If you knew what the NSA really has access to, you would wish your data was stored in China or Iran... Hoover and the Stasi's of George Orwell are thriving in the US. Don't be fooled! The great USA may proudly boast about their founding fathers and all their civil liberties... but those rights are gone long ago, while only the most educated noticed...
LOL. Each time you turn on your smart phone phone its tracking your location and everything you do including your contacts etc allowing Apple to resell your info to 3rd parties who pay big bucks for it. Its called data mining
Absolutely, if you are an Android user. As for Apple, i don't know where you got that piece of info. Last time i read their financials, their income was entirely related to hardware sales and subscription services... do you have access to financials that the rest of us don't?
Apple sees it as their primary differentiation that they DON'T have an interest in your personal stuff. That (and a superior sw/hw integration) is how they stand out compared to the Androids of this world...
If you knew what the NSA really has access to, you would wish your data was stored in China or Iran... Hoover and the Stasi's of George Orwell are thriving in the US. Don't be fooled! The great USA may proudly boast about their founding fathers and all their civil liberties... but those rights are gone long ago, while only the most educated noticed...
LOL. Each time you turn on your smart phone phone its tracking your location and everything you do including your contacts etc allowing Apple to resell your info to 3rd parties who pay big bucks for it. Its called data mining
For iOS:
general>location services> off
Better trolls please, and for the record, only people of low intellect use LOL anymore, and you used it in two posts...
Every sane person should have a gun, if they so desire. It's their right. And they should definitely use it too, should the situation warrant it.
Those who are fearful of a gunless society, just look at chrime and homicide rates in developed countries with strict gun regulation. USA have 10 times more gun related homicides per capita than Germany...Why? Because of an almighty weapons industry with a huge economical incentive to continue the ongoing civil war... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Seriously, we cannot continue to pretend that we live in the wild west and allow underaged gunslingers to roam the streets... Let's evolve as a species like the rest of the world.
Did you hear about the moron that was showing his 9 year old daughter how to operate a gun? Shot her in the chest "accidentally". At least she survived, but has more that a few operations ahead of her.
Those who are fearful of a gunless society, just look at chrime and homicide rates in developed countries with strict gun regulation. USA have 10 times more gun related homicides per capita than Germany...Why? Because of an almighty weapons industry with a huge economical incentive to continue the ongoing civil war... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Seriously, we cannot continue to pretend that we live in the wild west and allow underaged gunslingers to roam the streets... Let's evolve as a species like the rest of the world.
Did you hear about the moron that was showing his 9 year old daughter how to operate a gun? Shot her in the chest "accidentally". At least she survived, but has more that a few operations ahead of her.
Obama has a tearful interview every time there is a new school shooting, and still nothing happens.... Come on, he is the president! And yet so powerless when it comes to weapons industry. It's a disgrace to the country.
Re: "Our job is to protect our customers, and our customers have incredibly detailed information on their phones. There's probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house," Cook said in Friday's ABC interview, noting many people keep contact information, health records, private communications and more on their smartphones. "So it's not just about privacy, but it's also about public safety."
Is total privacy a human right? Is total privacy possible? Is total privacy natural? I'd say "no" to all three. Anyone living in a small community has little to no privacy, apart from what they do behind closed doors. Once they participate in a communal event (and what is the cellular network and the internet if not communal?) then an expectation of total guaranteed privacy is fanciful.
Re: "There's probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house" Well, perhaps THAT is the problem, People should stop holding so much key information on their phones that are made to operate across a public utility like the cellular network and the internet. If mobile phones disappeared tomorrow people would adjust and adapt and continue to function quite well.
Re: "Re: "Our job is to protect our customers" Is it? Apple's job is to make sure that their mobile phones can connect to industry standard telecommunications protocols, otherwise no one would buy their phones. And that's about it as far as Apple's 'job' is concerned. If people want to hold all their banking info and other info they want to keep from the eyes of others on their phones that use the public utilities then that is their concern, not Apple's. You can have all the total privacy you want if you don't use a phone of any sort or send eMails across public networks.
If I manufacture a paper notepad and people write private information on it, it is not my job to guarantee that no one else can see that paper notebook, especially if it is being sent across some communal network to someone else.
