
Apple’s FBI battle is just the beginning of a reality check for the tech sector - trusche
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/21/apple-fbi-battle-technology-firms-consequences-of-actions
======
zaphar
I'm not so sure that Apple wasn't aware and perhaps even looking for a battle
with the {FBI,NSA,CIA,...} when they added encryption. You don't start
designing a system that makes you incapable of fulfilling a warrant without
expecting and indeed preparing for those battles in the future.

In a way with things like NSL's and Secret warrants and courts the US had
backed companies like Apple and Google into a wall. Post Snowden everyone
knows that the Government can get information about you from them without your
knowledge and you will have no recourse. It's a PR battle those companies
can't win. So they did an end run. Go ahead and get your secret warrants and
send those NSL's it's physically impossible for us to get you the information
you want.

It forced this whole thing out into open. I can't help but think this sort of
legal battle is both expected and in some cases desired by the likes of Apple
and Google. They finally get to fight these battles out in the open and any
loss of privacy can be blamed on the government rather than the company. It's
a kind of PR win whether they win the court case or not.

Of course there is still the problem of not looking pro-terrorist in the
process which is another risk to factor in. But at least it's a public debate
rather than a private one now.

~~~
fixermark
I suspect there's an emotional angle to this that people may not be aware of,
either.

There are quite a few people active in software engineering today at major
companies who grew up with the sci-fi ecosystem of dystopia stories that were
relatively prevalent in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Add into the mix their
observations and experiences watching the dotcom boom and bust, the first
major cases of the FBI chasing down hackers and trying to deal with the
inadequacies of the law to handle that class of crime by redlining all the
punishments the law allowed, and the utter ridiculousness that was the war
between file sharing systems / communities and the RIAA / MPAA, and you end up
with a culture primed to see themselves as the smart guardians of the common
person against abuse by authority. Even though they are the establishment now,
they still see themselves as anti-establishment, taking a stand for little
people against Big Brother. That's not necessarily a true reflection of the
world (in many cases, the large software companies can themselves stand
accused of being Big Brother), but it's the myth they grew up with.

And along comes clear and indisputable evidence that their governments have
not only the theoretical capacity to mass-harvest data and mass-survey people,
they are actually doing it and have actively breached the security
infrastructure at the companies these people work for to make it happen. So
people in the tech sector are mad. Seething, in fact. We talk of governments
metaphorically breaking into people's houses, but it's not a metaphor for the
people whose day-job it is to physically secure their houses---the people the
governments have actually physically wiretapped, using Cold War-era
techniques, without permission.

So if the governments want a war about who owns information, the people who
work in the tech sector are excited to give them one.

~~~
jordanb
Why does it matter if party A or party B is "the establishment?"

Personally I think nobody should be able to mass-surveil the entire
population. And I don't trust the tech giants at all (especially on matters of
privacy) but in the words of Henry Kissinger: "there are no permanent allies,
only permanent interests."

~~~
fixermark
It speaks to the disconnect that governments should have predicted but didn't:
from one point of view, governments and big tech multinationals should be in
the same boat (keeping the "users" safe and secure in their daily activities,
able to go about their day without worrying about externalities that they've
trusted big organizations to protect them from). But tech company employees
don't generally see themselves as part of the same establishment ecosystem as
the governments who want them to work together.

------
codeisawesome
> Apple has been excoriated by presidential candidates, and backed into the
> tightest of corners by the FBI: the moral case for refusing to hack into a
> terrorist’s phone is hard to make – particularly in the US over an Isis-
> inspired attack during an election year.

I can't believe The Guardian is sounding so hostile to Apple in this context.
Don't they understand the consequences?!

~~~
lhnz
It's not so surprising.

A lot of people have been jealously watching on as 'fat cat' 'tech bros' eat
into their industries. Now there are signs that the market will correct and
that technology companies will not continue to get free passes with which to
ignore government. In short, they want to see blood and will settle to see it
whichever way they can.

