
The Time Tim Cook Stood His Ground Against the FBI - Elof
https://www.wired.com/story/the-time-tim-cook-stood-his-ground-against-fbi/
======
threatofrain
> The writ “was not a simple request for assistance in a criminal case,”
> explained Sewell. “It was a forty-two-page pleading by the government that
> started out with this litany of the horrible things that had been done in
> San Bernardino. And then this... somewhat biased litany of all the times
> that Apple had said no to what were portrayed as very reasonable requests.
> So this was what, in the law, we call a speaking complaint. It was meant to
> from day one tell a story... that would get the public against Apple.”

> The team came to the conclusion that the judge’s order was a PR move—a very
> public arm twisting to pressure Apple into complying with the FBI’s
> demands—and that it could be serious trouble for the company. Apple “is a
> famous, incredibly powerful consumer brand and we are going to be standing
> up against the FBI and saying in effect, ‘No, we’re not going to give you
> the thing that you’re looking for to try to deal with this terrorist
> threat,’” said Sewell.

~~~
lern_too_spel
On the contrary, Apple's refusal was a PR move, and this whole article is a
submarine. [https://www.wired.com/2016/02/apples-fbi-battle-is-
complicat...](https://www.wired.com/2016/02/apples-fbi-battle-is-complicated-
heres-whats-really-going-on/) has a better explanation.

What really happened is that Apple loudly proclaimed that they had made it
impossible to comply with government data requests and even had a marketing
page masquerading as a privacy page explaining that. The FBI asked Apple to
put a build on a phone that would allow them to brute force the passcode,
leaving the device and the build on Apple's premises the entire time. This
showed that Apple's claim was false in practice. Apple quickly removed that
marketing page in the wake of the news.

~~~
urda
> The FBI asked Apple to put a build on a phone that would allow them to brute
> force the passcode, leaving the device and the build on Apple's premises the
> entire time.

It doesn't matter how well it might be locked down or secured. If the
government coerced them into building it, it wouldn't be difficult to go one
more step and require apple to hand over the modified OS.

This [1] does a great job of explaining why building a master key is _just_ a
bad idea. This is a pandora's box we do not need to open.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo)

~~~
lern_too_spel
The master key already exists. It is the key used to sign builds.

Edit: downvotes of easily verifiable facts are causing hn to block me from
responding. At the time Apple made the false marketing claims, no passcode was
required to install a signed build. Hence, the FBI's request.

The FBI was asking for no more than what Apple could already do, and it was
letting Apple control the whole process. The problem was that what Apple could
already do disagreed with what Apple told its customers that it could do.

~~~
Lownin
Except in the case that the device will not accept the build without the
user's passcode, right?

~~~
zaroth
Correct. This may not have been perfectly locked down before the secure
element, but Apple’s _design goal_ has always been that the device hardware
prevents even Apple itself from retrieving encrypted data without the
passcode, and that passcode should have a strictly limited number of attempts
to guess.

Bugs will always be found and it’s a mistake to think even the latest iPhone
is immune to attack. In particular, the baseband continues to be a large
attack surface, and IMO is the vector most likely used by the Saudis to
remotely access iPhones on their cellular network.

I’d feel safer if a powered off iPhone did not connect to any network (WiFi,
Cell, or USB) after booting until the passcode is entered.

------
atomical
Why doesn't he stand up to the Saudis? It's quite strange. I know people will
say it's about money, but that's a really unsatisfying answer.

------
MrBingley
> From a public relations standpoint, Apple had always been on the side of
> privacy advocates and civil libertarians.

Oh give me a break. Apple only cares about American user privacy, and only
then because it aligns with their business interests. Where is the oh-so-noble
Tim Cook protesting the heinous civil rights and privacy violations in the
business they do in China? Nowhere. Apple only cares about user privacy so
much as it makes them money - in the US that means resisting the government,
and in China it means hopping into bed with Big Daddy Xi.

Edit: For example, Snowden leaked an NSA slide saying that Apple had given in
to cooperate with Prism, but Apple denied-denied-denied as soon as the news
broke. It was only post-Snowden, when privacy could be monetized, that Apple
suddenly started to care.

~~~
lern_too_spel
You're downvoted because (ignoring for now the Apple fanboys who can't abide
any criticism of Apple) your edit is wrong as explained elsewhere in these
comments. Your initial China point is spot on.

------
eps
While we are on the subject, shall we go over Apple caving in to Prism
participation shortly after Jobs death?

Have Tim Cook pulled them out by any chance? Or are they still siphoning off
pretty much everything feds want that way despite all their very hard and very
public stance against the FBI? It might be not acceptable in court per se, but
it does put their "pro-privacy stance" in perspective.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Apple didn't "participate in PRISM." The only participants in PRISM are the
FBI, the NSA, and government contractors that implemented the PRISM system, as
the slides clearly show: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/images/prism-slide-7.jpg)

~~~
eps
PotatA-potatO. They are knowingly leaking.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_\(surveillance_program\)#Media_disclosure_of_PRISM)

(includes your slide in a proper context)

~~~
lern_too_spel
No, they knowingly complied with individual users' data requests from the FBI.
That is not leaking. You seem to believe PRISM has access to a lot more data
than it actually does.

Greenwald, out of an abundance of incompetence, believed that DITU was a
device in the companies' datacenters. DITU is a division of the FBI, not a
device.

Edit: downvotes are causing hn to prevent me from responding, but the sibling
comment from Anechoic is also wrong. That is not what the slide shows. The
linked slide shows that PRISM ingested data legally obtained by the FBI.

~~~
Anechoic
Generally when this debate comes up, folks point to this [0] slide as evidence
that Apple was a willing participant when is says no such thing. You are
correct that the slide you linked to indicates that the data were flowing
through the FBI DITU.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_\(surveillance_program\)#/media/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg)

~~~
lern_too_spel
PRISM is a data processing system that ingests data that the FBI already has.
There is nothing in that system for Apple to participate in, willingly or
unwillingly.

