User security, privacy issues draw sharp contrast between Apple iOS, Google Android in FBI encrypti

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  • Reply 61 of 122
    I personally don't own a mobile phone or mobile device, I use a laptop that I can easily wipe and reload. The fact that there is no way to wipe data from mobile devices is one of the reasons that I don't use them. I'm not doing anything illegal, but I feel that private information should be that. I find that mobile devices accumulate too much user-data, everything from what the user buys, to the user's geographical location.
  • Reply 62 of 122
    Although I don't support all of Tim Cook's views, I am proud of his courage as CEO of great company. I can't say enough about how invasive the FBI and other US governmental agencies have became. I am Apple user for long time and this news make me feel good. I hope Apple does not back down. Great job Tim!
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 63 of 122
    The other problem with mobile devices is the ability of a malicious piece of code to steal entire contact lists of a device. If I call someone's cell phone device and my number is logged by that device's chip, if that user's device is in any way compromised, my data is in that user's phone. With a mobile device, one could accumulate information about a persons friends and relatives and use that information for hacking. My solution to protect my information is to simply not use a mobile device.
  • Reply 64 of 122
    As a satisfied Apple customer for many years, who has repeatedly defended Apple against detractors, including -- notably -- during some of the most contentious litigation, where I fed arguments during some of Apple's less obviously easy courtroom confrontations from determined adversaries (Samsung, inter alia) to those seeking to protect Apple's international standing as unassailable leader in the industry, I must respectfully but equally forcefully disagree with Mr. Cook's principled but excessively one-sided position. Do we really need Apple taking the position of a national traitor and a traitor to logic, Edward Snowden? No, we don't. Where is Snowden today? Helping Putin. What is Putin doing? Bombing children for Assad. What is Snowden doing? Helping the criminal mafia that has taken over the Russian state gain access to more American secrets and develop capabilities that Russia did not have prior to Snowden's arrival there, to make mischief for Americans and anyone who opposes the likes of Putin or Assad, anywhere. The idea that because someone wants to be able to use ApplePay at Starbucks, or to watch their favourite porn without anyone knowing, or to exchange text messages and Snapchats without ever being interfered with, the world's leading software developments owe them an iPhone that can never be unlocked is an impractical fantasy, one that ultimately betrays Apple shareholder value as much as it is a disservice to the customers themselves, to victims of criminal activities, to bereaved families left in the lurch in the event of a sudden death where vital data may be locked away. Customers also make mistakes, forget passwords, change their minds about relationships, fall into bad company, experience life crises in which a phone that "cannot be unlocked" is actually the last thing they need. I just bought an Apple 6s iPhone, and am about to buy another one for my daughter. I do not need TouchLock and will never use it, because it would be too distracting to constantly have to unlock it for someone else to be able to use it. In our family of 6, aged from 64 to almost 6, we all use iPhones, and we use the seven we currently own interchangeably. We use our iPads the same way, as well as our Macs. With respect for those from other cultures, in our family we enjoy sharing, and do not have a compelling urgency about keeping whatever we need to keep private locked away from other family members or close friends. And anyway, Apple's existing User Account protocols allow that comfortably on the bigger devices! As a lifelong Jerry Brown Democrat who lived in California for almost 50 years (mostly in San Francisco) and whose older brother (Cal graduate) was one of the top technical minds in the field, I am well aware of and comfortable with the political perspective that underpins the decision to overrule, override and confront the government on the issue of privacy. But as someone who has also lived through terrible criminal attacks that devastated my family and caused serious harm to us that we are still struggling to get past, I understand that the need to protect the victims of criminal syndicates (including terrorist groups, international in scope and capable of inflicting devastating trauma, as we saw last night in Ankara, Turkey, or recently in several bomb attacks in civilian aviation) greatly outweighs the need for the theoretical ideological fixations about Impregnable Personal Privacy to be upheld against government intrusion. If someone's child goes missing or a family member is abducted, and there is a locked iPhone that cannot be accessed because iPhone refuses to honour even a direct court order, then Apple's intransigence and hubris in the service of the idea that governments (which citizens have some say in) are less consequential than corporations (which no one but a handful of stand-alone executives controls) may wind up being complicit in someone's suffering and death. That is not anything to be proud of, Tim Cook. I, for one, will not be able to continue being a happy and satisfied member of the Apple family, and an advocate for your brand, if you are more concerned with helping terrorists and money launderers, and "standing with Snowden," than in protecting the legitimate and no less essential interests of Other Customers, myself included, who threaten no one and break no laws. As you well know, hackers still hack; state actors who hack -- Snowden was one of them, and certainly cannot be represented to be any kind of selfless idealist, given his biography -- also hack and will continue to hack right and left. Russians working for the Kremlin are some of the most vicious of all hackers out there. So your argument that 'better encryption will deter hackers' does not actually hold up. I consider placing financial details on the phone risky, and will not do that. Everyone has their personal comfort level with financial risk. But we all need to be protected from criminals and terrorists. "Overruling the government and the courts" is not a policy that will succeed for Apple. You must reconsider because ultimately you will pay the price for choosing to safeguard terror networks "so as not to compromise people choosing to pay for their lattes with ApplePay," essentially. Just do it, and let's get back to where we were: Friends, Law-Abiding Citizens, Good people standing up to the forces of darkness, not morally ambiguous providers of superEncryption to those who are vicious murderers, criminals and crooks!
  • Reply 65 of 122
    My comments have disappeared!
  • Reply 66 of 122
    There must be a way to have device privacy while also providing law enforcement access under a warrant. Apple and Android could have the data be released under warrant only while the device is physically connected to another computer and an encrypted key issues by Apple or Android blind to law enforcement and law enforcement enters a key k own only to law enforcement. 
  • Reply 67 of 122
    Disregard "my comments disappeared" old web browser wasn't displaying...
  • Reply 68 of 122
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    nimbuset2 said:
    What a JOKE. Tim Cook claimed the software might fall in the wrong hands. Hey, the iPhone already fell in the weong hands, how about that? Plus, my mighty Apple even can't keep a SW safe? Sad. Third, AAPL just uses this as publicity stun to sell more junck!!!
    What the hell are you talking about, are you on drugs? Seems like it (and yep, another one of those newly registered dweebs).
    SpamSandwichjony0
  • Reply 69 of 122
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    Privacy is nothing but a knee jerk reaction and subsequent paranoia from neurotic people. People who truly need privacy can find better ways to conceal what they may.
    This issue from Tim Cook and all the Privacy advocates are nothing but insecure small people. This iisue is folly. People are not as important as they think they are.
    The last sentence is complete garbage coming from someone who feels like using Einstein's name of all people.
    The truly insecure person is one who feels the need to have a self-agrandizing alias.

