
FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter - robbiemitchell
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-director-comments-on-san-bernardino-matter
======
bradleyjg
_It should be resolved by the American people deciding how we want to govern
ourselves in a world we have never seen before. We shouldn’t drift to a
place—or be pushed to a place by the loudest voices—because finding the right
place, the right balance, will matter to every American for a very long time._

So why are they asking the courts to stretch the 1789 All Writs Act beyond its
breaking point, instead of going to Congress for a new law? The magistrate
that signed off on this isn't even an Article III judge.

~~~
mhays
Except he did go to Congress, and came back with nothing, forcing him to use
the AWA.

So who is pushing who exactly? And who has a louder voice in criminal justice
matters than the FBI?

~~~
BWStearns
Hadn't thought about it this way before, but he might be turning to the AWA
because a reasonable piece of legislation can't make it through congress.

~~~
justin_vanw
Reasonable according to whom?

This is why we have _Rule of Law_. There is no "we follow the law when it
seems reasonable". Whatever the law is, it should be followed, and it does not
matter at all what anyone's personal opinion is regarding what the law should
be.

Perhaps it is more complex than this, for example in cases of civil
disobedience. However, civil disobedience is for cases of conscience when you
cannot _personally_ participate in something that is immoral, so you refuse to
participate or you protest it. The key here is that this is ignoring the law
to resist immoral uses of power, not ignoring the law to remove intentional
restrictions to the application of allocated authority.

This applies doubly to the legal system itself. An appeal to the inability of
legislatures to "get things done" has been the argument of every tyrant since
Caesar.

~~~
BWStearns
I was suggesting following the rule of law. Congress passes laws when they get
around to it. I'm not in any way advancing that we should ban encryption or
support backdoors (effectively banning encryption). I will not however pretend
that I have exhaustively considered all legislation that would allow the FBI
to open this phone without setting dangerous precedents.

I can't think of any at the moment but I don't think anyone in a position to
do anything with an answer is trying. The issue is too good a political
bludgeon to bother even seeking some creative solution to the problem (again,
not that I am 100% sure there even is a legislative solution that wouldn't be
a vastly undesirable and possibly unconstitutional blow to encryption).

It is not a good starting presumption that no reasonable answer can be
reached, especially when the topic under discussion isn't a core issue like
"backdoor all encryption" but rather "is it possible to pass reasonable and
generally acceptable legislation such that Apple can legally be compelled to
aid this decryption effort without setting a terrible precedent?" There may be
no solution to that problem, which is fine, but don't suggest that I was
endorsing some vaguely Orwellian shit because I don't presume as a given that
our opponents on the general issue of encryption have malicious aspirations of
tyranny.

~~~
ltbarcly3
It's not vaguely Orwellian. Given an ability to disregard the rule of law, and
sufficient charisma, and some hard times, any country can become a
dictatorship in 5 years.

We can't kill every charismatic person, and we can't prevent hard times. We
can insist on the rule of law.

~~~
BWStearns
I suggested that a disagreement might have a non-specified solution a) exists
and b) would be achievable through legislation, passed by an elected
legislature. Nothing I suggested requires killing charismatic people (?) or
advocates against the rule of law.

Normally when people intentionally misread me in the most uncharitable fashion
possible I can at least see the deranged logic, but in your case I can't see
what evil you claim I am advancing or how you arrived at that conclusion.

~~~
justin_vanw
I am still talking about your original comment.

I understand your clarification, I was nitpicking that you were saying my
response to the original comment was 'crazy' or something, but without the
context you gave in your reply I think my original response was appropriate.

I agree with your larger point, there is probably a workable solution that
balances the threat of government with the benefits of government, but I
disagree that it is 'not getting things done' that is the cause of us not
finding that compromise.

In general, I think that appeals to 'a lack of will' are almost always
incorrect. People, even politicians, are generally good and want to find good
solutions. There is a lot of disagreement on what is a good solution, and even
more disagreement on what the long term consequences of choices are. This is
why there is gridlock, and if you read the Federalist Papers (in the case of
the US), you will see that this gridlock is a Feature of the system, not a
Bug.

