Prosecutors Charge Suspect With Evidence Tampering After A Seized iPhone Is Wiped Remotely

from the lots-of-missing-info-here dept

Going on little more than their belief a phone may contain evidence in a drive-by shooting case, prosecutors in Schenectady, New York are charging a suspect with destroying evidence.

A cellphone seized by police as part of an investigation into a drive-by shooting last month was remotely wiped by its owner, authorities said this week.

Police believe Juelle L. Grant, 24, of Willow Avenue, may have been the driver of a vehicle involved in an Oct. 23 drive-by shooting on Van Vranken Avenue, near Lang Street, so they obtained her phone, according to police allegations filed in court. No one was injured in the shooting.

After police took her iPhone X, telling her it was considered evidence, "she did remotely wipe" the device, according to police.

"The defendant was aware of the intentions of the police department at the conclusion of the interview with her," according to court documents.

Grant now faces three felonies: two counts of evidence tampering and one count of hindering prosecution. One count of evidence tampering related to the alleged phone wipe. The other two counts listed are related to concealing the shooter's identity and disposing of the weapon used.

Grant purchased a new iPhone some time after her other one was seized. It could be her logon from a new device erased files on her old one, but that seems unlikely and the dates don't really line up. Her lawyer says she got a new phone "days after" the cops took her first one, but the documents alleging evidence tampering says it happened less than 24 hours after the alleged drive-by. Supposedly, Grant isn't a "computer-savvy person," according to her attorney, but it's not all that tough to do even for someone with limited tech skill

The easiest method for remote wiping would be using Apple's "Find My iPhone" feature, which has "Erase iPhone" right on the landing page. This seems to be the likeliest explanation for what happened, although it may be Grant herself did not trigger the remote wipe.

And there are unanswered questions about law enforcement's handling of the seized iPhone. Have they not heard of Faraday cages/bags? That exact question was posed to law enforcement by The Daily Gazette. The first answer was a deflection:

Asked last Wednesday evening if such technology was available to city detectives, police spokesman Sgt. Matthew Dearing said he did not know but would check with detectives. He indicated late Thursday afternoon that he had yet to hear back from them.

One week later, there's still no answer.

A message Monday morning asking Dearing if he had yet heard back from detectives was not immediately returned.

Finally, there's another question that needs to be answered by law enforcement as it moves forward with these charges: how likely is it that there's evidence of a drive-by shooting on a person's phone? That probability -- an essential part of "probable cause" -- seems a little low. Sure, cops might have found a judge willing to believe a person's phone is just something that collects evidence of any and all criminal activity until law enforcement needs it, but there's always a chance the judge might actually demand justification for searching a phone seized from a drive-by shooting driver.

With the alleged "evidence" now allegedly maliciously deleted, law enforcement might be off the probable cause hook. But it shouldn't be. It should have to justify its original search plans before it can move forward with evidence tampering charges. From what's been presented in this coverage, it doesn't appear law enforcement has a solid basis for the search it never got to perform.

Filed Under: evidence, iphone, new york, police
Companies: apple

Qualcomm's Patent Nuclear War Turning Into Nuclear Winter

from the none-of-this-is-good dept

We haven't written much about Qualcomm and Apple's all out nuclear war over patents, but a few recent developments suggest it's worth digging in and discussing. In some ways it sweeps in other companies (mainly Intel) and also involves the FTC and the ITC. I won't go through the entire history here because I'd still be writing this post into next year. Qualcomm is a pretty massive company and while it does produce some actual stuff, it has long acted quite similar to a patent troll. It has also vigorously opposed basically all patent reform efforts, while at the same time quietly funding a bunch of "think tanks" that go after anyone advocating for patent reform (I expect some fun comments to show up below).

