JeffA2

Given a choice between signing their own software and handing over the signing key to the FBI, Apple would be insane to do the latter. Losing control of the signing key is tantamount to losing control of the entire system.

melgross said:

jasenj1 said:

I love that Tidal offers lossless & MQA formats. But in reality, Spotify's & Pandora's free bit rates are good enough for the vast majority of listening I do. IMHO, to really appreciate CD quality & higher, you need decent equipment and a decent listening environment (meaning quiet). I have such, but rarely have the time to dedicate to serious listening. While I'd love for Apple or one of the other major music streamers to offer CD & higher quality, I recognize such is the realm of enthusiasts - people willing to pay lots of $$$ for what others would consider minimal improvements in quality. e.g. Buying a dedicated subwoofer that goes down to 25Hz rather than using bookshelf speakers, or the speakers built into a TV.

I think Tidal makes a mistake by not offering a free, ad supported tier - like Spotify. I've been using Spotify free for a few years and I am now very used to their UI and way things work. If I ever step up to subscribing to something, I'll most likely go with Spotify because I'm familiar with it, and I'm pretty happy with how it works.

I don’t like MQA. I’ve been at enough audio shows around the country where some vendors use it. But it’s almost impossible to get a comparison between MQA and a CD, much less the 24/96 it’s supposed to equal. But I’ve spoken to the two guys who run the company a number of times, and they’re rather squirmy when I try to get real technical answers out of them. Much of it is highly compressed, and you even lose something from the CD, in the bass, and high frequencies, which, with a good system, you can hear that.

tidal doesn’t make it easy to determine whether something is MQA or not. You have to dig into the menu to find out.

and without the special D/A for MQA, it definitely sounds worse than a CD, much less a 24/96.

I'm listening to Tidal as we speak. Streaming a CD quality track off the new Ranky Tanky album via a Bluesound Node2. I have decent equipment and do appreciate lossless streaming. I'm not up on the details of how MQA reduces bandwidth but both NAD and Bluesound are fans and they are pretty serious about audio quality.  Tidal's MQA streaming can be a bit dicey -- their servers don't always keep up. But it's pretty nice. When played through my best system (which is quite good actually) MQA can sound very good (try Tidal's MQA of Diana Krall's "Like Someone in Love" on a good system and you'll be impressed). The entire question of CD vs. HiRes is fraught. I have a dozen or more HiRes albums but the vast majority of my music is CD quality (ripped and stored in Apple Lossless format). Even under the best conditions it's hard to be sure there's much real difference between CD and 96/24 or god  help us 192/24. What differences I'm sure that I hear when playing the same albums back-to-back are probably due to difference in the mix, not the data rate/width. But subjectively 96/24 does seem to have a lower noise floor and clarity especially on female vocals. Again, probably the mix but I'm not sure.

But all that aside, I do enjoy having a streaming service like Tidal that can at least deliver lossless CD quality music. I use it to explore music before I commit to buying it (like Ranky Tanky for example).  I find that I listen to more new music this way -- once you've paid for the month you might as well explore, right? There's a lot of hate for Tidal in this thread but if it goes under I'll be sad.

lord amhran said:

This asshole needs to read the Bill of Rights. And while we're at it, so does Congress & the President

And you, of course, have the one true insight into the law of the land?

radarthekat said:

JeffA2 said:

radarthekat said:

JeffA2 said:

My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?

---

But the data on your phone IS searchable.  Have at it, FBI.  If you can make heads or tails of it, because it's encrypted, then you're perfectly welcome to it.  In fact, I'll volunteer it, sans passcode, for your complete inspection.  No warrant required.  Choke on my stream of encrypted data all you want.  

Which of course means it's not actually searchable. Your argument -- and Elspeth's -- is that your data should be forever beyond the reach of the law, even when there is a valid search warrant and probable cause. But your data might well be evidence of criminal activity. How would feel if you were a bilked investor and this was Bernie Madoff's phone? You might see it differently.

---

Yes, it is.  The device is searchable, and inside is found whatever exists within it.  Like a safe that's been forced open only to find a pile of shredded documents that would implicate the owner of the safe in a crime, if not for being professionally shredded to the point of being unrecoverable using existing technology.  