Even if known 'subversives' are sending letters through the post, government authorities can request judicial authority to open that mail, in the interests of general public safety.
And of course, who decides who is a subversive? The great and the good within the judicial system. And can we guarantee that those people really ARE great and good? There will never be a unanimous agreement over who is deserving of being 'great and good', particularly relative to others.
Keeping information pursuant to community safety secret, or not a secret, is the job of the Community's security agents, not Apple's. You can have total guaranteed privacy if you live alone on an island...but "no man is an island".
Re: "Re: "Our job is to protect our customers" Is it? Apple's job is to make sure that their mobile phones can connect to industry standard telecommunications protocols, otherwise no one would buy their phones. And that's about it as far as Apple's 'job' is concerned. If people want to hold all their banking info and other info they want to keep from the eyes of others on their phones that use the public utilities then that is their concern, not Apple's. You can have all the total privacy you want if you don't use a phone of any sort or send eMails across public networks.
Obviously Apple have an incredibly huge stake in keeping their customers' data safe. This is one of their main selling points, since the rest of the industry (spearheaded by Google and Facebook) decided NOT to keep it safe but rather exploit and re-sell all your information in the name of targeted advertising.
Tim Cook cleverly saw this early on and decided to make this the very pillar of Apple products.
Not sure why people keep questioning this. It's quite logical that protecting customer data is in Apple's economical interest (and those interests are aligned with an increasing share of the educated population).
It's not Apple's job to protect us from "a deadly attack." They make phones and computers. And last I checked, people in San Bernadino were killed by guns not Apple's iPhone.
And by accessing the iPhone in question they might be stopping a future attack by those Guns. You are right that it's not Apple's job to protect us from attack. But is it right for Apple to shield the FBI from trying to stop the next one?
iOS encryption and guns are both red herrings. Terrorists can, will and do use existing third party encryption, encryption that is every bit as effective. There was a study (was it not posted here a week or two ago?) from Harvard I believe that showed most terrorists use cheap Android devices coupled with free open source encryption apps. Opening up iOS is not going to prevent an attack or help any investigation. Just like "guns". Terrorists can, will and do use other objects besides guns to kill en masse.
LOL from a co (like Google and FB) that tracks your location, your contacts, everything you do on that phone then sells that info to 3rd parties while professing how concerned they are for your "privacy". LOL. Pure marketing
The last i checked, you had to click "AGREE" on the EULA in order for them to use the data they gather on you in this manner. If you don't agree to it, don't click "AGREE" in the EULA and don't use their free services. It's not an invasion of your privacy if you gave them permission.
But did you give the FBI and other law enforcement permission to do this? Did you click "AGREE" to any EULA that the FBI may have sent you?
Now this is a different matter and more inline with how the FBI gather data on you. Google have been fined for it in some countries but how much personal data they were actually collecting, Google is not willing to reveal. Who does Google think they are? The FBI?
When, not if, Apple's attitude protects a deadly attack, please remember your support of privacy over safety. Apple's attitude is misleading if not outright dishonest.
Should we be able to track all gun owners to know where they are their health info and track their conversations and posts to make sure they are not planning to kill someone with a gun. If the government has this info key it could prevent many of the 12,000 or so murders in to US each year. The would save literally 1000 times more lives each year if it worked because there outside terrorist attacks a rare here.
When, not if, Apple's attitude protects a deadly attack, please remember your support of privacy over safety. Apple's attitude is misleading if not outright dishonest.
Should we be able to track all gun owners to know where they are their health info and track their conversations and posts to make sure they are not planning to kill someone with a gun. If the government has this info key it could prevent many of the 12,000 or so murders in to US each year. The would save literally 1000 times more lives each year if it worked because there outside terrorist attacks a rare here.
What a ridiculous idea. You realize murder and mass murder happens with and without guns right? I'm Canadian and contrary to popular belief we have a lot of guns. There is an estimated 15 million guns in the country (nearly half were never registered when the laws changed in the 90s) or about 1 gun for every two people yet we don't have, per capita, the same rate of mass shootings. It is about mental health treatment (we suck at that but apparently not as bad as you) and a variety of socio-economic issues. Some northern US states have "lax" gun laws and a similar or lower murder rate than bordering Canadian provinces. Every time there is some horrible tragedy your politicians and press start calling for "assault weapons" bans and "universal background checks" but no one mentions education, poverty, mental health. That is why nothing changes. Blame Obama, blame Bloomberg and blame the mass media.
