
Why you should side with Apple, not the FBI, in the San Bernardino iPhone case - Libertatea
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/02/18/why-you-should-side-with-apple-not-the-fbi-in-the-san-bernardino-iphone-case/
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Terr_
Just playing around with analogies here...

If a company sells bank-vaults, can the US government have the authority to
_force_ them to blowtorch into one of their own products that was bought by a
suspect? Can the government force them to include a master skeleton key for
every single vault they manufacture?

... Also, remember how encryption was once blocked from export as a kind of
weapon? How about we hoist them in their own petard? Let's talk about guns:

Does the US government have the authority to force a gun-manufacturer to
include a "remote off-switch", so that police can point a transmitter at a
suspect and disable anything they may be carrying?

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tn13
I think all liberty loving individuals should learn a thing or two from NRA
and Gun rights advocates on such issues even if they might hate NRA.

NRA and well knit group of Gun rights advocates (such as myself) concedes 0
space to the government irrespective of any shooting and casualties. Why cant
we do the same for such cases ? One mad man shot some people and we want to
build backdoor into iPhone threatening privacy and security of millions of
Americans?

Idea is not to get into details of "FBI wants to protect Americans" but simply
deny any legislative space to the politicians and executives. The moment
people get into the trap of "we need to balance things out" the balance would
invariably go towards government on long term, the idea is to simply "deny
space" to FBI.

FBI (and full respect for them) should use the existing tools and methods to
hunt terrorists and protect Americans. There is a good reason why FBI is
expected to work under constraints, that is what makes them good guys. Else
there are not really different from drug mafia.

Trick will lie in totally isolating government and security agencies behind
the wall of 4th Amendment by stick to original interpretation. If we buy into
the BS of "we need to find balance" or "constitution is a living document"
then we will have to see US government becoming Chinese oppressive state.

~~~
rayiner
> Trick will lie in totally isolating government and security agencies behind
> the wall of 4th Amendment by stick to original interpretation

The difference is that the 2nd amendment has text that is helpful to you, and
the 4th amendment does not. The 2nd amendment does not only ban "unreasonable"
restrictions on guns, while the 4th amendment only bans "unreasonable"
searches. Moreover, the 4th amendment allows for the issuance of warrants
pursuant to which the government can conduct a search that would otherwise be
considered unreasonable. All that is right there in the text.

You don't need "original interpretation" here. You need "living document" and
you need to conjure up a right of privacy--one that defeats even a search
pursuant to a warrant--that appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution.

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jmiwhite
> There’s nothing preventing the FBI from writing that hacked software itself,
> aside from budget and manpower issues.

My understanding is that this isn't correct, and is in fact the focal point of
the order:

> This signature check is why the FBI cannot load new software onto an iPhone
> on their own — the FBI does not have the secret keys that Apple uses to sign
> firmware.

[http://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/02/17/apple-can-comply-
with...](http://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/02/17/apple-can-comply-with-the-fbi-
court-order/)

Is it possible for anyone to load a modified firmware without Apple's signing
keys?

~~~
pdkl95
The FBI can subpoena/nsl/all-writs-act the necessary signing key, if
necessary. That would probably be easier than ordering Apple to write a new
(miss-)feature, as this would only be turning over existing data, similar to a
subpoena for common business records or the footage from a surveillance-
camera.

~~~
jmiwhite
I'm not sure I'd rather have the FBI in possession of their signing key either
:)

~~~
noir_lord
As a non US person me either, I wonder what the long term prospects for US
tech firms will be like in a post-snowden world, general public mostly doesn't
care but techies in other countries do.

I'm in the process of pull our stuff back towards virtualization on hardware
we control in a DC up the road, it's not that our gov are any better but at
least it minimises one risk surface.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
indeed what puzzles me most in the public discussion is that it revolves
around the effects to US citizens. Not just in this discussion but also others
that evaluate backdooring or outlawing encryption, there is a strong argument
(mostly from law enforcement friendly camps) on how to best do this from a
semi tech-perspective. And I wonder have they actually thought further about
what happens if not just Apple but Google, Microsoft, and the network vendors
(CISCO, Alcatel etc) are going to be forced to intentionally break their
security in some way.

Never mind the Chinese then requesting their own backdoors in US products or
localized versions of these backdoors. The bigger issue is who will buy their
stuff? How do they market their products without being laughed at? EU market
might be splintered and can easily be dismissed compared to Asia in volume and
EU is currently loudest in terms of pro-privacy (often just so they can say
they are in the face of the US to cover their own incompetence (disclosure:
European here)). The way I see it from a business pov: if you break a
reasonably good product and everyone knows it's broken then other competitors
maybe in other markets will move in to fill the gap.

~~~
Terr_
> indeed what puzzles me most in the public discussion is that it revolves
> around the effects to US citizens.

Well, debates about US laws involve how those laws affect things and people
within US jurisdiction, who are almost entirely US residents.

And IMO it's a very very _good_ thing when judges decide based on what the
actual law is, rather than based on what some transnational corporation's
balance sheet might look like next quarter.

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kazinator
I'm siding with the idea that if the cops want to install something on a
device that I own, they have to get _my_ cooperation, not that of the
manufacturer.

~~~
mc32
Isn't that the purpose of a court order? They compel you to answer the court's
questions. In this particular case, the device owner, the agency which issued
the phone, has granted permission.

It's imaginable that apple could manufacture multiple kinds of devices. Those
for personal use and which cannot be compromised via any keys whatsoever, and
commercial/enterprise versions which can be centrally managed.

My take is one of the big markets, the US, China, India or EU will tell Apple
they either offer the option or they forgo the market.

Governments with large economies will compel manufacturers to provide this
option, despite what the company or privacy advocates, privacy minded users
would prefer.

