Amid FBI row, Apple hires developer behind secure messaging app Signal

AppleInsider

Apple is hiring Frederic Jacobs -- a developer responsible for the secure chat app Signal -- to work on the CoreOS security team this summer, a report noted on Friday.

Jacobs announced his new job in a Twitter post, later spotted by TechCrunch. Beyond the security focus, Jacobs hasn't elaborated on what he might be doing, which is common for high-profile recruitments at Apple.

He is however a specialist in cryptography, and Signal's main feature is end-to-end encryption, in theory making it impenetrable to outside parties like hackers and governments.

Apple is reportedly working to negate the kind of passcode workaround the FBI is requesting in the case of an iPhone 5c owned by dead San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. The company is also allegedly planning to offer more secure iCloud accounts, such that even Apple wouldn't be able to examine the contents of a backup.

Those efforts could require someone like Jacobs. He may have come to the company's attention because Signal is the favorite messaging app of Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who exposed the organization's mass surveillance programs in 2013. Snowden is currently in exile in Russia, and could face extradition and imprisonment if caught by U.S. (or U.S.-friendly) agents.

boltsfan17

This sounds like a great hire for Apple. Now cue the one post idiots who are comparing Apple to terrorists. 

rob53

boltsfan17 said:

This sounds like a great hire for Apple. Now cue the one post idiots who are comparing Apple to terrorists. 

You're not going to find these programmers working for peanuts for the FBI or NSA. 

razormaid

This is NOT a political statement declaring any party affiliation but had our military been allowed to address the ISIS threat when they sill were the "JV team" they could have squashed this from the start limiting the recruiting process that then followed. After all showing terrorists blowed to bits isn't the best way to attract people to a failed cause:  " Come join us and everyone will see parts of your brave body spread across the desert!"  Sign me up!!

levi

rgw46 said:

hope Snowden does come back..put that little MORON in jail...IN A DRESS...

Your ignorant comment took a weird homophobic turn at the end there. Are you confusing him with Chelsy Manning? Regardless, you sound like a real winner.

razormaid

And by the way... Where's Hollywood in all this FBI crap?  You remember the stars who were Sooooooooooo upset their nude photos were pulled from their iPhones and iCloud accounts?  Why are THEY on the sidelines?  They do realize if the FBI wins their crap will be over the Internet big time right?

hey Jennifer I'm talking to you!  Your voice and they rest of your friends would go a long way in helping apple keep your crap secure. Get involved 

Remember it was revealed back in 2001 that the FBI didn't even use computers that everything was hand written for security. It came up during a congress review that they weren't even allowed to gather info using Facebook or MySpace ?  One of the congressman made the comment "My 6 year old grandson can look it up but you can't??"  Remember how shocked we all were to find this out?  So somehow they went from no computer -> to trust us with THEE most damaging software code in history - all in just 15 years??  Apple has been doing this for 30+ years but the FBI is suddenly a computer/mobile specialist?  They're the ones who told the idiot ar SBC that changing the Apple ID and password was a good way to retrieve info from the phone? Imagine the studio decisions they could make with govtOS?The only device allowed in the pentagon is the iPhone. So where does that leave our defense when they hack into there??

edited February 2016

jungmark

levi said:

rgw46 said:

hope Snowden does come back..put that little MORON in jail...IN A DRESS...

Your ignorant comment took a weird homophobic turn at the end there. Are you confusing him with Chelsy Manning? Regardless, you sound like a real winner.

I don't know it's homophobic. It is a strange comment nonetheless. And Snowden should be in jail. 

malcolmtucker

boltsfan17 said:

This sounds like a great hire for Apple. Now cue the one post idiots who are comparing Apple to terrorists. 

Meh.  When I read the news article from the FBI that read "This is not a marketing campaign" it really should have read "USDOJ prepares case".

Apple has too much to loose, in the way of import bans (even from other countries).

Its likely going to take some time for discovery to occur but in lawsuits and cases like this, Apple is likely going to regret it.  

But in the end, Customers will benefit from having 5 or 6 smaller and more specialized companies, that can also each government requests.  