This is actually technically challenging for Apple. They need to create a system where it cannot be replaced without wiping out the data (or at least destroying all encryption keys). But that system needs to allow it without a passcode in case the owner forgets it and/or iOS is corrupt.
Another way of looking at what Apple is aspiring to, is the modern-tech equivalent of a diplomatic pouch for the masses.
As evidenced throughout these discussion threads (with varying degrees of intellect), one person's freedom from intrusion and exploitation is another person's boogeyman. The discussion is worth having, even at the cost of a tongue bruised from all the biting (I'm looking at you, zero-day posters).
I don't know if Apple can become the catalyst to overcome our fears (frequently, our own worst enemy), but damn, aren't they making a go of it.
What Apple is suggesting is what every organization and agency serious about creating a global connected economy and making the Internet of Things (IoT) a useful lever in propelling the next age of innovation should be working on - like ten years ago. Too often companies release connected products and services into the market with little regard for the privacy, security, and availability vulnerabilities of these products to expanding threats that are made possible with the newfound connected capability. Much of the core set of things and services we value and rely upon in a modern society, like water, electricity, transportation systems, pipelines, the stock market, banking, shopping, health care, etc., are supported by connected digital infrastructure that are completely reliant on secure and reliable connectivity and storage. The IoT only raises the stakes and increases our dependency on reliable, secure, and trusted connectivity down to the single device level.
There will always be evil in the world regardless of whatever contemporary tools and technologies are available to the general public and law enforcement. This evil exists in the hearts and minds of humans and has nothing to do with technology. Until law enforcement comes up with a way to intercept human thought there will always be a threat.
In the meantime, companies that build tools and technology that becomes a critical part of our connected existence are responsible for doing everything in their power to ensure that it is secure, private, trusted, and available at all times. The expectations that Apple is establishing is simply them doing their job, being subservient to their customers needs and rights, and not being stupid. Companies and agencies who play to the naivety of those who don't have to think about what keeps the connected world working, even in a somewhat but not perfectly reliable fashion, are the ones who are being stupid and acting in their own self interests.
Then there are those companies who are 100% behind what Apple is doing but won't come out and support Apple. Companies like Google, IBM, Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, etc., are more than willing to let Apple take all the arrows for them even when they know that they need, and are also working on, the same the kinds of safeguards that Apple is being scrutinized about in a very public forum. The ones standing to the side and not materially coming to the assistance of a colleague being assaulted in an alley by a bully are the ones who should be called to justify their immoral behavior and inaction.
Apple will end up with a banned new version of the iPhone and iCloud if it can't find a respectable and legal way to give judiciary ordered authorities a look at the data hosted on their devices/online services... There is obviously a middle-ground there and they may have to make their devices/services at the very least hack-able in-house with some one-in-a-kind hardware able to reset the security chip or something.
What a joke the FBI isn't asking for all phones they are asking for this one phone, Apple could extract the data and give it to them and they would be done. I'm all for individual privacy, but this is a matter of National Security. The terrorist didn't own the phone it's owned by the government and they have a court order. If the delays caused by Apple result in someone else being killed I hope they sue Apple for everything they have.
What I can not understand is why Apple hasn't already done this years ago. Why did they build the huge backdoor into their security architecture? Technically, this is very easy to do and could have been done 10 years ago. If somehow the government tries to make such a design illegal I will be among the first to protest in Washington. On the other hand I will fully understand if Apple continues to sell the existing version with its backdoor in China.
Re: "Our job is to protect our customers, and our customers have incredibly detailed information on their phones. There's probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house," Cook said in Friday's ABC interview, noting many people keep contact information, health records, private communications and more on their smartphones. "So it's not just about privacy, but it's also about public safety."
Is total privacy a human right? Is total privacy possible? Is total privacy natural? I'd say "no" to all three. Anyone living in a small community has little to no privacy, apart from what they do behind closed doors. Once they participate in a communal event (and what is the cellular network and the internet if not communal?) then an expectation of total guaranteed privacy is fanciful.