~~~
BWStearns
Every time I hear someone defend the recent state of affairs by bringing up
the gridlock being a feature and not a bug, I feel like someone who owns a
delivery truck that won't go more than 10 mph. I go to the dealer and ask what
the fuck, and the dealer says that there's a speed governor on the truck that
won't let it surpass 80mph and the governor is just working better than usual.

~~~
justin_vanw
That is a clever analogy.

I think we are fine though, we are safer than ever before. We don't need to
extend government snooping power, because there is no need to do so. If
someone disagrees, that is fine, but that is why we have a speed governor.

People have always complained about decisions being made too slowly, but they
have never been made faster, if anything they are made more quickly now than
ever before. Congress used to only meet a few times a year for a few weeks!

~~~
BWStearns
When they only met a few times for a few weeks they were passing laws that
were readable in whole by individuals during those sessions. The scope of
their responsibilities has increased and I expect them to apply a
correspondingly high degree of effort.

I want the legislature to be passing laws rolling back the security state, I
want them to cancel or rework programs that don't work across the board. They
can't do those things if they spend all their time in some arcane ritual
circle jerk whose only and ultimate goal is just to make some of the other
participants ultimately look more ridiculous than other participants.

We've normalized and accepted parliamentarian bullshit at the expense of
governing (on both sides, but the republicans are the undisputed masters of
the dark arts) for a couple decades now. Legislative lethargy (sorry, had to)
is supposed to derive from lengthy debate and substantive disagreement, not
from participants purposely tanking the process to score points in the cheap
seats. Part of the reason that they got shit done in a couple of weeks in ye-
olden-congress is that it was closer to a turn based game, news traveled
slower and so the results of the whole session were what constituted news, not
every little BS stunt.

The frustrated and vindictive part of me hopes that not a single senator or
congressman pays a price for their cynical abandonment of their duty to
govern. That way, next term we see months long shutdowns of the whole federal
government and a collapse of federal services until [Bernie|Hillary] signs a
budget that reallocates all non-entitlement social spending to some insane
shit that polled well among likely voters suffering from bathtub-gin induced
brain damage. The revolting (both senses) congressmen won't actually care
about getting the spending reallocated, but them "standing up to"
[Bernie|Hillary] will play well with their group so so be it.

Edit: to clarify the frustrated and vindictive part would be rooting for it in
the sense that the worst part about democracy is that people get the
government they deserve, and at the moment it doesn't seem like the process
thinks we deserve much.

~~~
justin_vanw
Again, you seem to think we are getting 'worse' government, but we have the
best government we have ever had. Just because you can see it close up (in a
historical sense), you are aware of it's warts. But I assure you, the
governments of the past had all the problems we have today, and many, many,
many more. If you were to get in a time machine and go back even 50 years, you
would be shocked at how _corrupt_ the government was then compared to now.

Stop with your short sighted, historically ignorant whining already.

------
noobermin
I'll go ahead and say that it sounds extremely sincere and straight-forward,
much unlike most official statements I've seen from the FBI. He does _suggest_
that his view is right, but he does the right thing, as apple did, in
supporting a public discourse about the so-called balance between privacy and
safety.

I know many people seem to gravitate to the extremes on every issue, but both
Cook and Comey are right in saying that we as a nation need to question our
fundamental assumptions in our thinking and think through what the would be
the best balance between the two, if there be any. As Comey says, and I
personally agree with this, the "balance" shouldn't be decided "by
corporations that sell stuff for a living" or by "the FBI which investigates
for a living,"...or in general, the government. We shouldn't be grass in a
fight between two elephants. The American people need to decide how much
involvement both government and large multinational corporations have in their
lives. That's what this all comes down to, after all.

~~~
allworknoplay
Security vs privacy is a false dichotomy here. Backdoors can help law
enforcement achieve some goals but weaken overall security. The debate is
security vs security, and framing it any other way reflects either willful
deceit or ignorance.

~~~
FreedomToCreate
Encryption could also help obstruct justice and let criminals get away with
things. Most people won't understand till it impacts them personally but
imagine if you are robbed of all your money and the answer of who did it lies
in a computer you are able to get your hand on. Wouldn't you love it if the
police had a backdoor now.

You are wrong in framing the debate as security vs security. Its like
everything else when it comes to liberty and protection. The question is how
much liberty are we willing to give up for protection. We can't let a
corporation or the government anchor our opinions on the left or right.

