"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."
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?
They are human too and they, like you, will make mistakes or overstep the law from time to time, and likely pay a bigger price than you ever will for it.
Yeah... but no. A law enforcement officer is much less likely to pay ANY price for overstepping the law than some other person, even if they do so regularly and maliciously.
I don't want to give the feds MORE rights, but I also don't want to give the people a way to avoid what has been fair game for the feds for 300 plus years. It's a key point of discussion, you know, balance.
And what exactly has been fair game for the feds for 300 plus years? Detailed location data for a person over days and months? A list of everyone that a person has contacted over days and months? Every little note and shopping list that a person has written?
Encrypting a phone's contents is just like writing notes in a cipher. The police are welcome to try to break it, but there's no guarantee of success. Just like it has been since writing existed.
The balance you say you're asking for is for digital devices to be restricted so they CANNOT be as secure as physical objects... and you've yet to discuss that with anyone, other than saying the same thing over and over and over and over, without acknowledging that anyone has even tried to join the "discussion".
No, it's part of a BAD set of security practices to make up for an incredibly weak link in the chain. Rather than fixing the weak link, they put a band aid over it and give every hacker in the universe a target. They basically shine a very bright light on the weakest part and say "don't come here".
You realise that the weak link is the user, don't you? And the user doesn't want to be fixed.
after of course you learn that rights aren't just yours, they are common to all of us.
Same goes for security. Perhaps you are happy barely using your phone, but you seem overly cavalier in saying that everyone else is being stupid and weak for using their phone in ways that are convenient to them, to do the things they want to do, via the tools that have been marketed to them.
Saying that security should only exist for the skilled is just poor form.
Note also that this link is purely an Apple spokesperson speaking to the media. It is not an Apple legal filing or motion in the case.
Feel free to point to the media circus to comment on the aims of one or the other of the parties, but so far as I can tell, only the FBI has lied in the actual court case so far.
No, I am arguing that your personal data on a digital device should not have MORE protection than a piece of paper, a safety deposit box, or a locked safe. You seem intent on creating a special "it's digital so it's always out of reach" exemption that flies in the face of mor than 300 years of US court rulings on privacy, warrants, and legal searches.
And yet a piece of paper and a locked safe CAN be designed so they are "always out of reach" of the government. So can a whisper in the night. As has been pointed out elsewhere, police investigations have always had to deal with information which is unobtainable. Why should digital security be legislated to be weaker than physical security?
"Poor passcodes is indeed a real issue, and Apple has taken some very good steps to mitigate the issue and try to protect people from themselves. The FBI wants to roll back these steps and reduce the common person's security - you know, that guy that doesn't want a pin code longer than 4 digits (and secretly hates even that)."
Not really true. Nobody is asking Apple to roll out the small changed (disabling the 10 tries limit) to the general public. The guy with the short passcode will be in the same position tomomorrow as he is today, protected not by a fancy one way security chip or logn key encryption, but rather by a simple "counts to 10" blocker. That is a real issue and one I expect Apple to address in the future.
I'm not sure how to say this so you'll get it. Everyone else has tried, and you seem to be wilfully misinterpreting everything to see it your way. Not just get it but disagree, but actively-dance-around-the-edges ignoring the facts.
Fact: 4-digit pin codes are weak security, and Apple protects the user by extra security measures such as slowing down attempts, and locking after 10 failed tries. Fact: Apple phones currently have a security vulnerability - you can update the security configuration without requiring the user to authenticate.
Ok. Say that Apple agrees to create FBiOS and help the FBI hack this one phone. Let's even say that the impossible happens that FBiOS never leaks, or that if it does leak then the signature requirements to install it on a phone are actually sufficient to stop bad guys from accessing the contents of stolen phones.
The entire international hacking community now knows that there is a proof-of-concept working exploit on all current Apple phones. You can absolutely guarantee that teams will be working around the clock to try to replicate the same, or even improve it - who's to say that some group might not find an even better attack, where parts of the key can be leaked from the underlying security chip so they can attack pin codes of any length?
It's ok though, Apple knows about the vulnerability, and the simple fix is to prevent updating the security firmware without authenticating the user. FBiOS becomes useless, and DoJ once again starts stockpiling encrypted phones that it needs help unlocking. What do you think happens next?
Understanding that Apple is trying to paint the issue as something different is to understand why the FBI's request and the court's order isn't far off the mark.
The FBI's request was full of lies and misdirections, and as mentioned in Apple's reply they deliberately misquoted the courts in United States v. Halstead to make the implication that they wanted. If it were a reasonable request, why can't they find an argument that rests on the truth?
