I agree with Mr. Gates. The strident caterwauling about privacy and government snooping by anonymous commenters on websites like this one is hilarious. If the FBI showed up at your doorstep you’d piss your pants and cry like a baby. You most certainly would not meet them at the door with your gun. If you pull on the dragon’s tail once to often you’re going to get burned. It is entirely possible that democratic governments will legislate access to encrypted data at some point. Better to be calm and quiet about it while demanding your privacy than to start a confrontation. Face it, people no longer control their governments, democratic or otherwise.
Sorry but that’s crazy. The US government works for its citizens, not the other way around. Our constitution merely recognizes our inalienable rights, it doesn’t bestow them upon us.
Privacy is a protected right that cannot be taken away just to make the jobs of government workers easier.
So what do you plan to do when the US government does do it and SCOTUS approves it? Hold up signs and march?
I’ll do more than that. I live in WA where our AG is not willing to put up with all the s**t coming out of DC. There are people in government who know what’s going on is wrong. I was born during the unconstitutional McCarthy era and people finally said enough is enough.
I agree with Mr. Gates. The strident caterwauling about privacy and government snooping by anonymous commenters on websites like this one is hilarious. If the FBI showed up at your doorstep you’d piss your pants and cry like a baby. You most certainly would not meet them at the door with your gun. If you pull on the dragon’s tail once to often you’re going to get burned. It is entirely possible that democratic governments will legislate access to encrypted data at some point. Better to be calm and quiet about it while demanding your privacy than to start a confrontation. Face it, people no longer control their governments, democratic or otherwise.
Sorry but that’s crazy. The US government works for its citizens, not the other way around. Our constitution merely recognizes our inalienable rights, it doesn’t bestow them upon us.
Privacy is a protected right that cannot be taken away just to make the jobs of government workers easier.
So what do you plan to do when the US government does do it and SCOTUS approves it? Hold up signs and march?
Sometimes you and your neighbors have to stand up for yourselves.
What does Bill Gates know? His one great accomplishment was making Windows the industry standard when one was needed (now much less important). He did this, or, rather, allowed Steve Ballmer to force OEMs to pay a licensing fee whether or not Windows was loaded on the machine, crushing even possible competition. It was years, if not decades after this extortion began, that Windows became actually (albeit not regularly) good.
Envisioning the future? Mm, no, no better than pretty much anybody.
And sucking up to vile African leaders fails to impress me. I dunno; enriching plutocrats in order to save them from having to spend their nations' money on providing clean water while thereby empowering a bigger problem -- extractive autocrats -- that fails to impress me.
Closer to home: That criticism of Apple is just plain stupid and ignorant.
Considering Gates any sort of genius explains, in part, the collapse of western civilization. (I exaggerate, not by much. And of course the problem's far bigger than just Gates.)
As part of the same interview, Bill Gates also mused on how the progress of technology is empowering smaller groups of people to cause harm to others. Suggesting the potential for such groups to gain access to nuclear weapons and to cause biological terror and cyber attacks, Gates notes it is a good thing for children to access genetic technology in a laboratory, "unless a few people decide to make human-transmissible smallpox and spread that into the world."
This is clearly a real future threat. The problem with trying to get tech companies to solve the terrorist-communication problem for us is that they can't. If Apple introduces encryption backdoors, the terrorists will simply use their own software without backdoors, and we'll have exposed everyone else to hacking dangers for nothing. All communications are in the clear at both ends of the conversation---the police should focus their efforts there.
1. "... and their view that even a clear mass-murdering criminal's communication should never be available to the government." A shameless cheap shot. That is not what Apple and the other tech companies were saying, and Bill knows it. They were saying that a security/privacy regime that allows governments to access a mass-murdering criminal's communications would also allow bad actors to access innocent people's private information. Including their medical records and bank accounts. That's the straw man part.
2. Here's the false equivalency part. Apple's position on the security/privacy catfight is not even remotely equivalent to Microsoft's actions that got them criminally convicted for antitrust violations. Please, there is a continent-wide difference between Apple's so-called "arrogance" and Microsoft's criminality. Apple has complied with the law throughout the whole debate, they sought clarification from the courts and undertook that they would comply with whatever the court ordered. Microsoft, on the other hand, was prosecuted for criminal anti-competitive actions that any first year law student would have easily pointed out. And in his zeal to escape the consequences of his company's criminal actions, LET'S NOT FORGET THIS, Microsoft supported G W Bush's presidential candidacy because a Bush DOJ signaled it was going to go easy on them. MS even set up a PAC to accept employee campaign donations in support of the 2nd worst president of the USA. (If I remember right, Gore spoke before MS employees during the campaign and when asked if a Gore DOJ will go easier on MS, he refrained from pandering and basically said he would not interfere with the legal process.)
Let's not forget how evil Microsoft was during its heyday. By using their monopoly power to stifle competition, I would say they held back technological advancement in the tech industry by at least 10 years.