~~~
autoreleasepool
Can you cite a case where encryption has obstructed justice or prevented a
crime from being solved?

~~~
FreedomToCreate
Yes, [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/opinion/apple-google-
when-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/opinion/apple-google-when-phone-
encryption-blocks-justice.html?_r=0)

Also I believe even without the citation that the notion that criminals can
use encryption to protect themselves is pretty obvious.

~~~
autoreleasepool
Even more obvious is the notion that innocent civilians use encryption to
protect themselves from mass survelence and needless data collection.

Is the end goal no longer total information awareness? [0]

Side note: that was a rather scathing and slanted article you cited. It would
have been nice to see the simple facts of the case presented in a neutral
light.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness)

~~~
FreedomToCreate
My point is that encryption is good and bad, but we can't completely enable it
to be utilized for criminal activity. There will be the need for a resolution
to be reached on who gets access to this information, in what situations, and
maybe even strict prosecution if the information is ever used incorrectly.

~~~
autoreleasepool
Encryption is either secure or it isn't. You can't have a middle ground. It's
unfortunate that under rare, and very particular circumstances criminals can
perhaps evade crimes because they have access encryption, but it's also
unfortunate that they can get away with crimes because they have access to
guns, knives, vaults, cars, basements, gasoline, matches, duck tape, chain
saws, shovels, etc...

Yet we don't cripple the effectiveness of these items for the sake of
preventing crime. Doing so would only harm the quality of lives of the vast
majority of innocent people who we trust to use these thing for their own
benefit as free citizitens of a free country.

~~~
FreedomToCreate
>unfortunate that they can get away with crimes because they have access to
guns, knives, vaults, cars, basements, gasoline, matches, duck tape, chain
saws, shovels, etc...

But investigators can get access to basements, cars, knives and guns and use
them to solve the crime. In this case, post-crime, there is no way to gather
information that could be important.

~~~
autoreleasepool
> But investigators can get access to basements, cars, knives and guns and use
> them to solve the crime. In this case, post-crime, there is no way to gather
> information that could be important.

Which is irrelevant to how these individual items are used to actually prevent
the crime from being solved.

While encryption prevents access to information that may or may not be useful,
guns are used to kill witnesses that are never found, shovels are used to
burry bodies that take decades to find, cars are impounded or destroyed after
a getaway, I could go on. Often enough, even if any of these items are found,
it doesn't help solve the crime because the criminal was simply too smart.

I fail to see why encryption is being treated differently than any other legal
thing we, as free and innocent citizens, have access to. The cynic in me
believes the only actual difference is in the level of familiarity the
majority of the voting population has with this particular legal thing. They
seem to have, unfortunately, been misinformed and poorly educated about this
issue and technology in general.

------
25cf
These people are either being intentionally deceitful or are simply
incompetent in understanding the full implications of what they're asking.
Either possibility is disturbing.

~~~
sneak
Despite the obvious application of Hanlon's razor, the latter is simply not
plausible. The release statement opens with a stone cold lie.

[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/70115236890220134...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/701152368902201344)

[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/70115264061335142...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/701152640613351424)

[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/70115296105404006...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/701152961054040069)

[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/70115860701918412...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/701158607019184128)

[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/70115891912992768...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/701158919129927682)

~~~
studentrob
So they know this leads to an Orwellian state and they do not care? Maybe, but
it would be political suicide to admit that.

Certainly Comey is being deceitful in his first sentence. Even Hillary called
for a Manhattan-like project to circumvent encryption back in December [1].
That shows it's something that's being discussed in Washington quite
frequently.

I doubt any will ever admit they're trying to lead us towards an Orwellian
state. Also, encryption is part of our protection from that. Heads of state
and encryption currently appear to be directly at odds.

[1] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/democratic-debate-transcript-
cli...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/democratic-debate-transcript-clinton-
sanders-omalley-in-new-hampshire/)

------
autoreleasepool
In other words, they're sticking to their story.

No mention of the iCloud password reset either.

~~~
maratd
> No mention of the iCloud password reset either.

Exactly. How can you not address that?

They necessitated this whole mess through their actions. I try not to ascribe
malice to what can easily be explained through incompetence, but to not even
mention it? Shameful.

~~~
beedogs
Honestly, I'm ascribing it to malice.

------
tomschlick
Didn't he and other FBI/DHS officials just get done testifying to congress for
the need to backdoor encryption standards?!

Yeah, sorry, but I don't think I'm gonna trust them even though they promise
it will only be this one time.