Can you point to anywhere where Apple has lied in this case? Drawing slurs from the media circus surrounding the case and using them to attack Apple's behaviour within the case isn't very sportsmanlike.
If I had a wall safe, they could break in, and it would be legal. I don't think an electronic device should have more protection.
If you had a wall safe that they couldn't break into (without destroying the contents), then it's the same thing as a phone that they can't break into.
What's the problem?
Apple's issue is that pincodes are 4 to 6 digits, which is well within the range of a brute force. All the talk of security chip this and encrypted that means nothing if the user passcode is pretty much "1234". That's the real issue.
Poor passcodes is indeed a real issue, and Apple has taken some very good steps to mitigate the issue and try to protect people from themselves. The FBI wants to roll back these steps and reduce the common person's security - you know, that guy that doesn't want a pin code longer than 4 digits (and secretly hates even that).
And yet, despite (correctly) pointing to this as a keystone issue... why do you continue to defend what the FBI is trying to do here?
> Don't believe the hype. Apple has gone over the top on this and they are lying to you outright.
That may be true, and yet it doesn't necessarily follow that the FBI should be granted its request. Don't forget that the FBI is lying outright in this affair as well, find your own path.
> The FBI has not asked Apple to roll out an new OS for everyone.
Correct. The FBI is asking Apple to craft a custom OS with reduced security, and a mechanism by which they can install that OS, bypassing any security measures, onto a targeted phone.
> They haven't told them to put a back door on every phone.
Incorrect-ish. They are asking for every phone, now and in the future, to be vulnerable to this custom OS.
> They are asking for a single device to be made more accessible.
Correct-ish, but not the whole story.
The FBI is asking for the entire ecosystem of iPhone devices, now and in the future, to be vulnerable to a process by which critical security mechanisms on the device can be circumvented.
Sure, the FBI is asking for this for just one phone (twice), but the rest of the law enforcement community is lined up to make this request for just one phone any number of times.
And the odds of the process itself not becoming available to malicious actors (not counting the FBI)? That number decreases to zero over time. I'm not sure how much time that is, but it's probably measured in years not decades.
> The latest overhype from apple is (and I am not kidding) that the FBI wants them to turn on cameras and microphones so they can film and listen to you. Really.
I was of the understanding that this has been possible in a variety of phones for years now, and not just by law enforcement. Regardless, the nature of the request being discussed is bad enough, and this request can be discussed separately if it turns out to be the case.
> Apple has pretty much turned to a turd on this one. They are outrightly being dishonest. Fuck Apple, seriously (and I don't say that often).
Sure. But don't let that set a terrible precedent that will fuck the rest of us, seriously.
That would still be more expensive than a plane without such a feature. That's not to say that such a plane wouldn't become popular, but the extra costs associated with the build of the plane, not to mention the extra running costs from higher fuel use by the heavier plane and changes to aerodynamics, would have to be recouped somehow.
You do your time and when you come out you realize that you are effectively still being punished.
... we actually want to give people a second chance.
I agree with the first AC that responded to you. If you (plural) really did want to give people a second chance, then those people wouldn't realise that they're still being punished... because they wouldn't be.
If the only way that you will give those people a second chance is if you don't know and can't find out about their history... then you're not really proposing what you think you're proposing.
Expendables 3 may not have won over critics but producer Avi Lerner is convinced that is not why the movie starring Sylvester Stallone and a dozen other stars underperformed at the box office — and he is still angry about what happened.
Translated: Yes, my movie was bad, but people go to see bad movies all the time, so why not mine? I had stars!
Other movies that were leaked prior to cinema release:
* Star Wars: The Force Awakens (http://www.idigitaltimes.com/star-wars-force-awakens-leaked-piracy-sites-hardly-made-dent-record-we ekend-box-499111) * The Revenant (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4143&p=.htm) * Hateful Eight (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-hateful-eight-70mm-853090)
So the real story is... people pay to see movies they like?
If half the people who ate food simply walked into their back yard and grew their own food, then the supermarket would make less money. It doesn't matter if the supermarket still makes money - the fact is that they make less money, and so do the farmers, and the food distributors. You guys are like people who walk into a market and take food, but the food is technically still on the shelves and available to be bought by anyone else who is willing to pay what the supermarket is asking. But you are selfish thieves because you're not giving the supermarket any money. And don't even get me started on people who cook their own food rather than eating at restaurants...
