Apple has become "the iPhone company" (in terms of the vast majority of their profits and now, because so much of Apple is tied to the dominance of iPhone, lawmakers everywhere represent the biggest existential threat to the company.
if lawmakers undermine the security and privacy of Apple and the iPhone, it will destroy the stock and the company in short order.
Google's move to diversify and break up the company into many smaller, independent companies is starting to look pretty smart right about now. Cook and the board of directors better get off their asses and start pouring some serious resources into combatting the political wolves at their door and simultaneously work on their "second act". What do you do after making the most profitable and desirable phone in the world?
"destroy the stock and the company" Not really: the playing field across ALL smartphone manufacturers would remain the same as any law about security would equally effect all manufacturers of such phones. And from my reading of the coverage ApplePay wouldn't be effected and that's the area of security that most concerns me and IS a differentiator between other phones and the iPhone.
Sean The Bomber and his cohorts can just go back to one time pads and unencrypted "cryptic" text messages. and completely avoid the whole thing. "How about we have lunch Tuesday" sort of thing, meaning the act takes place Wednesday at midnight.... Politicians are morons when it comes to this issue.
You can't turn politicians into reformed morons, so the threats remain.
not to mention that no terroirst plot has been spoiled by any government agency's snooping methods.
and you better believe the chinese will use that backdoor, bye bye freedom of privacy.
Actually, several have been, but since "nothing happened", they are footnotes rather than headlines. The contents of messages are less relevant for intelligence purposes than who is talking to whom. With knowledge of the endpoints, you can apply graph theory to find cliques (or loosely-connected subgraphs) within the communications. It's a fascinating application of a branch of mathematics that also allows the Internet to work (dynamic routing is based on graph theory).
When properly applied, this technique lets you respond to suspicious activity of one person with general surveillance of that person's associates until you determine which clique is of interest. Then you follow up with targeted surveillance of the members of that clique until you have enough information to act. You may have noticed a word in my first sentence of this paragraph that suggests further problems, though: associates. We ostensibly have a guarantee of freedom of association in the Constitution of the United States of America. That right has been trampled many times in the past. Terrorists are the new communists, just like communists were the new anarchists. It is definitely a valid concern, and it is a separate concern from the right to be secure from unreasonable searches.
The most concerning part to me is that we don't have a lot of public information to let us analyze the effectiveness of the techniques. False negatives result in headlines, but false positives could result in innocent people being disappeared. Thanks to all the secrecy surrounding governmental intelligence apparatus, we may never know about them. I am not categorically opposed to this class of violation of the freedom of association, but to violate a fundamental freedom like that on such a broad scale, there needs to be oversight that is both extensive and public.
Stupid blaming the Conservatives. Labour were just as bad, I'd say worse at eroding our personal freedoms. It's just that the Marxist rags such as Guardian don't pick up on it.
Apple can't do it alone. They need their customers to stand with them. How many of us actually are?
Well....
Suppose the UK refuses to change its stance? Then Apple has two choices - comply or stop selling product in the UK. If they do the latter, don't you think the public would be (justifiably) outraged? If Apple is good at communicating their reasons, and gives suitable warning, I think the bulk of that outrage would be directed against the government and not at Apple.
So when the USA Passes a law then Apple just drops the US as well huh ? Get Real.
And that's the real danger. But I think the backlash in the US would be even greater. And Congresscritters also love their iPhones.
This is a dangerous game to play, no matter what side you choose to be on. But if you just go passive and accept everything the government mandates, then it's game over.
Stupid blaming the Conservatives. Labour were just as bad, I'd say worse at eroding our personal freedoms. It's just that the Marxist rags such as Guardian don't pick up on it.
I don't know about the UK, but it seems the same here in the US. Both parties support iron-fisted dictatorship. They just disagree over who gets to be dictator.
Those who want to greatly reduce the power of government (including, but not limited to the so-called "tea party" conservatives) are hated and attacked by both Republicans and Democrats and nearly all news outlets.
Facetious? Not completely. If Apple is forced to provide a backdoor key, and that key is placed into a third party's hands, who will be responsible for the breach of privacy?
How about law enables stipulations such as suspects unwilling to open their devices by choice are summarily placed in a cell until the related case has been solved.
The simplest and least problematic way is to have the owner access their own devcie for investiagory purposes.
How about law enables stipulations such as suspects unwilling to open their devices by choice are summarily placed in a cell until the related case has been solved.
Indefinite detention for being unwilling to surrender your own privacy? How is that any better?
Comments
When properly applied, this technique lets you respond to suspicious activity of one person with general surveillance of that person's associates until you determine which clique is of interest. Then you follow up with targeted surveillance of the members of that clique until you have enough information to act. You may have noticed a word in my first sentence of this paragraph that suggests further problems, though: associates. We ostensibly have a guarantee of freedom of association in the Constitution of the United States of America. That right has been trampled many times in the past. Terrorists are the new communists, just like communists were the new anarchists. It is definitely a valid concern, and it is a separate concern from the right to be secure from unreasonable searches.
The most concerning part to me is that we don't have a lot of public information to let us analyze the effectiveness of the techniques. False negatives result in headlines, but false positives could result in innocent people being disappeared. Thanks to all the secrecy surrounding governmental intelligence apparatus, we may never know about them. I am not categorically opposed to this class of violation of the freedom of association, but to violate a fundamental freedom like that on such a broad scale, there needs to be oversight that is both extensive and public.
Suppose the UK refuses to change its stance? Then Apple has two choices - comply or stop selling product in the UK. If they do the latter, don't you think the public would be (justifiably) outraged? If Apple is good at communicating their reasons, and gives suitable warning, I think the bulk of that outrage would be directed against the government and not at Apple.
And that's the real danger. But I think the backlash in the US would be even greater. And Congresscritters also love their iPhones.
This is a dangerous game to play, no matter what side you choose to be on. But if you just go passive and accept everything the government mandates, then it's game over.
I don't know about the UK, but it seems the same here in the US. Both parties support iron-fisted dictatorship. They just disagree over who gets to be dictator.
Those who want to greatly reduce the power of government (including, but not limited to the so-called "tea party" conservatives) are hated and attacked by both Republicans and Democrats and nearly all news outlets.
Facetious? Not completely. If Apple is forced to provide a backdoor key, and that key is placed into a third party's hands, who will be responsible for the breach of privacy?
How about law enables stipulations such as suspects unwilling to open their devices by choice are summarily placed in a cell until the related case has been solved.
The simplest and least problematic way is to have the owner access their own devcie for investiagory purposes.