Re: "There's probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house" Well, perhaps THAT is the problem, People should stop holding so much key information on their phones that are made to operate across a public utility like the cellular network and the internet. If mobile phones disappeared tomorrow people would adjust and adapt and continue to function quite well.
Re: "Re: "Our job is to protect our customers" Is it? Apple's job is to make sure that their mobile phones can connect to industry standard telecommunications protocols, otherwise no one would buy their phones. And that's about it as far as Apple's 'job' is concerned. If people want to hold all their banking info and other info they want to keep from the eyes of others on their phones that use the public utilities then that is their concern, not Apple's. You can have all the total privacy you want if you don't use a phone of any sort or send eMails across public networks.
If I manufacture a paper notepad and people write private information on it, it is not my job to guarantee that no one else can see that paper notebook, especially if it is being sent across some communal network to someone else.
Even if known 'subversives' are sending letters through the post, government authorities can request judicial authority to open that mail, in the interests of general public safety.
And of course, who decides who is a subversive? The great and the good within the judicial system. And can we guarantee that those people really ARE great and good? There will never be a unanimous agreement over who is deserving of being 'great and good', particularly relative to others.
Keeping information pursuant to community safety secret, or not a secret, is the job of the Community's security agents, not Apple's. You can have total guaranteed privacy if you live alone on an island...but "no man is an island".
Some people seem to be combining privacy of communications between people using public infrastructure, where I think the argument has merit, with privacy of information stored locally on a person's device. To my mind, the information on the device should be treated as an extension of mind, sacrosanct from forced search or inspection. I keep notes, internal thoughts, on my iPhone that I have not shared with anyone. Writing helps me to collect and express my thoughts on a particular subject, and until I've fully formed a view, I reserve the right to keep those thoughts private, just as though they were only inside my head. I keep passwords in a spreadsheet, knowing that the full-device encryption keeps them safe. This too is an extension of my imperfect memory, and I should have the right to privacy for that information, unless you think it'll be okay for law enforcement to scan and read information directly out of our heads in the future (techniques already exist, by the way).
As to information you transmit out into the world, on this my view more closely matches government's. If you harbor ill intents that you don't communicate to others, then the threat you represent to the world is somewhat contained, and just as though you kept those intents only within your own mind, the world should just have to take a risk that you won't be able to do significant damage. The value of maintaining that barrier to future brain scanning, for which forced search of our personal electronic devices can be seen today as a proxy, outweighs the risk of what an individual can do against an entire society.
It's when you begin to communicate those ill intends to others, recruiting them into your plans, that you become a greater danger to all of society. This is the reason society accepts wire-tapping, for example, and other forms of surveillance like stake-outs and trackimg of a suspected evil-doer's actions in public spaces, along with the trail of associates they form. But this can all be gathered externally to any search of their mind, or, by proxy, their personal electronic devices that act as a proxy for their internal thoughts and memories. So on this I agree and I think it would not be out of bounds for government to forbid unbreakable end-to-end communications between devices. That would give government access to the information and communications that create the most danger (collaboration across public space among those who would seek to conspire to do great harm to society) without exposing each individual's sacrosanct inner thoughts and intents.
Comments
Apple sees it as their primary differentiation that they DON'T have an interest in your personal stuff. That (and a superior sw/hw integration) is how they stand out compared to the Androids of this world...
general>location services> off
Better trolls please, and for the record, only people of low intellect use LOL anymore, and you used it in two posts...
Did you hear about the moron that was showing his 9 year old daughter how to operate a gun? Shot her in the chest "accidentally". At least she survived, but has more that a few operations ahead of her.
"Our job is to protect our customers, and our customers have incredibly detailed information on their phones. There's probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house," Cook said in Friday's ABC interview, noting many people keep contact information, health records, private communications and more on their smartphones. "So it's not just about privacy, but it's also about public safety."
Is total privacy a human right? Is total privacy possible? Is total privacy natural? I'd say "no" to all three. Anyone living in a small community has little to no privacy, apart from what they do behind closed doors. Once they participate in a communal event (and what is the cellular network and the internet if not communal?) then an expectation of total guaranteed privacy is fanciful.
Re: "There's probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house"
Well, perhaps THAT is the problem, People should stop holding so much key information on their phones that are made to operate across a public utility like the cellular network and the internet. If mobile phones disappeared tomorrow people would adjust and adapt and continue to function quite well.