    You're just another just registered member who feels you can drop their so called "wisdom" on everyone; yep, truly you are not important I should not care what you say.
    edited February 2016 suddenly newtonSpamSandwichjony0
  • Reply 70 of 122
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    xixo said:
    The Constitution is inconvenient for a reason! I am not a lawyer but I think Apple is within its rights to appeal this order. I do not particularly like Apple and I hate the terrorists but the responsibility for managing the access to this particular iPhone belongs to the government. I will explain why: The phone belongs to a government agency. The government agency was supposed to implement MDM (mobile device management) on all the mobile devices handed out to the employees. All the mobile devices (phones, laptops...) that are registered under the MDM have to be audited at least every year The IT department of the government agency will have a separate dedicated Apple ID capable to unlock the phone when presented with the proper judge order. The fact that the government agency does not follow the law either by incompetence or disregard (like in we are the government, the laws do not apply to us) does not have to create a liability on everybody else right to privacy
    excellent point!
    Yes, that's in fact a great point. Apple and the american public should not pay for the incompetence of his employer (who in a sad irony paid in the worse way possible for something that usually has no consequence at all).
  • Reply 71 of 122
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    KKDallas said:
    There must be a way to have device privacy while also providing law enforcement access under a warrant. Apple and Android could have the data be released under warrant only while the device is physically connected to another computer and an encrypted key issues by Apple or Android blind to law enforcement and law enforcement enters a key k own only to law enforcement. 

    You mean the equivalent of a dongle, something that's cracked left and right all day long (and yes, ahem, I've done my share of hacks a long time ago).
    Cracking the software/firmware layer that provides and interface is regularly done and I wouldn't trust that one second.

  • Reply 72 of 122
    This is more garbage from Apple.  Cook or his cronies speak to complying to the government request within the law, but no mention is made of a single agreement specific to this incident.  It's crap and more Apple arrogance.  What Cook and Apple are saying is that they really don't care if information on the subject phone will save the lives of other innocent people.  They can certainly enter into a confidentiality agreement specific to this issue and abide by it.   Further, they can continue to get headlines about their refusal while all the while complying with the request.