The reason Qualcomm acts this way is that it has long abused the patent system to jack up prices to ridiculous rates. And it's finally facing something of a reckoning on that. In early 2017, the FTC went after Qualcomm for abusing its patents -- notably: "using anticompetitive tactics to maintain its monopoly in the supply of a key semiconductor device used in cell phones and other consumer products." Specifically, the FTC alleged that Qualcomm, despite promises to the contrary to get its patents into important standards, was not following the FRAND (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) licensing of its patents, as required to have its inventions be a part of the standard. Just days later, Apple sued Qualcomm, also regarding Qualcomm's patent shakedown, claiming that Qualcomm had been massively overcharging Apple for the use of its patents, rather than licensing them on a FRAND basis.

A few months later, Qualcomm sued Apple, claiming that it had been sharing Qualcomm's proprietary code with Intel. Apple had been using chips from both Qualcomm and Intel, but was in the process of dropping Qualcomm entirely. Qualcomm also launched multiple parallel proceedings at the ITC. As we've discussed for over a decade now, patent holders ridiculously get two shots at anyone they accuse of patent infringement (so long as the accused manufacturers its goods outside the US). The International Trade Commission (for reasons that make no sense) feels that it can judge on its own if patents have been infringed, and if so, it can block the further importation of the "infringing" good. That's the only remedy at the ITC, but it can have quite an impact, obviously, in blocking a product out of the US market. Incredibly, the ITC need not follow the same rules as a regular court and it can do its own analysis while a case is in federal court (which might rule entirely differently).

So that's the history. Basically, Apple and Qualcomm are in an all out patent nuclear war, with the FTC and ITC involved around the edges. In the last few weeks, however, pretty much everything has been looking pretty bad for Qualcomm. While an administrative law judge at the ITC did find some infringement, he (somewhat surprisingly) announced that he would not recommend an import ban (again, this is the only remedy the ITC can offer). The full ITC needs to review this recommendation and make a final call. Tons of patent maximalists are screaming their heads off about how the ITC must start blocking iPhones, but as Judge Thomas Pender recognized, banning an entire product because it may have infringed on a single patent is ridiculous. In the language of the judge "the statutory public interest factors weigh against issuing a limited exclusion order as to products found to infringe patents asserted in this investigation." In other words, "grow up Qualcomm, this isn't such a big deal that you get to completely ban the product."

And, now, the latest is that the FTC's case against Qualcomm went in the FTC's direction, with Judge Lucy Koh granting the FTC's motion for partial summary judgment and saying that Qualcomm was violating its FRAND promises. This isn't everything to do with the case, but does involve questions around whether or not Qualcomm can limit its licensing to just device makers, or if it also has to license its patents to other chipmakers, like Intel. And Koh points out that basically everyone recognizes that the FRAND agreement it made applies to everyone -- not just a limited subset of companies. Koh repeatedly highlights Qualcomm's own previous statements that support this.

Furthermore, Koh points out that allowing Qualcomm to discriminate against chipmakers would hand the company a total monopoly, and that clearly goes against the concept behind the FRAND agreement to put the technology into the standard:

If a SEP holder could discriminate against modem chip suppliers, a SEP holder could embed its technology into a cellular standard and then prevent other modem chip suppliers from selling modem chips to cellular handset producers. See Lemley, Intellectual Property Rights, 90 Calif. L. Rev. at 1902 (stating that a company with a SEP “will effectively control the standard; its patent gives it the right to enjoin anyone else from using the standard”). Such discrimination would enable the SEP holder to achieve a monopoly in the modem chip market and limit competing implementations of those components, which directly contradicts the TIA IPR policy’s stated purpose to “enable competing implementations that benefit manufacturers and ultimately consumers.” TIA IPR at 6. See Borg v. Transamerica Ins. Co., 47 Cal. App. 4th 448, 456 (1996) (holding that a court may not interpret a contract in a way that contradicts the contract’s plain meaning). Qualcomm never attempts to explain how discrimination against modem chip suppliers is consistent with the stated purposes of the IPR policies.

I know there's a lot of jargon in there, but it's basically saying that the whole point of the standardization process, as everyone agreed, was to create standardization across multiple competitors (while still allowing a reasonable license for patent holders). But if Qualcomm can reinterpret this agreement to say that FRAND only applies to downstream users, then that completely overturns the entire intention of the standards making process and just gives Qualcomm a total monopoly on the chips (going well beyond its patents). Qualcomm will undoubtedly appeal, but it's not a good start for the company.

