How in the world the court can order a "creative" act is beyond me. And for what is a "fishing trip". What's next? Ordering a musician to create a symphony? Is there anyone in this country naive enough to believe this would be a "one off" deal? (Rhetorical question, because apparently there are lots of people that naive...). The White House in it's continued non-protection of my privacy continues to dissapoint me.
I am one of millions, I believe, that ascribe to the notion that in giving up liberty for security you get (and deserve...) neither. There are numerous agencies of the government that believe we have no right to absolute privacy. We have to keep resisting them.
It is hard to tell if the W.H. doesn't understand the idea that once such a backdoor is written for one phone it's for all phones, or if they get it but are disingenuously pretending not to. Either way, it makes me lose even more respect for Obama, especially given that he, as a lawyer, should understand the importance of the 4th Amendment.
Fear. This seems legitimate but what if Government start coming with requests like this one after other. Open flood-gate. Where you draw line ? That is the question!!!
...Once the US government says that a U.S. court has the power to demand this, then the European courts will say that it applies to them, too. And then the Russian courts. And the Chinese courts. And Saudi Arabian courts. And Iranian courts. And, of course, the government security agencies won't leave it alone....
Ha! Another excellent point... How is Android working out for gov'ts and hackers? Can they just break in, willy-nilly, into Samsung, etc phones?
If I'm not mistaken, the White House is Obama, so I'm waiting to read all of the Obama bashing soon that will be in this thread.
the first one will never be the last one. You can't trust the anybody , the FBI.the NSA, CIA, Once they got one, they will want to do it any time they want.
It is NOT just one phone. It is THE FIRST phone. The critical one that sets the precedent and can never be undone. Its everything.
Exactly. This is why those like the NRA fight tooth and nail when it comes to legal precedent. Once you have 2-3 or more cases its like trying to move a glacier; since Judges tend to go with common law precedent.
This is why the FBI and Justice Department chose this case, since this case involves a dead terrorist, they felt they had a way to get the public on it's side. Even though the circumstances of this case are very unusual.
Reality is they have access to most of the data already from external cloud based services.. but they are not making that well known to the public. They want the front face of this depicted as Apple being in the way of public safety. This is, without a doubt, a beach head move to force backdoors in general.
They can cry, "but.. .but... It's only ONE phone" all they want; thats NOT what this will end up being.
If you are a government, you can't stop at just one. Pretty soon China will ask for "just one" iPhone crack, what then? This is like Iran wanting "just one" nuclear bomb.
Has anybody bothered asking the FBI exactly what they're hoping to find, and what proof there is that any such information will actually be, on the phone. I think you Americans call it probable cause or something although I may have watched one too many police programmes for my own good.
Agree. Remember the idiom that one can never set a precedent? Once Apple find a solution then another agency will ask for it and so on.
Fear. This seems legitimate but what if Government start coming with requests like this one after other. Open flood-gate. Where you draw line ? That is the question!!!
it's not a question... it's a precedent on several levels.
Unfortunately, the White House may be "arguing that the issue applies to just one iPhone in question", but the argument doesn't hold water. The way they are demanding that Apple open "just one iPhone in question" is to make a tool that can break the lock, and once they do this, that tool can break into any iPhone. Or every iPhone.
But, what's worse is that this sets a precedent. Once the US government says that a U.S. court has the power to demand this, then the European courts will say that it applies to them, too. And then the Russian courts. And the Chinese courts. And Saudi Arabian courts. And Iranian courts. And, of course, the government security agencies won't leave it alone.
Basically: once you make a tool to open a back door into a phone, you can't pretend it's not there any more. When you put a back door in, you are no longer really in charge of who gets to let themselves in.
This is an excellent point. China is going to be Apple's largest market. Will the Congress then enact a law forbidding Apple providing this technology to foreign nations?
It is NOT just one phone. It is THE FIRST phone. The critical one that sets the precedent and can never be undone. Its everything.
Exactly. This is why those like the NRA fight tooth and nail when it comes to legal precedent. Once you have 2-3 or more cases its like trying to move a glacier; since Judges tend to go with common law precedent.