Tech on the whole needs to wise up politically. It cannot continue to accept
the negative characterisations of its members, nor can it continue to do
whatever it wants without any political ramifications. Even if we believe
we're doing the right thing, we'll need to redeem ourselves in the public eye
and critically evaluate solutions to social problems we've been implicated in
(whether or not we are the sole cause of them.)

~~~
mattmanser
It's odd, yesterday they had a fairly prominently displayed piece praising it
(at least for the UK):

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/21/apple-s...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/21/apple-
smartphone-personal-data)

If you look through the other articles it's all been fairly pro-Apple:

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/apple](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/apple)

It's a bit strange that a business writer has been allowed to fairly
anonymously attack Apple, in what has been a pro-Snowdon/privacy paper.

~~~
toyg
pro-Snowden... but openly anti-Assange, and moving to the right of the
political discourse at increasing speed (they dropped UK Labour in 2010,
campaigned against the current Labour leader, and are keen to appease the US
market).

~~~
frandroid
The Guardian is trying to grow in the U.S. market, not appease it. If the
Guardian does nothing, it's not under any kind of threat other than being
ignored. You appease someone who threatens you.

/nitpick

~~~
toyg
They are appeasing the (mostly US-based) online market that is making them
obsolete. See what happened to The Independent? That will happen to The
Guardian as well, unless they can become a real player in the US and hence
globally. I could have used "begging" as well but it would have been a bit
degrading.

------
p01926
You can almost hear the Guardian's business leader writers rubbing their hands
at the prospect. Which is as shameful and shortsighted as it is atypical for
the Guardian. I would guess the team behind this article are acutely aware of
the rate their owners are burning through cash and are anticipating massive
layoffs soon. Perhaps they're looking for a lifeboat with the Apple-despising
Financial Times?

~~~
vidarh
> the rate their owners are burning through cash and are anticipating massive
> layoffs soon.

The Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian Media Group had about 1.1 billion
pounds net assets, of which the vast majority are liquid, as of end of March
2015 (after they've over the last few years sold of shares in various regional
newspapers and AutoTrader, shoring up their balance sheet massively).

The _sole purpose_ of The Scott Trust is to secure The Guardian in perpetuity.

There may be layoffs at some point. There may not be. But losing money for
years on end is in itself not a problem for The Guardian. They'll want to at
some point trim the loss down a bit to not eat to much into the capital, but
at current rates then have quite literally _decades_ of runway.

~~~
p01926
See this FT article [1] (a admittedly biased competitor) from late last month.
Their cash shrank from £840M to £740M in the last year, and they're planning
to cut "costs" by 20%.

That's a tragedy at such a great newspaper, but it does color their analysis
regarding the companies most responsible for their decline.

[1] [http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/01/25/guardian-to-cut-costs-
by...](http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/01/25/guardian-to-cut-costs-by-20/)

------
rayiner
It's hard being on the wrong side of prevailing sentiments, and when all this
pans out I think people will be a little shocked at how the tech sector's
enormous financial advantages will have carried less weight than anyone
expected.

You can't win politics with money alone. You need a narrative that appeals to
peoples' values. Privacy is not a winner in this regard, nor is unrestricted
markets (note the leading republican candidate today is pushing an anti-free-
trade message). People aren't going to reflexively favor technological
progress for its own sake when they see it undermining things they care about
(jobs, security, etc).

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> People aren't going to reflexively favor technological progress for its own
> sake when they see it undermining things they care about (jobs, security,
> etc).

Correct me if I'm wrong it sounds like you are saying encryption is
undermining security? It might be you have that backwards?

~~~
PopsiclePete
Like he said, it's all about the narrative. Let me demonstrate. Pretend you're
an average voter who has never heard of "Hacker" News.

"Encryption is used by terrorists and evil-doers to hide their nefarious plans
to harm Americans and American values. Innocent and hard-working Americans
have nothing to hide. Only those who wish to harm us do. Had Apple allowed the
FBI to listen on emails and conversations and text messages, San Bernardino
would not have happened".

~~~
studentrob
Pretend I'm the token IT guy in your friend network,

"The FBI request to unlock Apple phones will not make you more safe. Criminals
will use an alternative encryption device or app to communicate, or create
their own."

It shouldn't take long to disprove the government's claim.

~~~
rayiner
I think even the token IT guy is wondering how the FBI's request to break
specific iPhones in their possession is going to undermine iPhone security for
everybody.