Oh, and speaking of not a good start, the post-Apple world for Qualcomm isn't looking great either. Its latest earnings projections going forward were below what Wall St. was expecting and some are noticing a $5-billion-ish Apple-shaped hole in the books.

While I've been equally critical of Apple in the past when it's abused the patent system, in this situation it seems pretty clear that Qualcomm completely overplayed its hand with its patents in ways that were abusive, and that drove up costs in an unfair manner, against its own agreements. And so far, the various courts and administrative bodies are not buying into Qualcomm's desperate attempts to keep up its monopolizing.

It all goes back to the point we've been making for decades: if you have a good product, compete in the marketplace. Don't abuse the patent system to try to block competitors or to artificially inflate the price. That just telegraphs that you're bad at innovating and you know that competitors can do a better job than you. Qualcomm is now learning how that plays out in the long run.

Filed Under: antitrust, ftc, itc, monopoly, patents, phones, sep, standards, standards essential patents
Companies: apple, intel, qualcomm

Apple Finally Shuts Down Security Flaw Used By Phone-Cracking Vendor

from the indiscriminate-protection dept

In a move that will anger law enforcement (but really isn't about law enforcement), Apple has succeeded in killing an exploit that allowed a third-party vendor to crack iPhones for investigators. A few months ago, Apple announced it was fixing the flaw that allowed products like GrayKey to bypass built-in security features to engage in brute force password guessing. Thomas Brewster of Forbes confirms the fix is finally in.

Multiple sources familiar with the GrayKey tech tell Forbes the device can no longer break the passcodes of any iPhone running iOS 12 or above. On those devices, GrayKey can only do what’s called a “partial extraction,” sources from the forensic community said. That means police using the tool can only draw out unencrypted files and some metadata, such as file sizes and folder structures.

Some in law enforcement may view this as confirmation of their "going dark" complaints and claim that Apple cares more about its customers than it does about fighting crime. As if that was bad thing. Apple should care more about what its customers want and need than government access to locked devices. A security hole is a hole that can be used by everyone who can exploit it. There's no way to prevent a flaw from being exploited by criminals even if law enforcement agencies find the exploit super-useful.

Grayshift's products are still somewhat useful, but it's going to be hard to justify a premium price for a stunted service. This new development might be Grayshift's fault. Soon after Apple announced one fix for an exploit used by Grayshift, the company bragged it could still crack phones just as easily. This appears to have prompted closer examination of the problem Apple thought it fixed with the first round of patching. The second pass has blunted the exploit's usefulness, even if it hasn't made it completely impossible to access some data contained in locked devices.

Even with the fix in play, law enforcement complaints about "darkness" are overblown. There are other technical solutions available, along with a wealth on information stored by third parties and cloud services. The more technical solutions won't scale, but that's not really something law enforcement should complain about. Security protections for phone owners shouldn't be viewed as weapons deployed against law enforcement. Phone manufacturers have an obligation to their customers to protect their personal data, and encryption is just one of the tools deployed to keep customers' information out of the hands of others. That some of the "others" are cops and investigators is just a side effect of providing solid products and service.

This won't make government critics of Apple any happier, though. And its closing of security holes is just going to lead to more demands for anti-encryption laws. Very few legislators seem interested in mandating backdoors, so these complaints aren't gaining any traction. But government agencies like the FBI have endless time and infinite resources, so the calls for backdoors will never completely cease -- not as long as there's a chance a major tragedy might prompt reckless Congressional action.

Apple's protection of its users is great, but its sincerity should be questioned when it's willing to put Chinese users' data where the Chinese government can easily access it. If it wants to be a champion for its customers, it needs to protect all of them, not just the ones it's currently convenient to protect. When you've got to explain why you're "locking out" US law enforcement but letting a foreign government walk in the front door, you're doing customer service wrong.