This is why the FBI and Justice Department chose this case, since this case involves a dead terrorist, they felt they had a way to get the public on it's side. Even though the circumstances of this case are very unusual.
Reality is they have access to most of the data already from external cloud based services.. but they are not making that well known to the public. They want the front face of this depicted as Apple being in the way of public safety. This is, without a doubt, a beach head move to force backdoors in general.
They can cry, "but.. .but... It's only ONE phone" all they want; thats NOT what this will end up being.
I am 100 percent behind Apple You cannot believe it would be one and done. Its more like lets start with this one then move on to others. Think of what these people and hackers can take from you, besides your freedom.
Has anybody bothered asking the FBI exactly what they're hoping to find, and what proof there is that any such information will actually be, on the phone. I think you Americans call it probable cause or something although I may have watched one too many police programmes for my own good.
I'm not on the Justice Department's side in all of this, but some misconceptions should be fixed:
First of all, my understanding is that the FBI has established probable cause and have obtained a warrant for this. They just don't have the technical ability to perform the task. It's like they have a warrant to search a house that is impossible to enter. That should answer your second sentence.
Secondly, if you know that someone has committed a terrorist act (in this case, that particular person dies in a shootout with law enforcement) then it is reasonable to gather as much info as you can from their possessions, because there is a chance that it can lead you to other people that may be planning future attacks. (That's probably the grounds upon which the FBI got its warrant to search the phone, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all.) You do not need to know what you are going to find in advance. You just hope you'll find something that may give you a chance to avert future bad events. That should answer your first sentence.
So while I do sympthasize with the FBI and truly do hope they find a way to magically get into that phone - maybe they'll "win the lottery" and guess the right passcode before it wipes itself - I disagree with them forcing Apple to create a capability that facilitates brute force attack. This case is quite unique since it involves a dead terrorist's phone and a proper warrant, but eventually another case will arise that some judge, somewhere, believes is worthy of demanding the same treatment. And then another. And then another. Eventually, we will watch as the circumstances evolve from "dead terrorist's phone" to "suspected criminal's phone" to "person of interest". Ultimately, law enforcement will simply acquire the means to do this without any Apple assistance, so we'll have to "trust" them only to do it with warrant in hand, much like wire tapping. Not.
Man what a bunch of one-sided responses as usual. rest assured China has backdoors in all of their products and probably half of our products made there. This is serious stuff - if the contacts in the phone stop another attack and loss of innocent lives it's worth it. I wonder how many of you nay-sayers would be talking like this if the next iphone preventable attack takes out your family members - probably none of you. Having court orders to get stuff is completely reasonable - and has been the case for decades. I think anyone crying foul like this has a lot of skeleton's in his or her closet. It's the price of a secure society, this issue isn't going to go away, and we can't allow an clandestine ISIS/whoever's next armies coordinating attacks in our country. If anyone has better ideas that will ensure safety - lets hear them! The real issue is Apple doesn't want to lose foreign sales due to the issues the Snowden revelations brought up. This is a commerce play - pure and simple as it always is with companies.
An extremely interesting read which, given the economic power of Apple, more than likely foreshadows a Supreme Court showdown on the debate balancing Security vs. Privacy - another reason to ensure that the Democratic Party takes The White House this Fall.
My curiosity is peaked, let us say that you do carry incriminating data on your iPhone and only on your iPhone - doesn't an order by a Federal Judge to build a back door run afoul of the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution? You would have to demonstrate systemic probable cause.
An iPhone is the property of its owner, and you need probable cause to issue a subpoena and force a person to unlock their phone. The issuance of the subpoena ensures that 5th amendment rights are not violated.
Surely it would be unconstitutional re. 5th amendment to issue a subpoena or order a company to programme a back door into its secure operating system with the aim to systematically facilitate demonstration of probable cause? Does that make any sense? Have I missed something?