~~~
twoodfin
I'm actually wondering this, too. Is there a technological reason why Apple
fulfilling this request makes their (not subject-to-warrant) customers less
secure? Why isn't their private code-signing key the linchpin?

I fully buy that there are legal, cultural, and diplomatic reasons that this
could make Apple's customers less secure in the long run by setting a
precedent, etc.

I guess one argument is that whatever code they write to tie the "weaponized"
iOS update to a particular device could have bugs.

~~~
tptacek
It won't make phones less secure in any technological sense. Defeating the
5C's passcode counter is a capability Apple has today, and DOJ is willing to
allow Apple to bypass it on Apple's own premises rather than providing DOJ
with an image that does it.

The kind of insecurity people are talking about is a policy concern; people
will feel less secure if Apple can be compelled to exploit their capability
this way.

That's a valid concern, but it's not a concern that really touches on how much
more the "token IT person" knows than a layperson with little technical
knowledge.

It annoys me a lot when people in technology deploy special- pleading logic
like this.

~~~
drewcrawford
You're drawing a false dichotomy when you talk about technology and policy as
separate issues. If you are unable to overhear my encrypted messages, were you
stopped by the technology of the Salsa20 algorithm or my policy of not giving
you the keys? Or were you stopped by the government's policy of not compelling
their production for you? Maybe you were stopped by your own policy of not
beating people with rubber hoses?

In the hypothetical that Apple did not have the capability to defeat the 5C's
passcode counter, is the FBI thwarted because of a technically secure
cryptosystem or because it is the policy in the United States to allow such
cryptosystems to be marketed and sold?

Policy and technology do not exist in a vacuum. Apple is obviously going to
close the custom image loophole in response to this "debate"; so clearly the
boundary between technology and policy is fluid. But merely taping a policy
out for silicon, as Apple is going to do in the next chip, does not address
any of the underlying issues. Sure, in the instant case Apple "technically
can" unlock the iPhone, but that is always true: we could create a law such
that all phones must be backdoored for example. Assuming Apple loses here,
mark your calendar, because we'll have that battle next year when a terrorist
uses the new silicon.

There is a line somewhere for what is reasonable to compel. Reasonable people
can disagree about where that line is, but let's not paint "people in
technology" with a broad patronizing brush of "it's not technology, it's
policy, therefore your rules don't apply". Technology is merely policy that's
machine-readible.

~~~
tptacek
I don't think any of this has anything to do with the comment I wrote. You
have a strong policy opinion. That's fine. I didn't criticize it.

~~~
drewcrawford
Specifically, my comment addressed these parts of your comment:

> It won't make phones less secure in any technological sense... The kind of
> insecurity people are talking about is a policy concern;

(My comment alleges there is no such thing as a "technological sense" as
distinct from a "policy concern".)

> It annoys me a lot when people in technology deploy special- pleading logic
> like this.

(My comment alleges that the logic isn't special-pleading.)

I didn't intend to be read as confrontationally as perhaps I sounded. You have
a minority position in this kind of environment; I take minority positions
sometimes, I understand it is not always pleasant to prosecute them. If you
don't want to prosecute them, I won't make you. I'm just explaining that I
really did offer a good-faith rebuttal of what I understood to be your
position. There may be something wrong with it, but I don't think it's off-
topic.

------
mark_l_watson
Unlike most comments here, I liked the Arcticle: a good summary of problems
the big tech companies are having.

Personally I have huge sympathy for Apple in this case. I have less sympathy
for Google and Facebook. Apple, admittedly for business reasons, has come out
strongly supporting privacy and I think they should be awarded for that.

------
estefan
WTF? Two completely unrelated stories in one. I quit the Guardian last month
and this is one reason why...

~~~
matthewmacleod
You're reading a leader – in print, this would traditionally be printed all on
the same page, covering a couple of issues and stating the opinion of the
newspaper.

It's certainly ubiquitous and familiar in the UK (I don't know about
internationally) and it's not at all unusual.

~~~
vidarh
It's common in lots of countries. Some are just not used to seeing them
online.

------
citizensixteen
This is a battle humans/technologists have been facing since the advent of
paper and pencil.

Just for fun, the old Apple advertisement.

1984 Apple's Macintosh Commercial (HD)

Video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I)

------
studentrob
The article is arguing that tech companies used to operate with impunity and
are now facing tougher times.