Terrible analogy, but subjectively not any worse than yours.
But your conclusion is based on a faulty premise. Not only is a pirated copy not equivalent to a lost sale, but study after study[1][2][3][4][5] has found that pirates spend more on entertainment content than non-pirates. Why hate your biggest customers?
I'm not sure that I agree with your reasoning behind military courts. I think the reasoning is the same as the reasoning behind dedicated IP courts, that is to say specialisation in the branch of law governed by the court.
In that way a military court may be expected to be harsher than a civilian court - say a soldier abandoned his duty to help a local family in some way; a civilian court may be expected to be lenient because of the benevolent nature of the soldier's actions, and because nothing bad came about from the dereliction. A military court would probably be expected to be very harsh in this instance, and to punish the dereliction as if the worst case happened as a result.
Back to my first point, I think that specialisation in military courts has the same problems as specialisation in IP courts - cronyism, and a tendency to self-reinforcement of incumbent position through an echo chamber effect.
"Umm, all EFF needs to do is grant the bureau of prisons a license for redistribution, and the argument goes away, leaving them to twist in the wind and find another reason to block it."
Umm... you mean something like this? (Emphasis mine)
EFF quickly sent USDB a letter explaining that all EFF content is available for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution license that allows for the material to be freely shared and remixed. The Creative Commons license is indicated, and the full policy linked, at the bottom of every page of our website. As the copyright holder, we asked the prison to provide Manning with the documents immediately and not to block any further EFF material from the facility. We further pointed out that our comments to the FCC were also public records, not simply information printed out from the Internet. We asked for a response by Thursday, February 18, 2016.
"EFF could very likely fix it, but I suspect they are too busy chasing wascally wabbits."
Or that may have already happened, as mentioned in the very article you are responding to?
"I am not a big believer in prisoners rights, however. Bradley Manning is a criminal, convicted in due course, and who's rights and freedoms are abridged under the law. This does appear to be excessive, but if the same rules are applied to all prisoners, then it us up to the inmate to challenge it in a court of law if they feel it's not just."
Bradley Manning? That there tells us more about you than you perhaps like.
Also, as a military prisoner, I don't believe Chelsea Manning has access to a court of law. Well, there are the military courts, but they hardly count as justice - more like revenge from those higher up that were thwarted. I thought concepts like human rights and the constitution should take precedence over lesser concepts like contract law or military law, but that's certainly not the case.
On the post: Apple Engineers Contemplate Refusing To Write Code Demanded By Justice Department
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Doesn't work out
On the post: Apple Engineers Contemplate Refusing To Write Code Demanded By Justice Department
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Doesn't work out
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?
On the post: Apple's Response To DOJ: Your Filing Is Full Of Blatantly Misleading Claims And Outright Falsehoods
Re: Re: Re: Re: There's an app for that.
Yeah... but no. A law enforcement officer is much less likely to pay ANY price for overstepping the law than some other person, even if they do so regularly and maliciously.
And what exactly has been fair game for the feds for 300 plus years? Detailed location data for a person over days and months? A list of everyone that a person has contacted over days and months? Every little note and shopping list that a person has written?
Encrypting a phone's contents is just like writing notes in a cipher. The police are welcome to try to break it, but there's no guarantee of success. Just like it has been since writing existed.
The balance you say you're asking for is for digital devices to be restricted so they CANNOT be as secure as physical objects... and you've yet to discuss that with anyone, other than saying the same thing over and over and over and over, without acknowledging that anyone has even tried to join the "discussion".
On the post: Apple's Response To DOJ: Your Filing Is Full Of Blatantly Misleading Claims And Outright Falsehoods
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You realise that the weak link is the user, don't you? And the user doesn't want to be fixed.
Same goes for security. Perhaps you are happy barely using your phone, but you seem overly cavalier in saying that everyone else is being stupid and weak for using their phone in ways that are convenient to them, to do the things they want to do, via the tools that have been marketed to them.
Saying that security should only exist for the skilled is just poor form.
http://swiftonsecurity.tumblr.com/post/98675308034/a-story-about-jessica
On the post: Apple's Response To DOJ: Your Filing Is Full Of Blatantly Misleading Claims And Outright Falsehoods
Re: Re: There's an app for that.
Note also that this link is purely an Apple spokesperson speaking to the media. It is not an Apple legal filing or motion in the case.
Feel free to point to the media circus to comment on the aims of one or the other of the parties, but so far as I can tell, only the FBI has lied in the actual court case so far.