------
dclowd9901
You don't get it, Comey. The problem isn't that you want this information.
Obviously you want this information as an investigator of a crime. The problem
is, we can't fucking trust you or anyone enough to cross that bridge, because
we know if it's there, you're just going to want more. You and every law
enforcement agent in the United States has lost our trust. Call it overreach,
or overzealous prosecution, high incarceration rates, crooked judges sending
kids to jail for kickbacks... fuck if I list any more, I'm going to want to
drink some more.

I'd love to live in a world where I trusted a government, which is supposed to
be a composition of its people, more than a profit-motivated, self-interested
business, but in some weird turn of events, something vastly different has
festered in the last 15 years. You blew it, you asshole, you and every other
cop.

~~~
FreedomToCreate
A few things. If you want to make your argument legit, refrain from calling
the other person names. Second, besides drinking and making yourself
essentially useless, what are you doing to improve this situation. One person
may not be enough to make a difference but its better than zero.

America is entirely being driven by fear and anger. The current presidential
race is a perfect reflection of the hate, anger, and fear that Americans
believe exists. The system is a reflection of what the "good" people allow to
happen.

The FBI has a job, and Apple has a commitment to its customers. Technology is
going to get more advanced, does that mean that we should let it be a tool to
obstruct justice. You may not trust the people tasked with the investigation,
but people should also look at the fact that the encryption here is
obstructing justice.

Tomorrow if a criminal kidnaps a bus of school children and the police are
able to get a hold of a locked phone that holds their location, would you be
as opposed to the current situation?

The creation of a method to disable the phones encryption is a slippery road,
but the option of not aiding the FBI is also a slippery road. This is a
organization created to protect the people.

We need to have a open discourse on how the information can be taken off this
phone while minimizing the loss of public security and privacy . This is not a
black and white issue like many people are treating it.

And just to make it clear, I do agree that the government has done extremely
questionable things as well as committed offenses against the publics privacy.
We need to fix the issue of distrust, because a lack of trust in our system is
equal to cancer within a body.

~~~
dclowd9901
Counterpoint: Just going out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure James Comey
isn't leafing through Hacker News reading our arguments. If he'd like to have
a civil discussion, I'd be more than happy to bring the civility.

Second, our system is essentially set up to make me powerless. It's actually
engineered that way. I do what I can to educate people around me, but when it
comes to voting or having any control over who's in office or who officiates
our most important government positions, the ball's not just not in our court,
it's on another planet.

Technology, as you said, will continue to get much more advanced. I reckon at
some point, literally every moment of our lives will be perfectly catalogued,
from birth to death. This is why what Mr. Comey wants scares me so much,
because you can practically hear him salivating in that letter.

We have guarantees built into our constitutional freedoms, and one of the most
important guarantees is that the government can't compel us to do things.
Sure, there are laws to maintain the peace and common order, but you don't
have to house or attend to military in your home, you don't have to testify
against yourself, you're not compelled by police to follow their wishes until
you're under arrest (which they ostensibly can't do without probable cause),
and you don't have to aide in an investigation if you're not involved. These
are vital because the moment we're legally compelled to aide investigators,
all bets are off. We are no longer able to even protect ourselves against
undue search and seizure.

~~~
FreedomToCreate
I agree with you. The motives of those with access to this information is
questionable and being forced to do things impedes personal liberty, but the
people who wrote the constitution could have never imagined this type of
situation. It quite literally requires an in-depth discussion by the people
and those we trust in power to develop a solution, but the idea that no
backdoor will ever exists is not realistic.

Look at history. The encryption the Nazis had created helped them commit
terrible acts of war and it was the backdoor the Allies discovered that helped
bring justice to them.

I'm being devils advocate here because I don't people should view this as "us
vs them". Comey may seem like he is salivating to you, but he does raise the
notion that at the other end is a corporation, who also has an agenda.

~~~
autoreleasepool
> Look at history. The encryption the Nazis had created helped them commit
> terrible acts of war and it was the backdoor the Allies discovered that
> helped bring justice to them.

Are you suggesting the Nazi's were the only ones to use encryption during
World War II?

You forgot to mention at least 9 other nations (including the USA)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_cryptography](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_cryptography)

~~~
FreedomToCreate
My point is to show how encryption in the wrong hands can also have terrible
consequences.

This is a two way street.