Apple retains the Title to all your electronic purchases and data.  That is by design.  Even if you were to pass away from natural causes, Apple customers can't transfer the software licenses... And as a request to vacate the Judge's order, Apple Dietys will prevent transfer of ownership of the physical hardware either. 

mattinoz

razormaid said:

And by the way... Where's Hollywood in all this FBI crap?  You remember the stars who were Sooooooooooo upset their nude photos were pulled from their iPhones and iCloud accounts?  Why are THEY on the sidelines?  They do realize if the FBI wins their crap will be over the Internet big time right?

hey Jennifer I'm talking to you!  Your voice and they rest of your friends would go a long way in helping apple keep your crap secure. Get involved 

...

There is a similarly between both cases. Apple is trouble because users didn't make use of the security tools available to them. 

Celebraties with itch weak passwords and not using two factor authentication.
Government department not using device management. 

creek0512

razormaid said:

This is NOT a political statement declaring any party affiliation but had our military been allowed to address the ISIS threat when they sill were the "JV team" they could have squashed this from the start limiting the recruiting process that then followed. After all showing terrorists blowed to bits isn't the best way to attract people to a failed cause:  " Come join us and everyone will see parts of your brave body spread across the desert!"  Sign me up!!

Yep, it worked so well in Afghanistan and Iraq it was guaranteed to work in Syria.

spamsandwich

rob53 said:

boltsfan17 said:

This sounds like a great hire for Apple. Now cue the one post idiots who are comparing Apple to terrorists. 

You're not going to find these programmers working for peanuts for the FBI or NSA. 

The NSA pays their programmers well. Just ask Snowden. He was a contractor living in Hawaii.

foggyhill

razormaid said:

This is NOT a political statement declaring any party affiliation but had our military been allowed to address the ISIS threat when they sill were the "JV team" they could have squashed this from the start limiting the recruiting process that then followed. After all showing terrorists blowed to bits isn't the best way to attract people to a failed cause:  " Come join us and everyone will see parts of your brave body spread across the desert!"  Sign me up!!

Wow, you are really idiotic if you believe that.
The carnage in the middle east is what creates terrorism. You;'re not going to kill all the terrorists ever.
If someone thinks they're going to be rewarded in the next life, the perspective of death is not going to stop them, but encourage them.
Also, when you're dealing with strongly held beliefs, or clan like structures, making it a us vs them battle, only prolongs the conflict.

Also, terrorism is as much about ideas as actual bodies; you're not going to kill and idea until it itself commits suicide (like communism).
In the case of religious based ideas (unlike ideological ones), the chance that this will occur completely is very low, at most it can be marginalized for a while before it surges back up again (and I expect that eventually this will be the case). It will die down and there will be a lull a possibly several decades before it comes back up.

Once it dies down for this lull, the best way to stop the bleeding is metaphorically hit the source.

That means kicking the Saudis ass for being the biggest instigator
 and make sure that poverty and despair doesn't take over the whole region (war is good at fomenting this).
Economical development is the best way of stopping terrorism; that's were the money should be spent.

Having total energy independence is a good way to get those middle eastern Saudi dictators suffer, making them lose enough money that they don't have any to spend on foreign incursions. The last 2 years is a start, they've lost more than a 100B dollars...

edited February 2016

foggyhill

jungmark said:

levi said:

Your ignorant comment took a weird homophobic turn at the end there. Are you confusing him with Chelsy Manning? Regardless, you sound like a real winner.

I don't know it's homophobic. It is a strange comment nonetheless. And Snowden should be in jail. 

It's clearly an invitation to rape, or assault if it's indeed about Snowden; so it is homophobic (all prison rape "jokes" make me sick, there's nothing funny about that, all prisoners are still human beings deserving respect).

Snowden should be in jail a long time because he divulge a lot more than just illegal government surveillance.
If he had limited himself to that I'd have been OK with a short sentence, say 6 months.

spamsandwich

foggyhill said:

jungmark said:

I don't know it's homophobic. It is a strange comment nonetheless. And Snowden should be in jail. 

It's clearly an invitation to rape, or assault if it's indeed about Snowden; so it is homophobic (all prison rape "jokes" make me sick, there's nothing funny about that, all prisoners are still human beings deserving respect).

Snowden should be in jail a long time because he divulge a lot more than just illegal government surveillance.
If he had limited himself to that I'd have been OK with a short sentence, say 6 months.