Filed Under: backdoors, cracks, encryption, graykey, iphone, law enforcement
Companies: apple, grayshift

Detailed And Thorough Debunking Of Bloomberg's Sketchy Story About Supply Chain Hack

from the bloomberg-has-some-'splaining-to-do dept

Last week we noted that the general consensus at this point is that Bloomberg screwed up its story about a supposed supply chain hack, in which it was claimed that Chinese spies hacked Supermicro chips that were destined for Apple and Amazon. Basically everyone is loudly denying the story, and many are raising questions about it. In our comments, some of you still seemed to want to believe the article, and argued (without any evidence) that the US and UK governments, along with Amazon and Apple, were flat out lying about all of this. I pointed out a few times that that's not how things work. Also untrue is the idea that many floated that the US government was forcing Apple and Amazon to lie. That also is not how things work (for those who don't believe this, please check your First Amendment case history).

Anyway, over at Serve the Home, Patrick Kennedy has one of the most thorough and comprehensive debunkings of the Bloomberg story, detailing how incredibly implausible the story is. Kennedy's write-up is very detailed, including lots of pictures and detailed drawings of how networks are set up. Here's just a little snippet as an example:

The next inaccuracy to this paragraph is the line describing BMCs as “giving them access to the most sensitive code even on machines that have crashed or are turned off.” That is not how this technology works.

Baseboard management controllers or BMCs are active on crashed or turned off servers. They allow one to, for example, power cycle servers remotely. If you read our piece Explaining the Baseboard Management Controller or BMC in Servers BMCs are superchips. They replace a physical administrator working on a server in a data center for most tasks other than physical service (e.g. changing failed hard drives.)

At the same time, the sensitive data on a system is in the main server complex, not the BMC. When the BMC is powered on, hard drives, solid state drives, the server’s CPU (for decrypting data) and memory are not turned on. If you read our embedded systems reviews, such as the Supermicro A2SDi-16C-HLN4F 16-core Intel Atom C3955 mITX Motherboard Review, we actually publish power figures for when a system is on versus when the BMC only is active. In that review, the BMC powered on utilizes 4.9W of power. SSDs each have idle power consumption generally above 1W and hard drives use considerably more even at idle. The point here is that when the server’s BMC is turned on, and the server is powered off, it is trivially easy to measure that the attached storage is not powered on and accessible.

When a server is powered off it is not possible to access a server’s “most sensitive code.” OS boot devices are powered off. Local storage is powered off for the main server. Further encrypted sensitive code pushed from network storage is not accessible, and a BMC would not authenticate.

This line from the Bloomberg is technically inaccurate because a powered off server’s storage with its sensitive code has no power and cannot be accessed.

There is much, much more in the piece, and it is well worth reading if you still think Bloomberg was on to something with its story.

So far, Bloomberg has stood by its story, even though it increasingly seems clear that its reporters -- Michael Riley and Jordan Robertson -- were in over their heads. It is possible that something questionable happened, but it almost certainly did not happen the way they described it. The fact that Bloomberg has refused to recognize any of these concerns is incredibly damning for Bloomberg's reputation.

Filed Under: bmc, china, chips, hack, jordan robertson, journalism, michael riley, reporting, supply chain
Companies: amazon, apple, bloomberg, supermicro

Apple Demands Retraction Of Bloomberg's Big 'Chip Infiltration' Story; Bloomberg Has Some Explaining To Do

from the not-looking-good dept

A few weeks ago, Bloomberg published a giant story claiming that Chinese spies did a somewhat daring supply chain hack on American big tech firms. The gist of the story was that servers from Super Micro had hidden chips that somehow were then used by Apple and Amazon (not to mention the US government), that allowed someone in China to access certain data. The story was a blockbuster that got everyone talking. But, almost as soon as it came out, a bunch of people started raising questions about the story. While the Bloomberg reporters claimed over a dozen sources, both Apple and Amazon came out with incredibly strong denials. Way stronger than is common in these situations. And while I know some cynical people insist that companies will lie about this stuff all the time, that is not actually true. Some companies may misrepresent things, or try to play down stories, but outright fabrication is not at all common (and the consequences of a company doing it would be severe). And here, both Amazon and Apple's denials were so clear, so specific and so adamant that it raised serious questions about the reporting.