~~~
autoreleasepool
> encryption in the wrong hands can also have terrible consequences.

So can literally _anything_ in the wrong hands, though.

~~~
dmix
Cars, cellphones, fertilizer, kitchen knives, baseball bats, apple seeds, etc.
Encryption is only special because of the power dynamic that shifts in the
average citizens favour.

------
symlinkk
> We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the
> land.

This directly contradicts Tim Cook's statement, in fact he used the same term
"master key":

> In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable
> of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to
> stores and homes.

It either is a master key or it isn't.

~~~
rtpg
It isn't.

the FBI asked for a specialised OS image that would have a check so that it
could only work on this specific phone. Combined with Apple's
encryption/signing of the update, this image could not be applied to any other
device.

So the "work" asked of Apple would produce something that would only work on
the phone with the warrant

~~~
symlinkk
So Tim Cook was wrong? Look at what he wrote:

"Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating
system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on
an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this
software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any
iPhone in someone’s physical possession. The FBI may use different words to
describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that
bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while
the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is
no way to guarantee such control."

~~~
rtpg
Yes, Tim Cook is lying (EDIT: perhaps not lying, but being creative with the
meaning of "potential").

The software asked for by the FBI would only work on one phone because it
would both have a check for the specific phone, and be signed by Apple (so
can't be modified).

The software would need to be modified and resigned by Apple to be used on
another phone.

~~~
ubernostrum
Really?

You really, honestly, truly and genuinely believe that if Apple just does this
for them, just this one time, just for this one phone, then that's the end of
it? That the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies would _never_ , not once,
not for the rest of the lifetime of the universe (and certainly not, say,
about 24 hours later) come back and say "Well, we're glad you helped us with
that case, now here's this list of other cases we'd like help with, and now
you've proven that you can do this we're going to be bringing you a lot of
these"?

That's what Tim Cook is worried about: it won't stop with this one phone
unless it's stopped before that one phone gets unlocked and becomes the
precedent that makes this just another routine thing. _Every_ now-routine
violation of privacy and security was originally marketed as "just this one
case, this one's unique and special and sensitive and we absolutely _have_ to
get it done, just this one, trust us" and eventually morphed into "eh, it's
Tuesday, time to ship off another truckload of requests to have this done to
people".

~~~
rtpg
Of course the FBI will ask again and again. And Apple could be compelled to
comply each and every time.

The slippery slope argument being applied here is that FBI search warrants
will now work on phones less than the iPhone 5S from now on (until Apple
closes the iOS update backdoor I guess). This is far from "China will be able
to mass-hack into iPhones from now on"-style comments I've seen from others.

The fact is that Apple left a backdoor in their phones and are now being told
to exploit it. An argument against having the backdoor in the first place.

~~~
schismsubv
Apple _will_ be compelled. You either don't understand the US legal doctrine
of stare decisis or are being intentionally obtuse.

Furthermore, the US legal system encourages elaboration on stare decisis,
applying prior case law to novel cases rather than hashing out new decisions.
This means that creative applications of this ruling ("give me an uncontrolled
backdoor") are simply a question of time once the landmark case is made.

~~~
rtpg
considering that the single-use nature of this exploit is a fundamental part
of the ruling (and of the validity of the search warrant itself), you would
not be able to use precedent to just get an uncontrolled backdoor.

~~~
schismsubv
Whether the exploit is single-use, about a phone, Apple, the 5c, or any other
specific parameters is fundamentally irrelevant.

What this case is doing is setting precedent that the courts can compel a
company to _create_, no matter how trivial one may think that creation may be
today. _That_ is the precedent so many draw exception to, because stare
decisis is also a doctrine of incrementalism, of gradual expansion of
interpretations. Today Apple is compelled to create a very controlled
firmware; who's to say in the figurative tomorrow that Samsung won't be
compelled to create and send a firmware update to a specific Blu-Ray player
that creates an air microphone out of the laser? Where does it stop?

To be complete (as was pointed out in another sibling thread) incrementalism
may be curtailed if implications are carefully argued and acknowledged by the
judge. I am skeptical of the value of that approach, but have no hard argument
against it.

------
ryanlol
>The San Bernardino litigation isn’t about trying to set a precedent or send
any kind of message. It is about the victims and justice.

This is a big fat lie.

The way US legal system works makes any case like this about setting a
precedent, be it intentional or not. The fact that the FBI director goes and
straight up lies about this just supports the theory that it may very well be
intentional.