Except that the data on the phone in question is not unrecoverable. A simple act by Apple would render the data available. Even Apple doesn't dispute this. They have stated their reasons for not complying but they have never said that it's particularly difficult for them to do so.

OttoReverse said:

JeffA2 said:

Why do people keep saying this as if it were true? The 'version of iOS that allows infinite attempts at the password' is to loaded onto the phone in question via DFU mode. An iPhone will not load arbitrary software that way. It must have a valid signature and only  Apple can do that. Furthermore, the software can (and by court order must) include the specific UUID of the target phone. Therefore even if this patch got out of Apple's hands, was disassembled and the UUID changed, it would fail to load on any iPhone because it would fail the signature check. To further ensure security the phone is allowed to remain in Apple's possession for the entire time it is running the altered software. As a final condition of the court order, the entire patch must be RAM resident. No flash memory on the phone can be altered. Therefore the patch will be erased from memory as soon as the target phone is unpowered. 

What we have here is a procedure for producing a key for any specific phone, not a skeleton key. The difference is fundamental.

Your second point that Apple will be asked to do this over and over is probably correct. However, even the FBI admits that the utility of this approach is short-lived. All Apple has to do render it obsolete is require a PIN during DFU. I would expect them to add this to upcoming iOS update very soon.

Thanks for that.  Still, no nation should be asking for this in the modern world.  With hundreds of encryption programs available (most based outside the US) for iOS and Android should Apple customers be forced to act like terrorists and criminals in the way we protect our data in order to be safe from government intrusion (rhetorical question)?  It reminds me of gun laws here in Canada.  We are limited to 5 round magazines for centre fire semi autos and 10 for handguns despite our statistically excellent history of generally not being murderers etc.  Yet criminals don't have the same limitations.  Point being it both punishes the law abiding citizen and is completely ineffective in preventing crime.

Let's not get gun control into this! It's an issue that's even more emotional than this one! If we put them together this entire forum will HACF.

But I struggle to understand the sanctity of the phone versus every other form of information storage. With proper judicial review your personal information has always been searchable. That includes bank accounts, phone records, computer hard drives, tax records, business records, email, written correspondence, photographs -- virtually anything. In the US, the only thing that stands between you and a search of any of these items is the 4th amendment which requires probable cause for the issue of a warrant.

So why is a photo stored on my phone unsearchable under warrant, while the same photo in an old-fashioned slide-carousel in my basement can clearly be searched for cause? The only plausible difference between a phone and other media is that modern phones amalgamate a wide variety of information in the same place. But so does my house and, given probable cause, the government can get a warrant to search that. So why not my phone? 

The ability of the government to search -- given probable cause and judicial review -- is not despotism. It's the basis of law enforcement. It's how we catch rapists and killers and financial fraudsters and terrorists too. It's always true that such powers can be seen as targeting the law-abiding as well as the criminal but it's not possible to avoid that. That's why it's always a balancing act between personal privacy and civil society. Advocates for absolute privacy in the digital domain seek to fundamentally alter that balance in ways that are unprecedented.

icoco3 said:

JeffA2 said:

Let's not get gun control into this! It's an issue that's even more emotional than this one! If we put them together this entire forum will HACF.

But I struggle to understand the sanctity of the phone versus every other form of information storage. With proper judicial review your personal information has always been searchable. That includes bank accounts, phone records, computer hard drives, tax records, business records, email, written correspondence, photographs -- virtually anything. In the US, the only thing that stands between you and a search of any of these items is the 4th amendment which requires probable cause for the issue of a warrant.

So why is a photo stored on my phone unsearchable under warrant, while the same photo in an old-fashioned slide-carousel in my basement can clearly be searched for cause? The only plausible difference between a phone and other media is that modern phones amalgamate a wide variety of information in the same place. But so does my house and, given probable cause, the government can get a warrant to search that. So why not my phone? 

The ability of the government to search -- given probable cause and judicial review -- is not despotism. It's the basis of law enforcement. It's how we catch rapists and killers and financial fraudsters and terrorists too. It's always true that such powers can be seen as targeting the law-abiding as well as the criminal but it's not possible to avoid that. That's why it's always a balancing act between personal privacy and civil society. Advocates for absolute privacy in the digital domain seek to fundamentally alter that balance in ways that are unprecedented.

