davidw

yojimbo007 said:

Steve Jobs

" ....great artists steal"

It's not fair to just take a snippet out of what Steve Jobs actually said, as it only serves to distort the whole meaning of what Steve Jobs meant. 

Here's what Steve Jobs said in its entirety. 

"Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you’re doing. I mean Picasso had a saying, he said good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

At least with a land line, the phone numbers one dial are not protected by the 4th Amendment. The reasoning that you already shared that info with a third [arty, the telephone company. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy there. Whether one used a home phone or a public telephone booth. Thus law enforcement do not need a warrant to have a telephone company turn over all the phones numbers that were dialed from a certain phone or have the telephone company install a device that can record the numbers dials for law enforcement.  

However, the conversation over that phone is protected by the 4th, as there is a reasonable expectation of privacy there, even if one is using third party equipment to make the phone call. So in order for government to tap or bug a phone line, they need a warrant.

It's Smith vs Maryland. This was back in  1979, I'm not sure if there's any new ruling pertaining to the privacy of phone numbers dialed from a cell phones. 
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland

So basically, with this ruling, the SCOTUS has ruled that the location data that telecoms record, (be it by tower triangulation or GPS), with every call made from a cell phone, must now be treated the same as the private conversation over the phone and not part of the phone number. Even if the callers has no reasonable expectation of privacy as to the phone number they dial, the callers do have a reasonable expectation of privacy as to where they are, when they placed a call. So, like with the conservation over a phone, government now needs a search warrant for the telecom to turn over that location data.

linkman said:

So this sounds like police-operated cell phone towers used to gather the same info AKA "Stingray" devices will be illegal in many circumstances. 

No. This has to do with government needing a warrant to obtain location information that is in the hands of a third party. The government would not need to serve itself with a warrant to obtain information that they already have, from setting up their own surveillance. 

spice-boy said:

News flash Thomas Edison comes back from the dead to sue modern day LED lightbulb manufacturers for stealing his idea. 
The iPhone is still the best phone you can buy but it is a mature product and competitors with quite good phones abound. 
I guess this is about pride. 

chasm said:

Seven days is entirely too generous IMO. LIke with TouchID/FaceID itself, 48 hours seems like a fair-enough window to me. I hope Apple won a promise from a certain misadministration not to push the issue if they gave them a seven-day window.

Maybe the 7 day window is Apple way of discouraging the use of a 4 alphanumeric, case sensitive, pass code, as those pass codes can be hacked in about 7 days. By having the USB disabled after 7 days of the iPhone being locked, even if the USB is being used to transmit data during that 7 day window, it would almost be impossible to hack a 6 alphanumeric, case sensitive, pass code. If Apple were to have the USB disabled after just 48 hours, iPhone and iPad users might be tempted to use a 4 alphanumeric case sensitive pass code since it's very unlikely to be hacked in only 2 days. Apple rather users use at least a 6 alphanumeric, case sensitive, pass code, at all times.

I'm assuming that the hackers have already reached the limit of how fast one can input the pass code using the USB, as there's a limit to how fast data can be transmitted through the USB.

One also has to remember that it takes time for law enforcement to set up the iPhone for hacking. Not to mention the time it takes to get a search warrant. If the government agency involve don't have the proper equipment in place at the time they take possession of the iPhone, they might end up losing days from that 7 day USB lock out window and end up having only 3 or 4 days to try to hack in. I assuming most local law enforcement offices don't have the proper set up and must get the iPhone to the nearest FBI office with the proper set up, in order to hack the iPhone. Plus I don't think the FBI is going to stop everything just to hack into some drug dealer's iPhone for a local police. Its only the high profile cases that will get the FBI immediate attention. So for the average iPhone and iPad users, the 7 day USB lock out window is not as long as it seems as their iPhone or iPad would most likely be sitting in the evidence room for more than 7 days, if they were arrested and charged with a low profile crime.