~~~
mirkules
I don't believe this is tied to the San Bernardino case. The topic of
weakening encryption has been brewing for the past 6-12 months, and the FBI is
using the SB case as a convenient hammer to put a nail in the coffin of
encryption.

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/28/the-
fbi...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/28/the-fbi-used-to-
recommend-encryption-now-they-want-to-ban-it)

[http://www.dailydot.com/politics/second-crypto-war-
hearing-w...](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/second-crypto-war-hearing-
washington/)

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-fbi-has-no-idea-how-
to-...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-fbi-has-no-idea-how-to-solve-its-
encryption-problem)

These were all about a year ago.

~~~
ryanlol
>I don't believe this is tied to the San Bernardino case. The topic of
weakening encryption has been brewing for the past 6-12 months, and the FBI is
using the SB case as a convenient hammer to put a nail in the coffin of
encryption.

This is about much more than just weakening encryption. I think Congressman
Lieu put it well

>This FBI court order, by compelling a private sector company to write new
software, is essentially making that company an arm of law-enforcement.
Private sector companies are not—and should not be—an arm of government or law
enforcement.

------
imh
> ...it does highlight that we have awesome new technology that creates a
> serious tension between two values we all treasure — privacy and safety.

I hate this narrative so much. Just because we happen to be storing everything
we do now, doesn't suddenly create tension between privacy and safety. We used
to not store it at all! It's really just a question of _keeping_ privacy with
new tech.

~~~
rando289
Yes, it's a false dichotomy. Either we have a police state, or the terrorists
win, take your choice! Don't forget the children, and the .0001 % chance of
horribly brutally muderdered by terrorists!

------
pnwhyc
I think it's reasonable to say that the HN crowd is predominantly more
educated on this matter than the average American. We are not the target
audience of this letter. Neither is Apple. Comey is playing on the emotions
and technological ignorance of the bourgeois. He refers to brute force hacking
as, "...try to guess the terrorist’s passcode..." Then he plays on Americans'
current distaste for large corporations and says that the, "American people,"
need to decide whether this is right or wrong. No, we don't. Every
cryptologist, cyber-security expert and halfway decent IT is saying that this
is a catastrophic proposal with the power to mutilate the fourth amendment and
send a whole Jenga tower of rights tumbling after it. It shouldn't even be a
question.

The FBI appears to be using this tragedy as a trojan horse by which to commit
atrocities upon our crucial freedoms. No, our thoughts and prayers are not
enough, but our privacy and security is far too much.

~~~
studentrob
> We are not the target audience of this letter

Maybe, but it's fun to discuss, and there are enough of us spread throughout
that can educate on this single issue. It's pretty easy for me to explain to
my non-tech friends the implications of what the FBI is asking. Word of mouth
travels fast and I would give pro-encryption the upper hand in this "debate".
I have not heard anyone outside government protesting that Apple yield on this
issue and I doubt I will.

In fact, the only ones who speak up against encryption are those who do not
listen to the people. Since they're supposed to represent us, they will be
very easy to not vote for.

Like you said though, it isn't even a question, encryption is here to stay
whether the American government permits it or not. Ironically, by putting up
such a fight, the government is simply telling criminals where the weak points
are in law enforcement, and are thus empowering criminals.

I hope our government can have a good sit down with tech company leaders and
experts in cryptology. Despite Comey's request to have an open discussion,
they seem to be excluding this group. It's apparent from his discourse,
Hillary's, and Obama's that they've spent no time sincerely listening to
anyone with any knowledge about the benefits of encryption. The "conversation"
he so desires has only happened in Washington among people with no tech
background. Presumably there will be some public hearings coming up.

------
studentrob
Could Cook even compel his employees to write the desired operating system? If
I worked there and was asked to violate/reverse the core of my company's
principles, I would quit.

Frankly, this type of order would deeply hurt moral at Apple. I imagine Cook
knows that, and in addition to doing the right thing, he must double down on
ensuring employee retention and future sale of products. End-to-end encryption
is a feature many people buy the phone to get. If that disappeared, many
techies would stop recommending it, and sales will slide.

There's a lot on the table here. I don't even think you could measure the
impact for reimbursement by the government. _sigh_ , at least you CA folks
elected Ted Lieu, good job!

------
BWStearns
I wonder if they did or what would have happened if they had approached Apple
in a non-compulsory manner regarding this.

He is right on the fact that the specific task they're seeking Apple to
perform is more or less obsolete and will be entirely so shortly so I'm
inclined to believe that they're not really going through all this to abuse
that specific tool (though the precedent would be worth the fight in order to
abuse it).

It would be sad, but entirely his fault, if his prior efforts to set bad faith
precedents to end-run consumer encryption alienated industry to the point
where productive conversations are no longer possible.