    This is serious stuff.  I hope that Apple is in fact complying in secret while blowing smoke up the world's ass with all of this media hype.  
  • Reply 73 of 122
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    As a satisfied Apple customer for many years, who has repeatedly defended Apple against detractors, including -- notably -- during some of the most contentious litigation, where I fed arguments during some of Apple's less obviously easy courtroom confrontations from determined adversaries (Samsung, inter alia) to those seeking to protect Apple's international standing as unassailable leader in the industry, I must respectfully but equally forcefully disagree with Mr. Cook's principled but excessively one-sided position. Do we really need Apple taking the position of a national traitor and a traitor to logic, Edward Snowden? No, we don't. Where is Snowden today? Helping Putin. What is Putin doing? Bombing children for Assad. What is Snowden doing? Helping the criminal mafia that has taken over the Russian state gain access to more American secrets and develop capabilities that Russia did not have prior to Snowden's arrival there, to make mischief for Americans and anyone who opposes the likes of Putin or Assad, anywhere. The idea that because someone wants to be able to use ApplePay at Starbucks, or to watch their favourite porn without anyone knowing, or to exchange text messages and Snapchats without ever being interfered with, the world's leading software developments owe them an iPhone that can never be unlocked is an impractical fantasy, one that ultimately betrays Apple shareholder value as much as it is a disservice to the customers themselves, to victims of criminal activities, to bereaved families left in the lurch in the event of a sudden death where vital data may be locked away. Customers also make mistakes, forget passwords, change their minds about relationships, fall into bad company, experience life crises in which a phone that "cannot be unlocked" is actually the last thing they need. I just bought an Apple 6s iPhone, and am about to buy another one for my daughter. I do not need TouchLock and will never use it, because it would be too distracting to constantly have to unlock it for someone else to be able to use it. In our family of 6, aged from 64 to almost 6, we all use iPhones, and we use the seven we currently own interchangeably. We use our iPads the same way, as well as our Macs. With respect for those from other cultures, in our family we enjoy sharing, and do not have a compelling urgency about keeping whatever we need to keep private locked away from other family members or close friends. And anyway, Apple's existing User Account protocols allow that comfortably on the bigger devices! As a lifelong Jerry Brown Democrat who lived in California for almost 50 years (mostly in San Francisco) and whose older brother (Cal graduate) was one of the top technical minds in the field, I am well aware of and comfortable with the political perspective that underpins the decision to overrule, override and confront the government on the issue of privacy. But as someone who has also lived through terrible criminal attacks that devastated my family and caused serious harm to us that we are still struggling to get past, I understand that the need to protect the victims of criminal syndicates (including terrorist groups, international in scope and capable of inflicting devastating trauma, as we saw last night in Ankara, Turkey, or recently in several bomb attacks in civilian aviation) greatly outweighs the need for the theoretical ideological fixations about Impregnable Personal Privacy to be upheld against government intrusion. If someone's child goes missing or a family member is abducted, and there is a locked iPhone that cannot be accessed because iPhone refuses to honour even a direct court order, then Apple's intransigence and hubris in the service of the idea that governments (which citizens have some say in) are less consequential than corporations (which no one but a handful of stand-alone executives controls) may wind up being complicit in someone's suffering and death. That is not anything to be proud of, Tim Cook. I, for one, will not be able to continue being a happy and satisfied member of the Apple family, and an advocate for your brand, if you are more concerned with helping terrorists and money launderers, and "standing with Snowden," than in protecting the legitimate and no less essential interests of Other Customers, myself included, who threaten no one and break no laws. As you well know, hackers still hack; state actors who hack -- Snowden was one of them, and certainly cannot be represented to be any kind of selfless idealist, given his biography -- also hack and will continue to hack right and left. Russians working for the Kremlin are some of the most vicious of all hackers out there. So your argument that 'better encryption will deter hackers' does not actually hold up. I consider placing financial details on the phone risky, and will not do that. Everyone has their personal comfort level with financial risk. But we all need to be protected from criminals and terrorists. "Overruling the government and the courts" is not a policy that will succeed for Apple. You must reconsider because ultimately you will pay the price for choosing to safeguard terror networks "so as not to compromise people choosing to pay for their lattes with ApplePay," essentially. Just do it, and let's get back to where we were: Friends, Law-Abiding Citizens, Good people standing up to the forces of darkness, not morally ambiguous providers of superEncryption to those who are vicious murderers, criminals and crooks!
    Good god, please. "Safegard Terror network".... The old "think of the children argument".

