Bottom line, the FBI, NSA, Homeland Security and the CIA want a secure logging port access that is not visible to anyone but them, allowing them to capture ever bit transmitted between all parties they are snooping on.
Microsoft and Apple are saying **** You. I'm not sacrificing our customers for your dog n' pony witch hunts. Good for them.
It boils down to, philosophically: who is entitled to have secrets? The U.S. Government and nobody else seems to be the answer.
Bottom line, the FBI, NSA, Homeland Security and the CIA want a secure logging port access that is not visible to anyone but them, allowing them to capture ever bit transmitted between all parties they are snooping on.
Microsoft and Apple are saying **** You. I'm not sacrificing our customers for your dog n' pony witch hunts. Good for them.
It boils down to, philosophically: who is entitled to have secrets? The U.S. Government and nobody else seems to be the answer.
I am not so sure about that.
The classic argument is if you have nothing to hide then why are you worried? A private citizen should be afforded the ability to keep secrets.
If you are breaking the law and using the tools available to do so, then it's up to the Government and law enforcement to catch you. Should they have back doors built-in to do so? Maybe they should outlaw the guns and cars that are being used to break more laws than encryption does.
As far as terrorism goes I don't think the Government is going to save enough lives on the margin versus the impact it has on every single member of society. If we let the Government spy on us all then the terrorists have won.
As far as drugs go I say legalize drugs and let Darwinism do it's work.
Incorrect. Learn about CALEA which has been law for 20 years and applies to phone, VOIP like Skype, Internet and cell phone providers. Simply, all of those communication providers must have lawful intercept (wiretap) capabilities. Hardly unconstitutional when it applies after a warrant is obtained.
Wrong. That is the service provider (the carriers) that have to provide access. That is TOTALLY different. I'm the end user, and if I want to use encryption I most certainly can, and I chose to do so when I buy an iDevice.
since I'm not a native speaker I may not get you hole arguments right. Anyway you last Statement ...
Quote:
Seems to me, after rereading my post, is that those objecting the loudest are of two categories, those that have committed crimes, and those that have a general dislike of authority.
... seems to be logical if one would follow your point of view. But there are other Point of Views and then your argumentation didn't fit any more.
If it would be true that there is always a judge involved and there is always a search warrant your argumatation would be valid IMHO.
- But as Snowden showed us, It's not always the case. :-/
- I'm not an US citizen, so I'm not protected from your laws. Your agency can simply slip into my privacy, with out a search warrant. As they already did.
Since I'm out of germany I saw twice in our historie how important it is to maintain privacy against governments.
Wrong. That is the service provider (the carriers) that have to provide access. That is TOTALLY different. I'm the end user, and if I want to use encryption I most certainly can, and I chose to do so when I buy an iDevice.
In the case of iMessage, Apple is acting as the service provider so I think the intercept laws can definitely be extended to include iMessage and Apple could be forced into providing "lawful" intercept capabilities in the same manner that the telcos have been required to do for decades. This also will likely extend beyond iMessage and also be applied to FaceTime Audio and Video communications.
Apple could fairly easily build in a mechanism to disable the end to end encryption for messages to/from specific named people/devices. This kind of mechanism would force the government to be very clear when getting their warrants approved and would prevent the kind of bulk intercepts that we are all worried about. Of course the government will also want/demand wildcard access for copies of every communication to or from a named person - and as much as I personally dislike that - it will fall into the hands of a judge to decide whether to grant the request or not.
As far as working together to find common ground is concerned - perhaps Apple should offer to disable iMessage capabilities between any 2 specific users (upon receipt of a court order) - forcing the targets to communicate via SMS - and then the government can get those real-time messages from the carriers using existing mechanisms. The bigger problems the government will face are the number of messaging apps that exist - some with encryption, some without. Bad people up to nefarious things have many choices as far as communications is concerned and even if they stuck to one app for all communications, it would be a difficult job simply for authorities to determine which app is being used and what aliases our bad guys have created for themselves...and assuming they are able to do so, some of these apps are run by very small development companies or even individual programmers who might not even store communications after they have been delivered.
I'm a retired police officer, and the problem, as I see it, is the doctrine of 'plain sight' meaning that anything seen (in plain sight) while executing a warrant is validly collected. My question would be, assuming valid search warrants are ultimately granted and enforceable (with the cooperation of Apple and others), is how do you limit the scope of such search warrants to the targets? Once access to unencrypted iMessage is granted all communications are exposed.
As to whether Apple should surrender iMessages when directed under a valid search warrant, I can see both sides. The mission (what they are legally bound to do, and for which they are paid) is to enforce the law. Search warrants have been a very important tool in the fight against crime. Without them the number of arrests and convictions drop, maybe to the point of anarchy.
