Before Apple added encryption, iPhone users were getting assaulted by thieves wanting to steal their iPhones. Encryption resulted in much lower rates of assaults on iPhone users. And the police in major states like California and New York applauded Apple's move for consumer safety. California and New York passed laws requiring smartphone companies create similar protections for their users. Android has them turned off when the phone is sold. Unlike Apple's iPhone where encryption is the default and everyone is protected.
It wasn't encryption that lowered theft rates. It was the addition of the Activation Lock feature that prevents someone from reselling a stolen iPhone if they don't know the Apple ID/password (which the iPhone will ask for before it allows you to set up/activate). That is, if you have Find My iPhone turned on.
Can you have one without the other? Encryption without activation lock can be brute forced rendering it useless over time. Activation lock without encryption of data means the lock can be defeated by data transfer.
So as the case progresses, FBI/DoJ inevitably placed an cover-page advertisement on Time magazine for Tim Cook of Apple.
Utimately, tech companies will have to create 'disposable OS' which will be out-dated everytime FBI picks up a phone .... used by a terrorist and messed up its cloud password... and pick a fight with a court order like issuing a traffic ticket.
It wasn't encryption that lowered theft rates. It was the addition of the Activation Lock feature that prevents someone from reselling a stolen iPhone if they don't know the Apple ID/password (which the iPhone will ask for before it allows you to set up/activate). That is, if you have Find My iPhone turned on.
Can you have one without the other? Encryption without activation lock can be brute forced rendering it useless over time. Activation lock without encryption of data means the lock can be defeated by data transfer.
the first case is only really true because people can't be bothered to remember long pass phrases (AKA lazy). I use 3 misspelled words with 4 numbers as seperator and believe me, they could have my data without any other protection than encryption between their hand for the next billion years between their hands and it would not make a difference.
Can you have one without the other? Encryption without activation lock can be brute forced rendering it useless over time. Activation lock without encryption of data means the lock can be defeated by data transfer.
the first case is only really true because people can't be bothered to remember long pass phrases (AKA lazy). I use 3 misspelled words with 4 numbers as seperator and believe me, they could have my data without any other protection than encryption between their hand for the next billion years between their hands and it would not make a difference.
I'm a fan of the 4 word story but yes the systems only as secure as the user effort put in.
The NSA and FBI these days feel entitled to collect and have access to all information just because it merely exists. Rather, they should be collecting information and sorting the information after establishing a legitimate need. There is no evidence of a "dormant cyber pathogen" in Farook's work phone, which the government threw out there few days after Apple's response in opposition to their court order. The government thinks that it needs information contained in Farook's work phone, but have failed to provide a compelling need. In this case, even though there could be some information in the phone, the phone itself is not all that critical. Experts like Mike Chertoff have indicated that law enforcement these days enjoy an abundance of data not previously available prior to the internet and digital communication. Phone activity will generate an abundance of metadata and communication exchanges with the outside world.
The FBI is looking for a specific hay, but in the wrong haystack. The haystack they should be searching is the ISIS propaganda machine and find ways to attack it. It is creating rogue supporters that do not connect with others. They just go solo, just like Farook and Malik.
"A hundred years from now, people will look back on this as a watershed event in the struggle for freedom and personal liberty."
Right up there with Hannibal crossing the Alps, Alexander at Gaugemela and the battle of Actium, no less.
Don't ever expect the government to "protect civil liberties". That is the job of the Constitution and subsequent design it sets for our courts, as an extension of the separation of powers. Government bureaucracies will always seek to protect and perpetuate (and ultimately grow) their own power, ultimately at the expense of civil liberties. It is why the Founding Fathers sought clear restraint on government powers. Yet, so many liberal-minded folks, who gravitate toward civil liberties, also tend toward bigger government. It is a natural contradiction. Perhaps Apple has now learned this the hard way. Our Constitution establishes our system of government as it is, specifically to protect us against the power of government and its natural and historical tendency to extend its reach.
Good stuff. We have a Constitution because experience and history shows that our government has a tendency to keep too many secrets and overreach its power and authority.
No, we have a Constitution because Great Britain was ruled by an overreaching, secretive monarch who kept trying to extend his power and authority. At the time of the Constitutional Convention, there was no 'experience and history' of any kind with respect to the United States government.
Correct, but that monarch was not unique. An all-powerful government will ultimately over-reach as a natural tendency. Everytime. Our Constitution was designed by the Founders, specifically knowing this, and they developed a model of government that for the first time sought protections and restraints on the power of the government by recognizing individual rights through the Bill of Rights as inviolable and permanent. It established for the first time that government works for its people and not the other way around. The bigger your government, the more power it accumulates and the further we move away from the Founders' ideals.
You know that the government knows they don't have a solid case when they can't limit the fight to the courts or Congressional hearings, but have to do a public smear campaign against Apple in the media. Yes, obviously Apple has also talked with the media as well, but only in response to the governments playground-worthy lies and obfuscations. The government's all "WAAAAH, Apple is being mean to us!! They love terrorists more than freedom!" And Apple's like, "No we don't. We're actually doing everything we can to PROTECT people's freedoms and rights. And really, protecting people's civil liberties is YOUR job, government! What you're asking of us is to violate the very Constitution that you're sworn to protect and uphold."
Comments
Encryption without activation lock can be brute forced rendering it useless over time.
Activation lock without encryption of data means the lock can be defeated by data transfer.
Utimately, tech companies will have to create 'disposable OS' which will be out-dated everytime FBI picks up a phone .... used by a terrorist and messed up its cloud password...
and pick a fight with a court order like issuing a traffic ticket.
the first case is only really true because people can't be bothered to remember long pass phrases (AKA lazy). I use 3 misspelled words with 4 numbers as seperator and believe me, they could have my data without any other protection than encryption between their hand for the next billion years between their hands and it would not make a difference.
The FBI is looking for a specific hay, but in the wrong haystack. The haystack they should be searching is the ISIS propaganda machine and find ways to attack it. It is creating rogue supporters that do not connect with others. They just go solo, just like Farook and Malik.
Tim should keep fighting.
The government's all "WAAAAH, Apple is being mean to us!! They love terrorists more than freedom!" And Apple's like, "No we don't. We're actually doing everything we can to PROTECT people's freedoms and rights. And really, protecting people's civil liberties is YOUR job, government! What you're asking of us is to violate the very Constitution that you're sworn to protect and uphold."