Obviously in this case, probable cause has been demonstrated, but as Tim Cook said, the judge is not asking them to unlock this phone, but provide the back door to all iOS.
Didn't Apple say it was impossible to break into the latest iPhones and iOS ?
But if it has the touch entry, hasn't the FBI tried the touch of that dead terrorist's fingers.
I recall when a well know top end car had a touch function to start it, thieves who took over a few of those cars from the owners, cut off a few fingers so they could leave the owner at the roadside.
According to my memory of web pages about this "hack" hack (pardon the pun), the touch sensor senses more than just touch. It uses radio frequencies as well as electrical capacitance. I don't know enough to verify this, but I also haven't heard of anyone successfully using a dead finger.
Has anybody bothered asking the FBI exactly what they're hoping to find, and what proof there is that any such information will actually be, on the phone. I think you Americans call it probable cause or something although I may have watched one too many police programmes for my own good.
It is called probable cause, and I guess they're hoping to find nothing but if there's info on any potential terrorist it could prevent another attack.
I'm 100% behind Tim Cook on this. So long as humans are involved in any aspect of this, there will always be the opportunity to take advantage of it. The moment they make it happen for one iPhone, it will take off like wildfire. No frickin way!
I think with enough effort, time, and money (with Apple's help) they might figure a way to brute-force it so that it would be so difficult to do, most without those kind of resources would not attempt it. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
I wonder if this could be moot one day. When all iPhones have TouchID, then in the exact same circumstances they could just put the dead terrorist's finger (need not be attached to hand) on the button and voila... case closed. Maybe?
Comments
I am one of millions, I believe, that ascribe to the notion that in giving up liberty for security you get (and deserve...) neither. There are numerous agencies of the government that believe we have no right to absolute privacy. We have to keep resisting them.
This is why the FBI and Justice Department chose this case, since this case involves a dead terrorist, they felt they had a way to get the public on it's side. Even though the circumstances of this case are very unusual.
Reality is they have access to most of the data already from external cloud based services.. but they are not making that well known to the public. They want the front face of this depicted as Apple being in the way of public safety. This is, without a doubt, a beach head move to force backdoors in general.
They can cry, "but.. .but... It's only ONE phone" all they want; thats NOT what this will end up being.
This is an excellent point. China is going to be Apple's largest market. Will the Congress then enact a law forbidding Apple providing this technology to foreign nations?
First of all, my understanding is that the FBI has established probable cause and have obtained a warrant for this. They just don't have the technical ability to perform the task. It's like they have a warrant to search a house that is impossible to enter. That should answer your second sentence.
Secondly, if you know that someone has committed a terrorist act (in this case, that particular person dies in a shootout with law enforcement) then it is reasonable to gather as much info as you can from their possessions, because there is a chance that it can lead you to other people that may be planning future attacks. (That's probably the grounds upon which the FBI got its warrant to search the phone, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all.) You do not need to know what you are going to find in advance. You just hope you'll find something that may give you a chance to avert future bad events. That should answer your first sentence.
So while I do sympthasize with the FBI and truly do hope they find a way to magically get into that phone - maybe they'll "win the lottery" and guess the right passcode before it wipes itself - I disagree with them forcing Apple to create a capability that facilitates brute force attack. This case is quite unique since it involves a dead terrorist's phone and a proper warrant, but eventually another case will arise that some judge, somewhere, believes is worthy of demanding the same treatment. And then another. And then another. Eventually, we will watch as the circumstances evolve from "dead terrorist's phone" to "suspected criminal's phone" to "person of interest". Ultimately, law enforcement will simply acquire the means to do this without any Apple assistance, so we'll have to "trust" them only to do it with warrant in hand, much like wire tapping. Not.
Surely it would be unconstitutional re. 5th amendment to issue a subpoena or order a company to programme a back door into its secure operating system with the aim to systematically facilitate demonstration of probable cause? Does that make any sense? Have I missed something?
Obviously in this case, probable cause has been demonstrated, but as Tim Cook said, the judge is not asking them to unlock this phone, but provide the back door to all iOS.
Problem solved.