On the other hand, the average law abiding citizen wants to be secure in their person from unreasonable search and seizures. Since the Bill of Rights was first adopted the Courts have defined what is reasonable, especially since the 1960s.
From a personal point of view, I don't worry about government searches of my property and/or person for two reasons: first, I know I have committed no crimes and, second, the process of obtaining a valid search warrant is very precise. Even after being granted and executed some are found (due to defects in the warrant) to be unlawful, resulting in the evidence collected being inadmissible.
So, even if a valid warrant is granted to search my person and/or property, I have nothing to fear (beyond the intrusion into my privacy) as I have committed no crime.
Seems to me, after rereading my post, is that those objecting the loudest are of two categories, those that have committed crimes, and those that have a general dislike of authority.
Absolute bullshit. People have a right to privacy and security. If you put back doors in, the hackers will follow. The government keeps telling companies that they need to INCREASE security on their networks, not decrease it. There are other ways to find and prove criminal activity. Let law enforcement do their job with the tools they have. Period. It is already costing us 10's of Billions of dollars a year. Enough is enough!
I haven't heard about the CALEA angle before. Has Apple's claim that it's not a telecommunications provider been tested in the specific context of iMessages? If Apple's not a telecommuncations provider, who is? If the messages pass through Apple's servers, it seems hard to deny that they're part of a telecommunications circuit.
But even so, what specifically are they obligated to do, even if they are a telecommunications provider? Do they only have to provide a back door to encryption that they offer, in which case users could adopt a different, perhaps even Apple-blessed, encryption solution to avoid the problem? Or is all of this legally grey because it hasn't gotten through the courts yet?
oh, i am sorry, i did not know that murdering millions was so ambivalent to you, and i never said which ones were right or wrong.
also, you should be advised that when a democratic country wants to spy on its citizens without their knowledge, it is not really a democracy.
I, can assure you that I am not having any ambivalent views. No offense intended, but your last comment clearly put very different political systems into one basket. I'd like to see you write critical comments in N.-Korea, for starters. And no one claims that democracy works by itself, and that it is error prone. And, of course it is strongly influenced by interests of economy and power.
If you feel that the current laws or the political system representing you as a citizen are/is not adequate, you are very welcome to actively defend your democratic values by becoming politically active and change things - another inherent differentiating criteria of democracies.
This is actually necessary to ensure that the democracy remains one. Obviously I agree with you, that spying on citizens is a very delicate topic, and definitely should not be allowed on a general, unspecific large-scale level. However, IMO there are situations where the state spying on someone without their knowledge is actually ok. I give you the example of police installing surveillance systems (audio and video) in a neighbouring house in order to "spy" on people suspected of major crime, all with a valid warrant. The evidence collected helped ultimately to raise accusations and convict the suspects. The biggest risks I see, however, on an every-day-basis is not what's on paper (=law), but its execution. This is mainly, where mistakes are made, and innocent people are shot, or spied on without proper warrant, etc.
And like with every system (be it "unlimited data" or whatever), there are people who abuse it, or at least try to. The challenge is to strike a balance where you can catch enough of the bad guys" while minimising risk of errors. You mentioned somewhere that you have a wife, if I'm not mistaken, so how would you feel about showing your iMessages to police when given a warrant that is issued in connection in finding a rapist? Personally, I would feel very uncomfortable, as I would be concerned about someone making a gross mistake and I would have to rely on the system working to the extent to clarify this (risk of failures in execution), but in general I would be happy if my contribution can help to find and convict that person.
The bad guys would just use use a third-party (open source) app to communicate. Secure end-to-end encryption exists. No court or politician can change that.
The bad guys would just use use a third-party (open source) app to communicate. Secure end-to-end encryption exists. No court or politician can change that.
Cars are stolen in spite of locks of door and steering wheel, and alarm systems. Does that mean we should abandon them altogether?
Backup data can be recovered with your password. You can reset your password if you forget it. Put those two facts together.
Wrong. That's not the issue here. Apple couldn't get real time data even if you did have a warrant. It's going to end up like Bill Clinton's CALEA which mandates backdoors, a.k.a law enforcement access.
I hope, at some point, when some other country or some high-tech mafia makes billions in damage using the backdoors, that the government officials that mandated such backdoors are held personally accountable.
Rule n°1 of backdoors: if it exists, you can't make sure that only the government will use it.
Cars are stolen in spite of locks of door and steering wheel, and alarm systems. Does that mean we should abandon them altogether?