On the post: Apple's Response To DOJ: Your Filing Is Full Of Blatantly Misleading Claims And Outright Falsehoods
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And yet a piece of paper and a locked safe CAN be designed so they are "always out of reach" of the government. So can a whisper in the night. As has been pointed out elsewhere, police investigations have always had to deal with information which is unobtainable. Why should digital security be legislated to be weaker than physical security?
On the post: Apple's Response To DOJ: Your Filing Is Full Of Blatantly Misleading Claims And Outright Falsehoods
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I'm not sure how to say this so you'll get it. Everyone else has tried, and you seem to be wilfully misinterpreting everything to see it your way. Not just get it but disagree, but actively-dance-around-the-edges ignoring the facts.
Fact: 4-digit pin codes are weak security, and Apple protects the user by extra security measures such as slowing down attempts, and locking after 10 failed tries.
Fact: Apple phones currently have a security vulnerability - you can update the security configuration without requiring the user to authenticate.
Ok. Say that Apple agrees to create FBiOS and help the FBI hack this one phone. Let's even say that the impossible happens that FBiOS never leaks, or that if it does leak then the signature requirements to install it on a phone are actually sufficient to stop bad guys from accessing the contents of stolen phones.
The entire international hacking community now knows that there is a proof-of-concept working exploit on all current Apple phones. You can absolutely guarantee that teams will be working around the clock to try to replicate the same, or even improve it - who's to say that some group might not find an even better attack, where parts of the key can be leaked from the underlying security chip so they can attack pin codes of any length?
It's ok though, Apple knows about the vulnerability, and the simple fix is to prevent updating the security firmware without authenticating the user. FBiOS becomes useless, and DoJ once again starts stockpiling encrypted phones that it needs help unlocking. What do you think happens next?
The FBI's request was full of lies and misdirections, and as mentioned in Apple's reply they deliberately misquoted the courts in United States v. Halstead to make the implication that they wanted. If it were a reasonable request, why can't they find an argument that rests on the truth?
Can you point to anywhere where Apple has lied in this case? Drawing slurs from the media circus surrounding the case and using them to attack Apple's behaviour within the case isn't very sportsmanlike.
On the post: Apple's Response To DOJ: Your Filing Is Full Of Blatantly Misleading Claims And Outright Falsehoods
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If you had a wall safe that they couldn't break into (without destroying the contents), then it's the same thing as a phone that they can't break into.
What's the problem?
Apple's issue is that pincodes are 4 to 6 digits, which is well within the range of a brute force. All the talk of security chip this and encrypted that means nothing if the user passcode is pretty much "1234". That's the real issue.
Poor passcodes is indeed a real issue, and Apple has taken some very good steps to mitigate the issue and try to protect people from themselves. The FBI wants to roll back these steps and reduce the common person's security - you know, that guy that doesn't want a pin code longer than 4 digits (and secretly hates even that).
And yet, despite (correctly) pointing to this as a keystone issue... why do you continue to defend what the FBI is trying to do here?
On the post: What Should We Do About Linking To Sites That Block People Using Ad Blockers?
Re: Wired vs Slate
The NSFW links are already marked. Look to the left of the article, and it will say "by Timothy Geigner"
On the post: Apple Engineering VP: The FBI Wants Us To Make Everyone Less Safe
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That may be true, and yet it doesn't necessarily follow that the FBI should be granted its request. Don't forget that the FBI is lying outright in this affair as well, find your own path.
> The FBI has not asked Apple to roll out an new OS for everyone.
Correct. The FBI is asking Apple to craft a custom OS with reduced security, and a mechanism by which they can install that OS, bypassing any security measures, onto a targeted phone.
> They haven't told them to put a back door on every phone.
Incorrect-ish. They are asking for every phone, now and in the future, to be vulnerable to this custom OS.
> They are asking for a single device to be made more accessible.
Correct-ish, but not the whole story.
The FBI is asking for the entire ecosystem of iPhone devices, now and in the future, to be vulnerable to a process by which critical security mechanisms on the device can be circumvented.
Sure, the FBI is asking for this for just one phone (twice), but the rest of the law enforcement community is lined up to make this request for just one phone any number of times.
And the odds of the process itself not becoming available to malicious actors (not counting the FBI)? That number decreases to zero over time. I'm not sure how much time that is, but it's probably measured in years not decades.
> The latest overhype from apple is (and I am not kidding) that the FBI wants them to turn on cameras and microphones so they can film and listen to you. Really.