Since there was so much confusion over it all, we held off on writing about it, figuring more information would come out in the days and weeks after the initial story. And so far, nearly all of the "additional info" has only served to raise significantly more questions about Bloomberg's reporting. Various government and intelligence agencies all claimed they had no evidence to support these claims. Again, some will argue that they are lying, and (again) while those agencies may have a history of misrepresenting things, the denials here were clear and unequivocal. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (a part of GCHQ) said they completely supported Apple and Amazon that no such attack occurred. The US Department of Homeland Security said the same thing. Dan Coats, the US Director of National Intelligence said the US intelligence community has seen no evidence of such an attack, which certainly undermines the Bloomberg story. Some of the folks quoted in the Bloomberg article even questioned the accuracy of the article with one going so far as to say the article that he is named in... "didn't make sense."

Also, as reporter Nicole Perlroth noted, one of the reporters on the Bloomberg story -- Michael Riley -- had also done a story back in 2014 making bold claims that the NSA had exploited the Heartbleed bug, and multiple other reports ripped that story to shreds, with multiple people denying it and no one else confirming it.

Now, with this story, Apple has done something it's never done before: asked Bloomberg for a retraction of the article. That's a pretty big move -- and Bloomberg says it still stands by its reporting (as it did with the Heartbleed story).

However, at this point, Bloomberg has whittled away whatever benefit of the doubt there was left and set fire to the scraps. It's difficult to believe that Bloomberg's story was accurate, and the company and its reporters owe everyone an explanation -- or at least some additional evidence to support the reporting. I don't doubt that there is a kernel of truth in the story -- but given the vehement and thorough response from everyone, it certainly seems likely that the reporters on the Bloomberg piece misunderstood something big, leading to misreporting of things in a way that leads to a very inaccurate picture of what's going on. Bloomberg should, at the very least, appoint someone else to go through the work put in by reporters Michael Riley and Jordan Robertson, and explore whether or not the story really is accurate, and why it is that basically everyone is saying it's not.

Reporters can, and do, make mistakes. How they respond to such mistakes is the real marker of the ethics they and the organizations they work for hold. Considering Bloomberg stood by that Heartbleed story, perhaps we shouldn't expect such a reckoning at the publication -- but, at the very least, it's going to lead plenty of people to write off Bloomberg as a credible source on issues like these, and that's unfortunate, given that there are some really big and important stories having to do with computer security right now. Having one major publication show itself to be untrustworthy in its coverage would be very bad.

Filed Under: espionage, hacked chips, jordan robertson, michael riley, security, supply chain, surveillance
Companies: amazon, apple, bloomberg, super micro

Feds Finally Get Around To Using Someone's Face To Unlock Their Cellphone

from the FaceTime:-FBI-Edition dept

The only surprise about this is that it took this long to happen.

A child abuse investigation unearthed by Forbes includes the first known case in which law enforcement used Apple Face ID facial recognition technology to open a suspect's iPhone. That's by any police agency anywhere in the world, not just in America.

It happened on August 10, when the FBI searched the house of 28-year-old Grant Michalski, a Columbus, Ohio, resident who would later that month be charged with receiving and possessing child pornography. With a search warrant in hand, a federal investigator told Michalski to put his face in front of the phone, which he duly did. That allowed the agent to pick through the suspect's online chats, photos and whatever else he deemed worthy of investigation.

This won't become a Fifth Amendment test case for several reasons.

First, Michalski apparently consented to the search by using his face to unlock the phone. If this was as voluntary as it appears, it pretty much eliminates a Constitutional challenge.

Beyond that, it's unlikely a court would find someone's face testimonial. For the most part, courts haven't found fingerprints to be testimonial, even if the application of a fingerprint leads directly to the production of evidence to be used against the phone's owner.

The "foregone conclusion" argument would only require law enforcement prove the phone belongs to the person they're asking to unlock it -- information easily acquired with a subpoena from the service provider.