Which company operated without consequences? Microsoft had to decouple IE
years ago, and other monopolies have been forced to break apart or sell off
pieces. Software patents have caused plenty of headaches and force us to walk
on egg shells, hire expensive defense attorneys, or lobby congress for more
reasonable laws that promote innovation.

This article is all over the place. Leader or not, it's too unfocused to make
sense. It's clear whoever compiled and published it does not really understand
tech.

------
plorg
I am of a few minds about this. Firstly, I do not want to create a political
environment where the government can tell people how their phones can be made
(w.r.t. security, particularly). Thus, I want there to be clear limits on what
federal agencies are able to do.

But secondly, I am skeptical about the way giant corporations wield their
power against the government. Apple surely has its own priorities and goals,
which are often at odds with mine and, separately, those of the government
that represents me. While I have a small bit of influence on how my government
operates I have even less influence on how such corporations operate, even
though their decisions greatly affect my life. When their position re:privacy
reflects mine, I am glad for it, but what happens when the issue is taxation
or trade policy? My government might not be pursuing great solutions on these
issues, but I don't really trust giant self-interested corporations to have a
better solution.

Thirdly, though, I am personally concerned about how this debate cements
Apple's power to lock down their devices even, in many ways against their
users. The particulars of their security design seem to preclude users from
writing their own operating systems for the phone or creating/using software
that isn't directly sanctioned by the company. The same applies, to a great
extent, to other hardware and software vendors (in particular,
Google/Microsoft/Motorola/Samsung/HTC/etc.). I suspect this battle will end up
giving us more locked-down devices in the name of security.

------
peterclary
I note that nobody was brave enough to sign their name to this article.

~~~
stevetrewick
Maybe no one wrote it. The Graun's stock in trade hit piece editorial is so
thoroughly predictable by now they probably have a perl script to churn them
out.

------
jokoon
Well I can't expect HN to agree with this article, but let's face it,
technologies pose new political questions.

I think the argument about the iPhone backdoor software is a slippery slope
one. As long as the judicial system use mandates and the process is
transparent, I think you can't really complain. This is what Snowden is about.

We're talking about homeland defense here, the Islamic State is on the rise,
so I would be careful when defending Apple here.

Now I'm not a lawyer nor a political scientist, but I want to side with the
FBI on this one. I'm sure Apple is playing their popularity card here. There
are things that are more important and go beyond gadgets built in the silicon
valley. It doesn't necessarily have something to do with Snowden.

I expect people to disagree with me here, and it's fine.

~~~
wtbob
> As long as the judicial system use mandates and the process is transparent,
> I think you can't really complain.

I completely agree that the State can compel anyone to do anything he is able
to do. That's why it's so vitally important to build systems which don't allow
anyone but the owner to authorise changes.

Apple shouldn't be able to install an app or update OS code without an iPhone
owner okaying the change. Google shouldn't be able to read my WiFi password.
Mirosoft shouldn't be able to read my OneDrive files.

If it's not possible for someone to do something, then he can't be compelled
to do it.

In this particular case, the actual owner (the county) should have maintained
an ability to access the phone at any time, but they didn't.

~~~
venomsnake
If we define ownership as "having the ultimate control" \- the actual owner of
every iPhone ever sold is apple.

~~~
rtpg
Not super true in newer versions of iOS where the update backdoor has been
removed by requiring PIN code entry for OS updates.

------
Cuuugi
As i understand the situation, the FBI only wanted Apple to create a operating
system that lives in the devices ram that removes the wipe after 10 tries.
This would not comprimise Apple's encryption since the operating system would
still contain Apple's private key (and the FBI added one time use provisions,
also that this could happen in an Apple Facility).

Hence the question is, Does Apple have to make a different OS (so that the FBI
could brute force) to see what is contained on the particular device?

I think they will be forced to, and i don't know that i have a problem with
it.

------
nerdcity
Encryption is a reality check for the government. It's not going away, even if
they outlaw it.

~~~
xufi
They have a hard time understanding it apparently

------
einar2812
[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/17/apple-
unloc...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/17/apple-unlocked-
iphones-for-the-feds-70-times-before.html?via=desktop&source=twitter)