Beyond the sanctity of my data is the fact I have full confidence in the security of my iPhone.  I do not have to fear theft of my private data.  Moreover, I store passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.  It is more than just securing a few photos.

Your personal information has always been searchable with a warrant because it was in plain site (on paper, etc) but now it can be stored in an electronic vault that can not be opened.  They still can subpoena records from the phone company, bank, etc.

The 4th amendment may allow them to perform the search, but the 5th says I do not have to assist them.

My house has all those items too (passwords, credit card info, bank info, personally identifiable data i.e. SSN, Doctor info, etc.). And they're not in plain sight. But it's still searchable under warrant. So what's the difference with the phone? Why should data on your phone be beyond the reach of a legal search when that same data is in scope if it's stored elsewhere?

SpamSandwich said:

JeffA2 said:

I'm not sure where the "undue burden" criteria comes in. Is there precedent for that?

But it's really beside the point. I agree that others will ask for the same help and that Apple will suffer as a consequence. But this is a commercial argument, not a privacy argument. I have (surprisingly) found myself agreeing with the DOJ on this. There is no Orwellian threat to privacy here. But there is a commercial threat to Apple and its band. MHO, that is not grounds for refusal.

Encryption must work for everyone or it works for no one. Encryption is what stands between you, everything you own and every hacker on Earth.

The worldwide end of encryption isn't in play here. Apple can't decrypt the phone and isn't being asked to. It's being asked to allow the FBI to mount a passcode search. 

Let's say Apple agrees and the FBI opens the phone. What then? The US gov't may well ask for this again. But they have a legal warrant for the information. There are due process protections in place, whether you want to believe it or not. 

It's also plausible that countries without the same legal oversight will ask Apple based on this precedent. What then? It may be that Apple will be forced to withdraw from or change the products they sell in countries like China. Again, that's a commercial argument, not a privacy argument.

I understand that the US government has lost the trust of many people on this issue. But for all of the Snowden-incited hysteria about government overreach (and I agree that the NSA did overreach) there hasn't been any documented harm to anyone as a result. Why not? Because there actually is an oversight system. Snowden's original concern (and it was valid) was that the data collection was in excess of what was authorized by law and that eventually there might be harm. Since then he's gone off the deep end and apparently believes that Putin's Russia is a more open and democratic society than the US. Good luck with that, Ed.

There's a totally different set of issues at play here. Tim Cook and Apple are playing on people's valid fears and concerns to protect their own commercial interests. Don't be fooled by the rhetoric.

OttoReverse said:

MEIavecchia said:

Let's put this in terms you Apple sympathizers will understand.
An awesome new company has just invented an encrypted physical key to a physical encrypted door to some child molesters creepy basement.
Impervious to any locksmith and of course any court orders to open it with a warrant to search for your missing son or daughter that the government believes might be inside or might contain clues as to the whereabouts of your child. Now do you get it? Simpletons
Apple helps terrorists!

Your analogy is incorrect.
- the lock company makes and sells tens of millions of this model of lock
- the FBI asks them to make a skeleton key to open the one basement door, only due to the technical nature of the lock the key, if made, would be capable of opening every single one of the tens of millions of locks sold, many of which are used to keep our sons and daughters safe.

Your analogy is also incorrect. Apple is not being asked to create a skeleton key. They are being asked to create a procedure for unlocking phones. The software itself -- the 'key' in your parlance -- only fits a single lock. But the procedure could be used to create other keys for other phones. But -- and here's the big difference -- each of those new keys must be separately authorized by a warrant and a subsequent court order. Then that specific 'key' must signed by Apple before it will open the lock. That means there is judicial review for each individual case. That's exactly the type of protection guaranteed by the US constitution.

designr said:

coolfactor said:

Between a rock and a hard place...

And it's not just about iOS....

- OS X
- tvOS
- watchOS

If Apple loses this battle, the FBI could theoretically tap into your heartbeat at any time.

And as someone in another thread pointed out, backdoors don't just enable you to get stuff off, but also put stuff on. This includes incriminating materials, faked data, etc.

This is a whole lotta bad.

If you believe that, you have no idea what's being proposed.