Even if all these hurdles could be jumped, actions taken by the investigating agent pretty much eliminated any evidence the defendant might have challenged, as Forbes' Thomas Brewster reports.

Whilst Knight may've found some evidence of criminal activity when he manually searched the device, in one respect the forced Face ID unlock of the iPhone X was a failure. It wasn't possible to siphon off all the data within using forensic technologies. That was because the passcode was unknown.

In modern iPhones, to hook the cellphone up to a computer and transfer files or data between the two, the passcode is required if the device has been locked for an hour or more. And forensic technologies, which can draw out far more information at speed than can be done manually, need the iPhone to connect to a computer.

It appears Knight didn't keep the device open long enough and so couldn't start pulling out data with forensic kits. He admitted he wasn't able to get all the information he wanted, including app use and deleted files. What Knight did get he documented by taking pictures.

Michalski's lawyer confirms in a comment to Forbes there's been no evidence produced from the unlocked iPhone, leaving him nothing to challenge in court.

Even if this case is a wash in terms of Constitutional challenges, that doesn't mean the status quo will remain unchanged as more phone manufacturers move towards biometric-based security features. Courts may recognize -- as they have with smartphones and cell location data -- that old assumptions about privacy and presumed government access are no longer valid in a world almost wholly reliant on portable devices filled to the brim with personal data and documents.

Filed Under: encryption, face, faceid, iphones, unlocking phones
Companies: apple

Some Apple Employees Think Company's New TV Service Will Be Dull As Nails

from the more-of-the-same dept

Like many companies, Apple has been trying to disrupt the traditional television sector for years. But like countless companies before it, Apple has repeatedly run face-first into a cable and broadcast industry that's aggressively resistant to actual change. As a result, Apple's efforts to launch a TV service have been comically delayed for years as cable and broadcast companies (worried that what Apple did to the music industry would also happen to the TV sector) tightly restricted how their content could be used if the approach varies too far from accepted industry norms.

So despite Steve Jobs insisting that Apple had "cracked the code" on a next-gen TV set as early as 2011 -- and efforts to strike licensing deals that have been ongoing since at least 2012 -- nothing much has really come from Apple's promised revolution on the television front.

In the years since, numerous streaming providers (Dish's Sling TV, AT&T's DirecTV Now, Sony's Playstation Vue) have jumped into the sector, and Apple is definitely a late arrival. As such, the looming TV service Apple appears poised to launch seems to be very much a derivative offering that isn't likely to disrupt the sector all that much. A report in the Wall Street Journal (paywall, see Gizmodo's alt. take) notes that Apple has set aside $1 billion for original programming, but Tim Cook's fears that the service could tarnish Apple's pure brand image appear to be causing some notable problems.

The report noted how at least one project fled to Amazon after Apple tried to tightly restrict the show's political commentary. And the kind of comically inconsistent restrictions that tend to plague Apple's app store appear to have made their way to the company's looming TV service, including a ban on, of all things, crosses:

"Apple signed a deal for a series made by M. Night Shyamalan about a couple who lose a young child.

Before saying yes to that psychological thriller, Apple executives had a request: Please eliminate the crucifixes in the couple’s house, said people working on the project. They said executives made clear they didn’t want shows that venture into religious subjects or politics. Mr. Shyamalan wasn’t available for comment.

Of course that's the exact opposite tack taken by streaming providers like Netflix or Amazon, which have increasingly turned to original, more edgy fare to help set themselves apart from the traditional networks. As a long list of recent awards make pretty clear, that approach is certainly working out ok. Given Apple's more cautious approach, some employees have taken to making fun of the looming service:

"One agent said some members of Apple’s team in Los Angeles began calling themselves “expensive NBC."

Of course this being Apple, it's entirely possible that nobody cares that Apple's original content lineup lacks any rough edges, and fans are likely to line up and buy the product anyway. It's also certainly possible to create a high-quality platform with largely G-rated fare. That said, this sounds nothing like the TV revolution Apple has promised for the better part of the last decade, and too much interference with the creative process isn't likely to help keep talent around as Apple's never-ending quest to upend the TV apple cart stumbles forward.