I was of the understanding that this has been possible in a variety of phones for years now, and not just by law enforcement. Regardless, the nature of the request being discussed is bad enough, and this request can be discussed separately if it turns out to be the case.
> Apple has pretty much turned to a turd on this one. They are outrightly being dishonest. Fuck Apple, seriously (and I don't say that often).
Sure. But don't let that set a terrible precedent that will fuck the rest of us, seriously.
On the post: Techdirt Reading List: Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons From Science Fiction
Spaceballs?
On the post: Of Cockpits And Phone Encryption: Tradeoffs And Probabilities
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On the post: Of Cockpits And Phone Encryption: Tradeoffs And Probabilities
Re: Re: Re: What really stopped another 9/11
On the post: Of Cockpits And Phone Encryption: Tradeoffs And Probabilities
Re: Re: Re: You still don't get it!
Luckily, nobody has access to perfect OTP key-exchange, so we're still safe!
On the post: South Korea Embraces Ridiculous Right To Be Forgotten As Well
Re:
... we actually want to give people a second chance.
I agree with the first AC that responded to you. If you (plural) really did want to give people a second chance, then those people wouldn't realise that they're still being punished... because they wouldn't be.
If the only way that you will give those people a second chance is if you don't know and can't find out about their history... then you're not really proposing what you think you're proposing.
On the post: Once Again, Piracy Is Destroying The Movie Industry... To Ever More Records At The Box Office
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Translated: Yes, my movie was bad, but people go to see bad movies all the time, so why not mine? I had stars!
Other movies that were leaked prior to cinema release:
* Star Wars: The Force Awakens (http://www.idigitaltimes.com/star-wars-force-awakens-leaked-piracy-sites-hardly-made-dent-record-we ekend-box-499111)
* The Revenant (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4143&p=.htm)
* Hateful Eight (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-hateful-eight-70mm-853090)
So the real story is... people pay to see movies they like?
On the post: Once Again, Piracy Is Destroying The Movie Industry... To Ever More Records At The Box Office
Terrible analogy, but subjectively not any worse than yours.
But your conclusion is based on a faulty premise. Not only is a pirated copy not equivalent to a lost sale, but study after study[1][2][3][4][5] has found that pirates spend more on entertainment content than non-pirates. Why hate your biggest customers?
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150722/06502731723/aussie-study-infringers-spend-more-content-th an-non-infringers.shtml
[2] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110727/16233815292/another-day-another-study-that-says-pirates-a re-best-customers-this-time-hadopi.shtml
[3] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130513/11270823061/once-again-top-downloaders-are-top-spenders-a ccording-to-uk-govt-study.shtml
[4] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110721/04092915191/industry-suppressed-report-showing-users-shut tered-pirate-site-probably-helped-movie-industry.shtml
[5] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121126/00590921141/dear-riaa-pirates-buy-more-full-stop-deal-wit h-it.shtml
On the post: Military Prison Blocks Won't Let Chelsea Manning Read EFF Blog... To Protect EFF's Copyright
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In that way a military court may be expected to be harsher than a civilian court - say a soldier abandoned his duty to help a local family in some way; a civilian court may be expected to be lenient because of the benevolent nature of the soldier's actions, and because nothing bad came about from the dereliction. A military court would probably be expected to be very harsh in this instance, and to punish the dereliction as if the worst case happened as a result.
Back to my first point, I think that specialisation in military courts has the same problems as specialisation in IP courts - cronyism, and a tendency to self-reinforcement of incumbent position through an echo chamber effect.
On the post: Military Prison Blocks Won't Let Chelsea Manning Read EFF Blog... To Protect EFF's Copyright
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Umm... you mean something like this? (Emphasis mine)
"EFF could very likely fix it, but I suspect they are too busy chasing wascally wabbits."
Or that may have already happened, as mentioned in the very article you are responding to?
"I am not a big believer in prisoners rights, however. Bradley Manning is a criminal, convicted in due course, and who's rights and freedoms are abridged under the law. This does appear to be excessive, but if the same rules are applied to all prisoners, then it us up to the inmate to challenge it in a court of law if they feel it's not just."
Bradley Manning? That there tells us more about you than you perhaps like.
Also, as a military prisoner, I don't believe Chelsea Manning has access to a court of law. Well, there are the military courts, but they hardly count as justice - more like revenge from those higher up that were thwarted. I thought concepts like human rights and the constitution should take precedence over lesser concepts like contract law or military law, but that's certainly not the case.
On the post: CIA Head John Brennan Says CIA Failed To Prevent Terrorist Attacks Because Of Encrypted Communications
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