Snowden would indeed face Federal prison time if he were to ever return (or if he left Russia, for example). I see his work to expose these agencies at great personal risk heroic and more patriotic than the agencies which have been violating both the spirit and letter of constitutional law regarding our protected rights.

razormaid

foggyhill said:

razormaid said:

This is NOT a political statement declaring any party affiliation but had our military been allowed to address the ISIS threat when they sill were the "JV team" they could have squashed this from the start limiting the recruiting process that then followed. After all showing terrorists blowed to bits isn't the best way to attract people to a failed cause:  " Come join us and everyone will see parts of your brave body spread across the desert!"  Sign me up!!

Wow, you are really idiotic if you believe that.
The carnage in the middle east is what creates terrorism. You;'re not going to kill all the terrorists ever.
If someone thinks they're going to be rewarded in the next life, the perspective of death is not going to stop them, but encourage them.
Also, when you're dealing with strongly held beliefs, or clan like structures, making it a us vs them battle, only prolongs the conflict.

Also, terrorism is as much about ideas as actual bodies; you're not going to kill and idea until it itself commits suicide (like communism).
In the case of religious based ideas (unlike ideological ones), the chance that this will occur completely is very low, at most it can be marginalized for a while before it surges back up again (and I expect that eventually this will be the case). It will die down and there will be a lull a possibly several decades before it comes back up.

Once it dies down for this lull, the best way to stop the bleeding is metaphorically hit the source.

That means kicking the Saudis ass for being the biggest instigator
 and make sure that poverty and despair doesn't take over the whole region (war is good at fomenting this).
Economical development is the best way of stopping terrorism; that's were the money should be spent.

Having total energy independence is a good way to get those middle eastern Saudi dictators suffer, making them lose enough money that they don't have any to spend on foreign incursions. The last 2 years is a start, they've lost more than a 100B dollars...

So you thought stopping Hitler was a bad thing?  "Just don't do business with him" and he'll stop attacking and taking over other countries?  Did those sanctions stop Iran from their hundreds of current proxy wars?  Stopping the flow of their money is rarely the answer. You can't actually believe just letting them continue to get bigger and bigger is the answer?  Stop the recruiting and you have no fighters to fight. Eventually you run out of bodies and when you read how they're being defeated on a daily basis who the hell would want to join that party?  I never said it would stop ALL terrorism but cutting off the head of the most serious terrorist (Like Hitler) in this case would have prevented them from forcing literally millions from fleeing for their lives and the rest of the world having to take them in when they don't even want to leave their homes in the first place. Sometimes in life you have to stand up against bullies (like the FBI and ISIS) and do the right thing just like we did against Hitler and Japan. You can bury you head in the sand but left unchecked long enough your body will eventually be joining that head when they come to cut it off 

rob53

SpamSandwich said:

rob53 said:

You're not going to find these programmers working for peanuts for the FBI or NSA. 

The NSA pays their programmers well. Just ask Snowden. He was a contractor living in Hawaii.

Just because he was telecommuting doesn't mean he was paid well. 

rayz2016

rob53 said:

SpamSandwich said:

The NSA pays their programmers well. Just ask Snowden. He was a contractor living in Hawaii.

Just because he was telecommuting doesn't mean he was paid well. 

Indeed. Telecommuting is an incentive that companies often use to pay less.

spamsandwich

rob53 said:

SpamSandwich said:

The NSA pays their programmers well. Just ask Snowden. He was a contractor living in Hawaii.

Just because he was telecommuting doesn't mean he was paid well. 

He said he was well paid and his employer confirmed he was being paid $122,000. You're barking up the wrong tree.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/11/did-snowden-really-earn-a-200000-salary

edited February 2016

urei1620

SpamSandwich said:

rob53 said:

Just because he was telecommuting doesn't mean he was paid well. 

He said he was well paid and his employer confirmed he was being paid $122,000. You're barking up the wrong tree.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/11/did-snowden-really-earn-a-200000-salary

Snowden took a pay cut to work for Booz-Allen & Hamilton in order to get access to more classified information. He went on to say that his previous job paid $200K.

spamsandwich

Urei1620 said:

SpamSandwich said:

He said he was well paid and his employer confirmed he was being paid $122,000. You're barking up the wrong tree.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/11/did-snowden-really-earn-a-200000-salary

Snowden took a pay cut to work for Booz-Allen & Hamilton in order to get access to more classified information. He went on to say that his previous job paid $200K.

Are you saying pay of $122K/yr. + a Hawaii work address are not attractive?