his courtiers as to the limits of human power. The FBI has no intention of having their powers limited by Anyone.
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Re: Re: Seems to me
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oh, i'm sure my impression was far from unique. but if someone had given expression to it, i was unaware and thought it worth saying.
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Or......
Just sayin.....
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But I think most people here are under-estimating the expertise, time and effort it takes to push out even a zero-change key-signed update.
It takes the company I work for almost a year to go from fully-written code for a new feature to deploying that feature onto the machines of customers. There are rooms full of machines that build and test each night. Then unseen legions of internal testers, using a signing key that works only internally. Then a special room and designated priests that consecrate the release with the beta-test external signing key, usable only by 'early availability' external testers. Finally the people in the special room with air-gapped machines sign the validated binary with the final release key.
And still bugs show up immediate in the new release.
At best there are only a handful of people that have the broad knowledge to make a modification, rebuild the system, do all of the signing to make the result valid, and push the result onto a device. Perhaps there is no single person, and it would still take a small team. The people on such a team have all been around long enough to both deeply care about the system, and have enough stock+options to retire in luxury.
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Re:
Technically, I don't think it's really a big deal. Timewise, Apple seems not to think so either. So it comes down to moral objections, which are harder to deal with but could land some people in hot water. Not sure what the right answer is here, but being an objector and losing your job for it seems a little, well, harsh.
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Re: Re:
There is also the problem, assuming a modern build system, of actually building code ready for signing, which will make keeping this patch fully segregated more difficult. There is a lot more involved here than just making a few changes to the code.
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Re: Re:
That right there is the problem.
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Re: Re:
Because you certainly don't sound like one.
You seem to think that all of this is simple, trivial, something a junior-nobody could do...but despite its triviality, it's got the entire FBI's collective panties in a wad.
So it's not as trivial as you think, otherwise why wouldn't the FBI do it themselves? Or ask the NSA?
Any ideas as to why they would want to take THIS route instead? Perhaps to make it so the NSA doesn't have to divulge their methods in open court?
Hmmmm?
Maybe?
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Re: Re: Re:
The 10 count code is a couple of modules, one to track the actual counting and increase the "hidden" counter, and another one which checks the counter before displaying the sign in screen again. Either of those two points would be good for disabling the feature, it's much better to disable the code which increases the counter, rather than the other end, in case other code checks that same counter. So you find the code that increases the counter, and change it from ++ to == 0 or similar, or have it trigger the code that would run to reset it after a successful login (the code is already there).
The job itself isn't very big.
The more difficult one would be the communication part, but only if Apple hasn't already created it for their own testing purposes. It's likely they already have the code, so it's just a question of applying it.
"So it's not as trivial as you think, otherwise why wouldn't the FBI do it themselves? Or ask the NSA?"
It's trivial for those who are very familiar with the code and have full access to the documentation. Having someone "cold start" on a project would mean likely months of prep work as they work to undesrtand the OS and deal with the complexities of the system itself.
It wouldn't be the expedient way to do it, and would likely have a lower success chance.
It's also (as many have stated) about getting the precedent judgement to work from.
"Hmmmm?
Maybe?"
Maybe Santa Claus didn't bring them a "iOS erector set" to work with... Hmmm? Maybe?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Of course he's got all the credentials to back up those claims.
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They say that when you get really old, you need less sleep again. Maybe if my memory holds out that long…
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
One of the true joys of being a greybeard engineer working amongst the younger set is that the younger set tends to think that everything is fundamentally new. It makes it easy to look like a damned wizard just by pulling out something that used to be common knowledge 30 years ago.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I never claim to be more knowledgeable, just that I know enough to know when they appear to be fibbing or stretching the truth to match their desired results.
You don't have to be able to build an OS for a phone from scratch to be able to understand how it works in general, and even to understand the different modules in play.
By your standards, you should never talk about politics, because you haven't been elected, moreover you haven't been the President or run the FBI - so I look forward to your silence on all of these areas and more in the future.
