plovell

Rumor: Chinese spy shots show 'iPhone 7' with dual cameras, no home button

plovell

March 2016

It's hard to see how they can do TouchID without a home button. The current one is sapphire for a reason, and I don't think we're going into the territory of all-sapphire screens. Not after the GTAT debacle.

Take a stand against the Obama/FBI anti-encryption charm offensive

plovell

March 2016

PhantasticOne said:

So let me see if I can follow Apple logic. If I have a safe deposit box at the bank and keep the record of my illegal activities there, police can get a search warrant and force the bank to open the box. However, if I keep all of my illegal activities on an overpriced iPhone and encrypt it with the help of Apple, I'm in the clear because Apple, unlike banks, doesn't have to comply with any legal search warrants. I see this strictly as a marketing ploy on Apple's part that makes me feel far less secure than I did before. To me, it's just this simple....Don't do anything illegal and you don't need encryption. What did people do in the time BEFORE iPhones? Apple....The criminal's friend and confidant.

So which banks require that the records in your safe deposit box are readable plain text? Since when have you not been able to employ your own encryption to keep others out of your affairs? I guess that you will, when presented with a legal search warrant, disclose the secret key.

But then you make this stunner "To me, it's just this simple....Don't do anything illegal and you don't need encryption".

I guess you have never purchased anything online. Or done any banking online. Or - almost anything other than posting here. In case you didn't know it, ALL of those things rely upon encryption. Dude - encryption isn't something that keeps criminals safe - it's what keeps ALL OF US safe. Wake up !

Take a stand against the Obama/FBI anti-encryption charm offensive

plovell

March 2016

coolfactor said:

The mention of "non-American encryption products" is an interesting choice of words. Why does it have to be non-American exactly?

It is well-known that many companies moved out of the US during the early 1990's - the era of the "crypto-wars".

The point is that many encryption products and those employing encryption technology are established in countries that do not have similar to those proposed then, or being suggested now by the FBI. Whatever the FBI might like to believe, the "encryption" genie is out of the bottle. Pandora's Box is open. There is no "putting it back the way it was" except for some totalitarian countries. For all the others, there is only "making it hard".

So the FBI might be able to push FaceBook into having a way into WhatsApp but all that will do - for the terrorists - is to encourage them to move to Telegram which is built and hosted in Europe. So the WhatsApp users are now vulnerable but the terrorists continue.

Take a stand against the Obama/FBI anti-encryption charm offensive

plovell

March 2016

mrich said:

We wouldn't be having this conversation if a) such encryption had existed on 9/11 and b) on 9/12 the FBI had asked Apple to let it into any suspect phones. Steve Jobs or Tim Cook would have opened them up with their tongues, because the enormity of the crime demanded it. They would have looked like co-conspirators with mass murderers in the eyes of the whole world if they had made then the same argument Cook et al. are making now. Such noble half-baked and immature statements as the ones made above are only possible because merely 16 persons were murdered in San Bernardino. Yes, the hard truth about abstract moral principles is that they have to be put into action in the real world in the context of real human lives, and that changes the weight and heft of the arguments. If it had been 3,000 people who had been murdered in California rather than a *mere* 16, we wouldn't be hearing these arguments. So that begs the question: Just how many mass murder victims is Apple willing to tolerate? How many are we the public willing to tolerate before we insist that Apple co-operate in keeping us safe? Or is the difference in the nature of the weapons used? Are assault rifle murders acceptable, while murders caused by airplanes are not? How about a poison gas attack, or a dirty bomb? Where is the line between an acceptable number of murders and an intolerable number?

Welcome to the world of hard choices. Life is hard. Do you honor the lives of those lost at San Bernardino by weakening the protection for the data of half-a-billion others? If so, is that a worthy trade? You ask "How many [murders] are we the public willing to tolerate before we insist that Apple co-operate in keeping us safe?"

Well, first ask yourself and then define "safe" for us. If it's "freedom from murder" then you're looking in the wrong place. It is an established fact that in 2015 more Americans were killed by toddlers than by terrorists ("Broad counts indicate that 21 toddlers shot and killed themselves or others in 2015; 19 Americans died at the hands of potential or suspected Islamic terrorists").

For many, "freedom" has a different sense while not excluding freedom-from-murder. It's freedom to communicate, freedom to dissent, freedom to protest, freedom from cyber-criminals. Even freedom to do your daily commercial transactions without having your money and identity stolen.

Are these part of your "safe"? If not then tell us why not.