    If Apple does that for the fracking US government everyone in all countries will want a back door. Are you all right with that hmm?

    If there is a back door for Apple, there is a back door for everyone, even the terrorists you abhor.
    Your phone and communications will also be potentially open to ANYONE; most of those being criminals, not the FBI or terrorists.

    Also, you act like terrorists cells will simply dissapeer if they don't have that. They won't. They'll continue killing day and night regardless of the tech restrictions that exist. Tech is not the limiting factor to their existence.
    If they can't store their email on an Iphone they'll simply go back to using burner phones which they destroy as they go and communicate in code speaking plain english over open air waves. You know like spies did right under the nose of Germans.
    Or they can compile encryption software directly from sources and just dump encrypt files on USB keys, or embed encrypted messages inside photos, or whatever. A few software engineers and they're in business.

    Using certain types of symmetric encryptions; the FBI won't be able to decrypt in a 100 billion years even if they had all the data.

    I find the whole "terrorist" mantra essentially a fascist argument that uses all the tools of demagogues; those tools work so well.

    Also, PLEASE use paragraphs!!!
    edited February 2016 ManyMacsAgopscooter63jony0
  • Reply 74 of 122
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    foggyhill said:

    Also, PLEASE use paragraphs!!!
    Indeed. When I see something like that, I just keep scrolling, because it honestly just hurts my eyes. It doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with their point of view, because that is just painful and harmful to my health.
    ibilljony0
  • Reply 75 of 122
    Great article until the last two paragraphs. The Republican opposition to closing Gitmo has nothing to do with security. Nobody escapes from Supermax prisons. Ask Manuel Noriega.

    Gitmo is run for the Navy by a contractor who is a big GOP donor. If the administration closes Gitmo, he's out of a job. Hence the opposition. Pure graft.
    El Chapo
    edited February 2016
  • Reply 76 of 122
    freerangefreerange Posts: 1,597member
    cnocbui said:
    Google's silence tells you where they stand on the issue of security. 
    Google pulled out of China rather than cave into the Chinese government and censor search, and also in protest at the Chinese government's hacking of their services like Gmail.  Apple has tolerated every single thing the Chinese government have done or demanded to compromise the security of users in China, like the poisoned Xcode, faking the iCloud server and harvesting users logins, hosting all user data in China with the nod-nod - wink-wink fully encrypted data that is in plain form en-route to the server so the Chinese just have to harvest it all before it is encrypted, etc etc.
    What absolute bullshit! You have no idea what you are talking about.
    jony0
  • Reply 77 of 122
    freerangefreerange Posts: 1,597member
    nimbuset2 said:
    What a JOKE. Tim Cook claimed the software might fall in the wrong hands. Hey, the iPhone already fell in the weong hands, how about that? Plus, my mighty Apple even can't keep a SW safe? Sad. Third, AAPL just uses this as publicity stun to sell more junck!!!
    Go crawl back in your hole, or alternatively go get yourself a good education.
    jony0
  • Reply 78 of 122
    Does the President's Blackberry have a software backdoor or does the constitution only apply to heads of state?
  • Reply 79 of 122
    What bothers me is that Tim Cook seems to be implying that it is actually POSSIBLE for Apple to comply with the FBI Order. That means current, existing iPhones (like the SUBJECT DEVICE) are NOT secure, and already have a back door. The FBI are NOT asking for a NEW version of iOS with a backdoor. They are asking Apple to "crack" an existing iPhone so that brute-force attack can be made. It may not technically be a backdoor for the encryption, but if there is a way to gain access to the data using a "brute force" approach, then it is the same thing. The data is ultimately NOT secure. I want Apple to make a phone that even THEY cannot crack. I thought they had claimed such, and it is disturbing to find out that that was apparently wrong.
    What are you talking about? Apple has created a phone they cannot hack, it's called the latest version of iOS. What the government is asking for is Apple produce a defeatable version of iOS.
  • Reply 80 of 122
    Apple should simply have a toggle switch in the security preferences. The toggle can be set to "Phone Secure" or "Phone Hackable" (default to Phone Secure). Apple then complies, the citizens of the world can give the government the finger, and we can move on.
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