Filed Under: over the top, streaming, tv
Companies: apple

State Attorneys General Really Want To Go After Big Internet Companies; But Claim It's About Privacy, Not Bias

from the we'll-see... dept

We've written a few times about how Attorney General Jeff Sessions' plan to meet with State Attorneys General about going after big internet companies for perceived political bias was a clear First Amendment problem. He still held the meeting earlier this week, and it appears that at least some of the attendees agreed that targeting how the platforms present content was likely a non-starter, even if Sessions apparently kept trying to raise it as an issue. From a Washington Post report that quotes a few people who were in attendance:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions opened the meeting by raising questions of possible ideological bias among the tech companies and sought to bring the conversation back to that topic at least twice more, according to D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine.

Of course, the fact that the others in attendance mostly pushed past the question of political bias isn't exactly good news for the internet platforms, as the AGs apparently focused on other ways they could and should target the companies:

“We were unanimous. Our focus is going to be on antitrust and privacy. That’s where our laws are,” Jim Hood, Mississippi’s attorney general, said in an interview.

Of course, it seems like almost journalistic malpractice to quote Jim Hood talking about going after social media platforms without mentioning the fact that he was the centerpiece of a the conspiracy by the top movie studios to attack Google with nonsensical complaints about illegal things he found while doing searches on Google. If you don't recall, the Sony hack revealed a plot by the legacy movie studios to have their lawyers effectively run an investigation for Jim Hood -- and even the NY Times revealed that his eventual subpoena to Google was written by the MPAA's lawyers. A judge reviewing Google's legal fight with Hood noted that it seemed pretty clear that Hood's actions were done in "bad faith." So... consider me at least marginally skeptical that Hood is an objective voice on what is and is not appropriate for a state Attorney General to investigate regarding the big internet platforms.

Obviously, if there are real antitrust violations, then that's a valid issue to explore. But, so many of the attacks themselves seem to be a hell of a lot more "politically biased" than any of the claims about how the internet companies themselves are politically biased.

And while there was some talk about the privacy practices of the various platforms (which, while they may be concerning, it's not clear how any of them violate any laws...), some of the talk also involved an astounding incomprehension of the encryption discussion. And, for that, we'll go back to Jim Hood again:

For other states, the issue was the tech industry’s relationship with law enforcement. That included talk about Apple and “how we in law enforcement depend on cellphones.” Hood said that Apple has “waved at us and didn’t use all their fingers” in its handling of encryption.

That is not at all an accurate portrayal of what happened. Apple was making sure that everyone's information was safe by using strong encryption. The FBI sought to undermine that safety by demanding that Apple make a massive, and very dangerous, change to its software.

Indeed, it's quite incredible for Hood to bring this up in the context of the AGs discussing "privacy" concerns about how the big tech companies handle data. If you want them to protect data, you want them to use strong encryption. Yet, here, Hood is whining that Apple dared to actually protect people's privacy.

So... if tech companies actually protect people's privacy with strong encryption, they get yelled at and threatened with legal action by Attorneys General. And if they don't protect people's privacy... they get yelled at and threatened with legal action by Attorneys General. Just what exactly are they supposed to do?

Again, it is entirely possible that these companies have violated various laws. Perhaps they're in violation of antitrust laws, though the evidence there is lacking so far. But, from everything that's been said coming out of this meeting, it does not inspire much confidence that there are reasonable and objective reasons for taking legal actions against these platforms. Instead -- and this is all too typical for state AGs -- there appears to be a lot of grandstanding and bluster without much substance.

Filed Under: antitrust, encryption, first amendment, free speech, internet, jeff sessions, jim hood, privacy, social media
Companies: apple, facebook, google

Apple Didn't Delete That Guys iTunes Movies, But What Happened Still Shows The Insanity Of Copyright

from the different-but-still-bad dept

Last week we, like many others, wrote about the story of Anders G da Silva, who had complained on Twitter about how Apple had disappeared three movies he had purchased, and its customer service seemed to do little more than offer him some rental credits. There was lots of discussion about the ridiculousness -- and potential deceptive practices -- of offering a "buy" button if you couldn't actually back up the "purchase" promise.