Re: "Re: "Our job is to protect our customers"
Is it? Apple's job is to make sure that their mobile phones can connect to industry standard telecommunications protocols, otherwise no one would buy their phones. And that's about it as far as Apple's 'job' is concerned. If people want to hold all their banking info and other info they want to keep from the eyes of others on their phones that use the public utilities then that is their concern, not Apple's. You can have all the total privacy you want if you don't use a phone of any sort or send eMails across public networks.
If I manufacture a paper notepad and people write private information on it, it is not my job to guarantee that no one else can see that paper notebook, especially if it is being sent across some communal network to someone else.
Even if known 'subversives' are sending letters through the post, government authorities can request judicial authority to open that mail, in the interests of general public safety.
And of course, who decides who is a subversive? The great and the good within the judicial system. And can we guarantee that those people really ARE great and good? There will never be a unanimous agreement over who is deserving of being 'great and good', particularly relative to others.
Keeping information pursuant to community safety secret, or not a secret, is the job of the Community's security agents, not Apple's. You can have total guaranteed privacy if you live alone on an island...but "no man is an island".
Tim Cook cleverly saw this early on and decided to make this the very pillar of Apple products.
Not sure why people keep questioning this. It's quite logical that protecting customer data is in Apple's economical interest (and those interests are aligned with an increasing share of the educated population).
The last i checked, you had to click "AGREE" on the EULA in order for them to use the data they gather on you in this manner. If you don't agree to it, don't click "AGREE" in the EULA and don't use their free services. It's not an invasion of your privacy if you gave them permission.
But did you give the FBI and other law enforcement permission to do this? Did you click "AGREE" to any EULA that the FBI may have sent you?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-big-secret-surrounding-stingray-surveillance/
Now this is a different matter and more inline with how the FBI gather data on you. Google have been fined for it in some countries but how much personal data they were actually collecting, Google is not willing to reveal. Who does Google think they are? The FBI?
http://www.wired.com/2013/09/googles-wifi-wiretapping/
As evidenced throughout these discussion threads (with varying degrees of intellect), one person's freedom from intrusion and exploitation is another person's boogeyman. The discussion is worth having, even at the cost of a tongue bruised from all the biting (I'm looking at you, zero-day posters).
I don't know if Apple can become the catalyst to overcome our fears (frequently, our own worst enemy), but damn, aren't they making a go of it.
There will always be evil in the world regardless of whatever contemporary tools and technologies are available to the general public and law enforcement. This evil exists in the hearts and minds of humans and has nothing to do with technology. Until law enforcement comes up with a way to intercept human thought there will always be a threat.
In the meantime, companies that build tools and technology that becomes a critical part of our connected existence are responsible for doing everything in their power to ensure that it is secure, private, trusted, and available at all times. The expectations that Apple is establishing is simply them doing their job, being subservient to their customers needs and rights, and not being stupid. Companies and agencies who play to the naivety of those who don't have to think about what keeps the connected world working, even in a somewhat but not perfectly reliable fashion, are the ones who are being stupid and acting in their own self interests.
Then there are those companies who are 100% behind what Apple is doing but won't come out and support Apple. Companies like Google, IBM, Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, etc., are more than willing to let Apple take all the arrows for them even when they know that they need, and are also working on, the same the kinds of safeguards that Apple is being scrutinized about in a very public forum. The ones standing to the side and not materially coming to the assistance of a colleague being assaulted in an alley by a bully are the ones who should be called to justify their immoral behavior and inaction.
Some people seem to be combining privacy of communications between people using public infrastructure, where I think the argument has merit, with privacy of information stored locally on a person's device. To my mind, the information on the device should be treated as an extension of mind, sacrosanct from forced search or inspection. I keep notes, internal thoughts, on my iPhone that I have not shared with anyone. Writing helps me to collect and express my thoughts on a particular subject, and until I've fully formed a view, I reserve the right to keep those thoughts private, just as though they were only inside my head. I keep passwords in a spreadsheet, knowing that the full-device encryption keeps them safe. This too is an extension of my imperfect memory, and I should have the right to privacy for that information, unless you think it'll be okay for law enforcement to scan and read information directly out of our heads in the future (techniques already exist, by the way).