A more apt comparison would be "Since any kid with a paper clip can defeat locks of doors and steering wheel and alarm systems, should we abandon them". And guess what: if it were the case, we would.
Law is the law and Apple isn't in Congress. Are you supporting the Kentucky clerk who's in jail right now?
Except when it's an Irish law, in which case the US courts seem to be of the opinion they have a right to ignore it and a right to order others to break them, which is the Microsoft situation.
Except when it's an Irish law, in which case the US courts seem to be of the opinion they have a right to ignore it and a right to order others to break them, which is the Microsoft situation.
Actually, the problem is, the Law is inferior to International Agreements. Those agreements are negotiated between governments, outside of the rule of the People, often under a cloak of secrecy, and with "involved parties", which means Big Business.
It's a problem that all modern countries face, or more accurately decline to face, and most likely one of the bigger political issues to be addressed by courageous people in the current century.
Before asking the key to encrypted communications among citizens, put a legal framework in place.
What the US seems to be forgetting more and more is the concept of "checks and balances" that made your country great.
If the police needs access, it needs to be done with the go ahead of the legal system, and the supervision of it. Only a limited number of people have to have access to sensitive private data.
I would be in favor of "wiretapping" under the aforementioned conditions. And I believe that the police would follow them. But you have other government agencies, NSA, CIA, that would simply use the data to continue their unchecked, uncontrolled blanket surveillance under the excuse of National Security. And that is the caveat. The circulation of information to large amounts of people, without any supervision whatsoever.
Unless the NSA stops the programs and/or becomes much more transparent as to which data under which condition, with the approval of which other state power (checks and balances), judiciary, executive, it gathers, then the public will feel insecure.
I don't mind an inspection of police, with a proper search warrant under the rule of law. I mind that people I don't know gather all metadata of my communications without my knowledge. And, as a foreign citizen, I am even more angry because as I write I could be a target of that surveillance, done by another country. And this, believe me, makes me really angry. This sort of "cowboy" attitude (Merkel's phone under surveillance....) harms the US much more than what you think.
I know I went off topic with this rant, I'm sorry but I wanted to express my opinion and why, ultimately, I strongly believe in end to end encrypted communications.
I speak from Switzerland, a country where all major telecoms have signed off with Ericsson to all sign to Huawei for the management of cell towers. Do you honestly think that China, which ultimately owns all companies, including Huawei, would NEVER EVER dream of spying on a country where we have the UN in Geneva, several top pharmaceutical companies, the Red Cross, the main seat of FIFA, of the Olympic Committee, the World Economic Forum and so on and so forth? Sure the telco companies got a good deal from Huawei. If I was China I would have done it for free.....
Yeah. But nobody raises the issue because we are "swiss". It works, who cares. But China has acquired so much technological skills that I would bet they intercept communication, even without any proof.
So I use iMessage. I know, it's not much, but I do what I can. At least I try to.
Comments
Are you saying that all married couples should be forced to procreate in order to benefit from the institution of marriage?
I’m just telling you why it exists.
Well laws change.
The why is irrelevant. What is relevant is offering all people the same rights. Pretty basic.
Bottom line, the FBI, NSA, Homeland Security and the CIA want a secure logging port access that is not visible to anyone but them, allowing them to capture ever bit transmitted between all parties they are snooping on.
Microsoft and Apple are saying **** You. I'm not sacrificing our customers for your dog n' pony witch hunts. Good for them.
It boils down to, philosophically: who is entitled to have secrets? The U.S. Government and nobody else seems to be the answer.
Bottom line, the FBI, NSA, Homeland Security and the CIA want a secure logging port access that is not visible to anyone but them, allowing them to capture ever bit transmitted between all parties they are snooping on.
Microsoft and Apple are saying **** You. I'm not sacrificing our customers for your dog n' pony witch hunts. Good for them.
It boils down to, philosophically: who is entitled to have secrets? The U.S. Government and nobody else seems to be the answer.
I am not so sure about that.
The classic argument is if you have nothing to hide then why are you worried? A private citizen should be afforded the ability to keep secrets.
If you are breaking the law and using the tools available to do so, then it's up to the Government and law enforcement to catch you. Should they have back doors built-in to do so? Maybe they should outlaw the guns and cars that are being used to break more laws than encryption does.
As far as terrorism goes I don't think the Government is going to save enough lives on the margin versus the impact it has on every single member of society. If we let the Government spy on us all then the terrorists have won.
As far as drugs go I say legalize drugs and let Darwinism do it's work.
The why is irrelevant.
Well, that’s abject nonsense if I’ve ever heard it.
“Why have you forced entry into my home and are holding my family at gunpoint?”