Naturally, Gates would support a government to conduct unconstitutional activities, as that is Windows' key feature with a lack of security. Much like Google would be the one to find a key flaw in all processors which allows the breaking of all encryption.
I agree with Mr. Gates. The strident caterwauling about privacy and government snooping by anonymous commenters on websites like this one is hilarious.
Great to hear that after documented abuse done by people working for NSA and FBI...
If/when the government gets sufficiently fed up, it may simply take the iOS source code and pay "just compensation." Done.
On privacy and security, Bill is past his shelf life. Stick with charitable causes.
He sucks at those too. The things he promotes and puts money into are not the best choices for a better society. Take his "contributions" to schools for example. Pressing standardized testing is the opposite thing human children of varying neurological makeup actually need.
The direct quotes from Bill Gates don't support the headline or opening paragraph ("Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has warned Apple and other tech companies that they need to exercise care when dealing with governments over important issues, such as the San Bernardino fight between Apple and the FBI over a locked iPhone, suggesting the firms may be inviting government intervention for overtly arrogant actions.")
What Bill is saying is "tech companies shouldn't try to go against the wishes of government (in some cases), period." He's not saying "because they might crush you like a bug" he saying "because that's their role as governments and who are you to contradict them."
I would agree with the advice that AI attributes to Bill, but not the advice he actual gave.
I understood perfectly well what boot licker said: don't rock the boat, get with the program, fall in line, "will of the people", do it for "da children", blah, blah, blah, same suite of words all the time.
"arrogance" is a fracking loaded term and that alone should not have been used, yet like some guy with low emotional intelligence, he used it. "arrogance" in what exactly? In serving the public better, understanding the technology better, than corporate tit suckers in power right now?
I don't think Bill Gates used the word "arrogant" himself instead coming from the writer, but I could be wrong.
I think Mr Gates has too much time free time, for too much thinking on this issue, without actually being “in it”. I’m sure Microsoft BG would happily have sold its customers souls to the feds if they actually made a mobile device people had wanted.
I agree with Mr. Gates. The strident caterwauling about privacy and government snooping by anonymous commenters on websites like this one is hilarious. If the FBI showed up at your doorstep you’d piss your pants and cry like a baby. You most certainly would not meet them at the door with your gun. If you pull on the dragon’s tail once to often you’re going to get burned. It is entirely possible that democratic governments will legislate access to encrypted data at some point. Better to be calm and quiet about it while demanding your privacy than to start a confrontation. Face it, people no longer control their governments, democratic or otherwise.
Sorry but that’s crazy. The US government works for its citizens, not the other way around. Our constitution merely recognizes our inalienable rights, it doesn’t bestow them upon us.
Privacy is a protected right that cannot be taken away just to make the jobs of government workers easier.
So what do you plan to do when the US government does do it and SCOTUS approves it? Hold up signs and march?
Sometimes you and your neighbors have to stand up for yourselves.
Comments
1. "... and their view that even a clear mass-murdering criminal's communication should never be available to the government." A shameless cheap shot. That is not what Apple and the other tech companies were saying, and Bill knows it. They were saying that a security/privacy regime that allows governments to access a mass-murdering criminal's communications would also allow bad actors to access innocent people's private information. Including their medical records and bank accounts. That's the straw man part.
2. Here's the false equivalency part. Apple's position on the security/privacy catfight is not even remotely equivalent to Microsoft's actions that got them criminally convicted for antitrust violations. Please, there is a continent-wide difference between Apple's so-called "arrogance" and Microsoft's criminality. Apple has complied with the law throughout the whole debate, they sought clarification from the courts and undertook that they would comply with whatever the court ordered. Microsoft, on the other hand, was prosecuted for criminal anti-competitive actions that any first year law student would have easily pointed out. And in his zeal to escape the consequences of his company's criminal actions, LET'S NOT FORGET THIS, Microsoft supported G W Bush's presidential candidacy because a Bush DOJ signaled it was going to go easy on them. MS even set up a PAC to accept employee campaign donations in support of the 2nd worst president of the USA. (If I remember right, Gore spoke before MS employees during the campaign and when asked if a Gore DOJ will go easier on MS, he refrained from pandering and basically said he would not interfere with the legal process.)
Let's not forget how evil Microsoft was during its heyday. By using their monopoly power to stifle competition, I would say they held back technological advancement in the tech industry by at least 10 years.
Government is very useful in taking chance on basic science, but even that has been eroding in the US over time.
Government is of course very useful, but it's impact on technology is very overstated especially these days.
1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog/nsa-staff-used-spy-tools-on-spouses-ex-lovers-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927
2. infamous Trump "dossier" that was so shitty and lacking facts, that not even left-leaning news papers were willing to publish it (even with their low standards of what is considered evidence), yet which was used in FISA court to repeatedly obtain permission to spy on a US citizen without real reason.
But do tell me more about caterwauling and how it "is hilarious"!