Some more details are coming out about the situation with da Silva, and some are arguing that everyone got the original story wrong and it was incorrect to blame Apple here. However, looking over the details, what actually happened may be slightly different, but it's still totally messed up. Apple didn't just stop offering the films. What happened was that da Silva moved from Australia to Canada, and apparently then wished to redownload the movies he had purchased. It was that region change that evidently caused the problem. Because copyright holders get ridiculously overprotective of regional licenses, Apple can only offer some content in some regions -- and it warns you that if you move you may not be able to re-download films that you "purchased" in another region (even though it promises you can hang onto anything you've already downloaded).

And, here the situation is slightly more confusing because Apple actually does offer the same three movies -- Cars, Cars 2 and The Grand Budapest Hotel -- in both Australia and Canada, but apparently they may not be the identical "versions" of the film, as they may be slightly altered depending on the region.

And while this may be marginally better than completely removing his "purchased" films, it's still absolutely ridiculous. The CNET article linked above is sympathetic to the idea that Apple has to go to extreme lengths such as these to prevent "region hopping," and says that da Silva is just an "edge case" that "fell into a licensing crack." But, again, that's nonsense. This is digital content that he "purchased" using a "buy" button. It shouldn't matter where he is at some later date. He should still get access to those original files. That's what a purchase means. The fact that this might possibly in some cases mean that (OH MY GOSH!) someone in Canada can access a movie released in Australia when they're actually in Canada, well, uh, that seems like an "edge case" that a movie studio and Apple should deal with, rather than screwing over legitimate purchasers.

But, alas, we're left with yet another example of the insanity driven by excessive copyright, in which copyright holders get so overly focused on the notion of "control" that they feel the need to control absolutely everything -- including making sure that no wayward Canadians might (GASP!) purchase and download a movie meant for Australians. It's this overwhelming, obsessive desire to "control" each and every use that messes with so many people's lives -- including da Silva's -- and makes sure that the public has almost no respect at all for copyright. Give up a little control, and let the edge cases go, and maybe people wouldn't be so quick to condemn copyright for removing their own rights so frequently.

Filed Under: copyright, downloads, drm, itunes, licensing, ownership, regional restrictions
Companies: apple

You Don't Own What You've Bought: Apple Disappears Purchased Movies

from the bad-apple dept

Once again, copyright and the digitization of everything means you no longer "own" what you've "bought." I thought we'd covered all this a decade ago when Kindle owners discovered that, even though they'd "purchased" copies of the ebook of George Orwell's 1984, their books had been memory holed, thanks to Amazon losing a license. After there was an uproar, Amazon changed its system and promised such things would never happen again. You would think that other online stores selling digital items would remember this and design their systems not to do this -- especially some of the largest.

Enter Apple and its infamous iTunes store. On Twitter, Anders G da Silva has posted a thread detailing how three of the movies he "purchased" have now disappeared and how little Apple seems to care about this:

My guess is that with this tweet getting lots and lots of attention, Apple will eventually back down and "fix" the situation. But it shouldn't take going viral for you to not have the stuff you bought disappear thanks to a change in licensing. Indeed, it does seem like Apple telling users that they are "buying" content that might later disappear due to changes in licensing agreements could potentially be a deceptive practice that could lead to FTC or possibly state consumer protection claims:

Last year we had a podcast about a new book by two copyright professors about the "end of ownership" due to excessive copyright usage, and this is just yet another unfortunate example of what has happened when we lock everything up. You don't own what you've bought.

And, yes, it is not endorsing or advocating for piracy to note that this is one of the reasons why people pirate. Content that people pirate doesn't magically disappear when licenses change and giant multinational companies decide to reach into your library and memory hole your purchases. Don't want people to pirate so much? Stop doing this kind of anti-consumer bullshit.

Filed Under: buy button, consumer protection, copyright, deceptive practices, disappearing content, itunes, licenses, movies
Companies: apple