“The why is irrelevant.”
Why is literally the only thing that ever matters.
The why is irrelevant.
Well, that’s abject nonsense if I’ve ever heard it.
“Why have you forced entry into my home and are holding my family at gunpoint?”
“The why is irrelevant.”
Why is literally the only thing that ever matters.
Nice job moving the goal posts.
The why in this instance has been overturned by the Supreme Court.
Like I said laws change to afford more basic rights for all citizens in this case in particular.
Wrong. That is the service provider (the carriers) that have to provide access. That is TOTALLY different. I'm the end user, and if I want to use encryption I most certainly can, and I chose to do so when I buy an iDevice.
I'm so happy that you are there to tell us which laws are right and which ones aren't.
Also, I advise you read about democracy versus tyranny.
I'm so happy that you are there to tell us which laws are right and which ones aren't.
Also, I advise you read about democracy versus tyranny.
oh, i am sorry, i did not know that murdering millions was so ambivalent to you, and i never said which ones were right or wrong.
also, you should be advised that when a democratic country wants to spy on its citizens without their knowledge, it is not really a democracy.
Hi Greg,
since I'm not a native speaker I may not get you hole arguments right. Anyway you last Statement ...
... seems to be logical if one would follow your point of view. But there are other Point of Views and then your argumentation didn't fit any more.
If it would be true that there is always a judge involved and there is always a search warrant your argumatation would be valid IMHO.
- But as Snowden showed us, It's not always the case. :-/
- I'm not an US citizen, so I'm not protected from your laws. Your agency can simply slip into my privacy, with out a search warrant. As they already did.
Since I'm out of germany I saw twice in our historie how important it is to maintain privacy against governments.
DeLorean
Apple could fairly easily build in a mechanism to disable the end to end encryption for messages to/from specific named people/devices. This kind of mechanism would force the government to be very clear when getting their warrants approved and would prevent the kind of bulk intercepts that we are all worried about. Of course the government will also want/demand wildcard access for copies of every communication to or from a named person - and as much as I personally dislike that - it will fall into the hands of a judge to decide whether to grant the request or not.
As far as working together to find common ground is concerned - perhaps Apple should offer to disable iMessage capabilities between any 2 specific users (upon receipt of a court order) - forcing the targets to communicate via SMS - and then the government can get those real-time messages from the carriers using existing mechanisms. The bigger problems the government will face are the number of messaging apps that exist - some with encryption, some without. Bad people up to nefarious things have many choices as far as communications is concerned and even if they stuck to one app for all communications, it would be a difficult job simply for authorities to determine which app is being used and what aliases our bad guys have created for themselves...and assuming they are able to do so, some of these apps are run by very small development companies or even individual programmers who might not even store communications after they have been delivered.
Absolute bullshit. People have a right to privacy and security. If you put back doors in, the hackers will follow. The government keeps telling companies that they need to INCREASE security on their networks, not decrease it. There are other ways to find and prove criminal activity. Let law enforcement do their job with the tools they have. Period. It is already costing us 10's of Billions of dollars a year. Enough is enough!
I haven't heard about the CALEA angle before. Has Apple's claim that it's not a telecommunications provider been tested in the specific context of iMessages? If Apple's not a telecommuncations provider, who is? If the messages pass through Apple's servers, it seems hard to deny that they're part of a telecommunications circuit.
But even so, what specifically are they obligated to do, even if they are a telecommunications provider? Do they only have to provide a back door to encryption that they offer, in which case users could adopt a different, perhaps even Apple-blessed, encryption solution to avoid the problem? Or is all of this legally grey because it hasn't gotten through the courts yet?
oh, i am sorry, i did not know that murdering millions was so ambivalent to you, and i never said which ones were right or wrong.
also, you should be advised that when a democratic country wants to spy on its citizens without their knowledge, it is not really a democracy.
I, can assure you that I am not having any ambivalent views. No offense intended, but your last comment clearly put very different political systems into one basket. I'd like to see you write critical comments in N.-Korea, for starters. And no one claims that democracy works by itself, and that it is error prone. And, of course it is strongly influenced by interests of economy and power.
If you feel that the current laws or the political system representing you as a citizen are/is not adequate, you are very welcome to actively defend your democratic values by becoming politically active and change things - another inherent differentiating criteria of democracies.