"Gee you're clever"
No, just not as dumb as you. From where you stand, that must look impressive.
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You don't need to be the foremost authority on something to comment on it. But when your position runs counter to every single person with significant credentials in the subject, a less narcissistic man than you would show at least some willingness to reconsider it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think they are not telling all the truth. They have mentioned things like "features not on consumer models" (suggests they already have it, just not on production phones). When you start to pay attention, you start to understand a couple of weeks work for a few engineers is pretty much what would be needed to apply ANY patch. So it's not like its such a major undertaking that Apple claims it would takes a year.
So keep flailing around, but accept that others can have an opinion you don't agree with. I respect your right to be a troll, even if I don't agree with you.
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Respect. You're doing it wrong.
"When you start to pay attention, you start to understand a couple of weeks work for a few engineers is pretty much what would be needed to apply ANY patch."
Wasn't that couple of weeks work for a few engineers just to get it to the testing phase, and if any issues are discovered then it will take longer? And there is absolutely no way that a "man-month" or more of development is anything close to a simple change, no matter how much you want to think it is (despite admitting to having no domain knowledge).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yet, you can never deal with anyone else's opinions. Your not so much stating an honest opinion as you are making wild assumptions and rejecting any attempt to call you out on that. You're not even honest enough to admit you were wrong about the amount of work being asked for, even when proof was handed to you since your lazy dishonest ass can't be bothered to research the subject at hand before spouting nonsense.
"I respect your right to be a troll"
Sorry dude, you're the troll. Your sole purpose commenting on this site is to be contrary to every single article, to the point where you outright lie, misconstrue and flail around finding any excuse to pretend that the article is somehow wrong. If you ever bothered to post an honest opinion or fact from time to time it might not be as noticeable. But, your obsession with trying to attack the articles at every step is extremely clear.
But, as ever, I will call you out on every strand of bullshit I see written here, whether it's such a poor liar as yourself, or someone equally deluded. I can handle honest debate, but not your line of obsessive misdirection. If you don't like that, you might wish to try being an honest adult from time to time.
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That's funny, because you've been presenting it like an obvious truth that only an idiot would fail to see.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
From Magistrate Judge Pym's Feb 16 order:From Erik Neuenschwander Feb 25, 2016 declaration:
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Re: Re:
1. Apple loses and is ordered to produce the FBIos.
2. Every engineer refuses to do the work.
3. Apple goes back to court and says they have no one who will work on it.
4. Court has 2 options. Drop the issue or order Apple to find a way.
5. Assuming Apple is forced it could fire all existing engineers or hire a new team. Either way it will need new people.
6. No one applies for the position listed as Screw Everyone Engineer with a pay of .5 cents per hour.
7. So now what can the government do? Can they force Apple to list a position at some rate? I suppose they could be in trouble for making the position suck so hard but what if no one applied even at a reasonable salary then what?
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Apple should hand over the source code....
Another suggestion: Print out the entire source code but black out anything except the word "ass".
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Re: Apple should hand over the source code....
Hand over the wrong version. BY the time the FBI realise what has happened it will be to late - and the original "mistake" will be deniable.
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Who says it has to be Apple engineers? Why not the night-shift janitorial crew...they're Apple employees, too.
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Sarcasm warning
After all, there are never show stopping bugs in production code... are there?
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Re: Sarcasm warning
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Re: Re: Sarcasm warning
Do you really not understand Jury nullification over there? and how bad a PR nightmare this would actually be for your whole justice system
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Re: Re: Re: Sarcasm warning
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Sarcasm warning
This doesn't mean Juries aren't using it, and won't, especially for a case like this where the jury pool would be hugely on the side of Apple. And yes I know your weird voir dire procedures would try to stop it, but that there shows prejudicial problems with the US system too.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sarcasm warning
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This service https://prothesiswriter.com/blog/design-perfect-thesis-structure would never refuse to write a thesis for you. My friend works there!
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