This is actually necessary to ensure that the democracy remains one. Obviously I agree with you, that spying on citizens is a very delicate topic, and definitely should not be allowed on a general, unspecific large-scale level. However, IMO there are situations where the state spying on someone without their knowledge is actually ok. I give you the example of police installing surveillance systems (audio and video) in a neighbouring house in order to "spy" on people suspected of major crime, all with a valid warrant. The evidence collected helped ultimately to raise accusations and convict the suspects. The biggest risks I see, however, on an every-day-basis is not what's on paper (=law), but its execution. This is mainly, where mistakes are made, and innocent people are shot, or spied on without proper warrant, etc.
And like with every system (be it "unlimited data" or whatever), there are people who abuse it, or at least try to. The challenge is to strike a balance where you can catch enough of the bad guys" while minimising risk of errors. You mentioned somewhere that you have a wife, if I'm not mistaken, so how would you feel about showing your iMessages to police when given a warrant that is issued in connection in finding a rapist? Personally, I would feel very uncomfortable, as I would be concerned about someone making a gross mistake and I would have to rely on the system working to the extent to clarify this (risk of failures in execution), but in general I would be happy if my contribution can help to find and convict that person.
The bad guys would just use use a third-party (open source) app to communicate. Secure end-to-end encryption exists. No court or politician can change that.
Cars are stolen in spite of locks of door and steering wheel, and alarm systems. Does that mean we should abandon them altogether?
Backup data can be recovered with your password. You can reset your password if you forget it. Put those two facts together.
Wrong. That's not the issue here. Apple couldn't get real time data even if you did have a warrant. It's going to end up like Bill Clinton's CALEA which mandates backdoors, a.k.a law enforcement access.
I hope, at some point, when some other country or some high-tech mafia makes billions in damage using the backdoors, that the government officials that mandated such backdoors are held personally accountable.
Rule n°1 of backdoors: if it exists, you can't make sure that only the government will use it.
Cars are stolen in spite of locks of door and steering wheel, and alarm systems. Does that mean we should abandon them altogether?
A more apt comparison would be "Since any kid with a paper clip can defeat locks of doors and steering wheel and alarm systems, should we abandon them". And guess what: if it were the case, we would.
Law is the law and Apple isn't in Congress. Are you supporting the Kentucky clerk who's in jail right now?
Except when it's an Irish law, in which case the US courts seem to be of the opinion they have a right to ignore it and a right to order others to break them, which is the Microsoft situation.
Except when it's an Irish law, in which case the US courts seem to be of the opinion they have a right to ignore it and a right to order others to break them, which is the Microsoft situation.
Actually, the problem is, the Law is inferior to International Agreements. Those agreements are negotiated between governments, outside of the rule of the People, often under a cloak of secrecy, and with "involved parties", which means Big Business.
It's a problem that all modern countries face, or more accurately decline to face, and most likely one of the bigger political issues to be addressed by courageous people in the current century.
Before asking the key to encrypted communications among citizens, put a legal framework in place.
What the US seems to be forgetting more and more is the concept of "checks and balances" that made your country great.
If the police needs access, it needs to be done with the go ahead of the legal system, and the supervision of it. Only a limited number of people have to have access to sensitive private data.
I would be in favor of "wiretapping" under the aforementioned conditions. And I believe that the police would follow them. But you have other government agencies, NSA, CIA, that would simply use the data to continue their unchecked, uncontrolled blanket surveillance under the excuse of National Security. And that is the caveat. The circulation of information to large amounts of people, without any supervision whatsoever.
Unless the NSA stops the programs and/or becomes much more transparent as to which data under which condition, with the approval of which other state power (checks and balances), judiciary, executive, it gathers, then the public will feel insecure.
I don't mind an inspection of police, with a proper search warrant under the rule of law. I mind that people I don't know gather all metadata of my communications without my knowledge. And, as a foreign citizen, I am even more angry because as I write I could be a target of that surveillance, done by another country. And this, believe me, makes me really angry. This sort of "cowboy" attitude (Merkel's phone under surveillance....) harms the US much more than what you think.
I know I went off topic with this rant, I'm sorry but I wanted to express my opinion and why, ultimately, I strongly believe in end to end encrypted communications.
I speak from Switzerland, a country where all major telecoms have signed off with Ericsson to all sign to Huawei for the management of cell towers. Do you honestly think that China, which ultimately owns all companies, including Huawei, would NEVER EVER dream of spying on a country where we have the UN in Geneva, several top pharmaceutical companies, the Red Cross, the main seat of FIFA, of the Olympic Committee, the World Economic Forum and so on and so forth? Sure the telco companies got a good deal from Huawei. If I was China I would have done it for free.....
Yeah. But nobody raises the issue because we are "swiss". It works, who cares. But China has acquired so much technological skills that I would bet they intercept communication, even without any proof.
So I use iMessage. I know, it's not much, but I do what I can. At least I try to.