~~~
plorg
It seems that Apple got sick of servicing these requests, particularly as they
started increasing in frequency. The NYTimes [0] reported earlier this week
that Apple had been basically complying until last year, when they decided
that they could no longer deal with the burden of evaluating the large amount
of legal orders they were receiving and unlocking or retrieving data from
phones. It seems unlikely, given their (new-ish) stance on privacy that they
would comply with any request at this point.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/technology/how-tim-cook-
be...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/technology/how-tim-cook-became-a-
bulwark-for-digital-privacy.html)

Edit: I'm not trying to suggest that Apple is suddenly being arbitrarily
obstreperous in cases where they may have once been compliant. Apple made a
decision to change course and it wouldn't make any sense for them to go back
on it just because the FBI asked "Pretty please?".

~~~
ubernostrum
As far as I can tell Apple has _never_ complied with a request for what the
FBI is asking for here. It has complied in cases where the phone was not
encrypted, or where a backup in iCloud could be made available to law
enforcement, but Apple has never actually produced, signed and installed a
custom "this phone only, and only so law enforcement can brute-force it"
version of iOS.

And given that we're talking about a federal government that was perfectly
happy with pictures of the TSA's master luggage key being published in
newspapers, I don't fault Apple one bit for being scared of handing over what
are basically the keys to the kingdom.

------
CodeWriter23
> We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the
> terrorist’s passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and
> without it taking a decade to guess correctly. That’s it.

Bull crap. The FBI has it within their power to break the encryption in less
than a decade by spinning up tens of thousands of EC2 GPU instances. Forcing
Apple to develop products that don't yet exists is simply a choice of economy,
with the added benefit of being able to strongarm any other business into
creating new products in the future if it suits the FBI.

~~~
tzs
> Bull crap. The FBI has it within their power to break the encryption in less
> than a decade by spinning up tens of thousands of EC2 GPU instances.

How? They either need to break the PIN or they need to break the AES256 key
that is used to encrypt file metadata.

They cannot use EC2 GPU instances to attack the PIN because the function that
derives the AES key from the PIN uses a key that is unique to each phone and
not readable by software so they cannot get a hold of it unless they resort to
opening the crypto chip and trying to read the key by examining the hardware
(and if they do that, they won't need a GPU...any desktop computer would be
able to brute force the PIN quickly).

They can use EC2 GPU instances to go after the AES256 key for metadata
encryption, but that will take a hell of a lot longer than a decade.

------
joolze
"The San Bernardino litigation isn’t about trying to set a precedent or send
any kind of message. It is about the victims and justice."

When the government revokes the Gulf of Tonkin resolution I will again put
faith in its ability to act responsibly with emergency powers and provisions
that might, just might set a precedence. Until then, fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, fuck you.

------
cmurf
I don't like it, but I think we're better off if the courts side with FBI on
this case, because it should accelerate the inevitable: either Apple and other
mobile device makers give up on privacy and governments around the world get
whatever they want, or they make zero knowledge devices that can't expose
their data unless the user complies.

In the meantime, FBI losing this case just means they try again. And again.
And so will other governments, not just federal, but state and local. And
foreign.

The reality is Apple can change the software to in effect cause the data to
become accessible. Apple doesn't have keys to the front door. But they have
the power to weaken the hinges. Saying they won't do that isn't the same as it
not being possible.

------
jkelsey
It's a real media posturing war going on right now. I wish Apple would win the
argument on merits of the argument alone, but it's obvious with this the FBI
thinks it can rely on the terrorism argument alone.

Notice that Comey doesn't even bother to refute the technical and legal
precedent arguments that Apple and other privacy advocates raise in the media.

Google or Facebook have to get involved and put something on their homepages;
else, I think that the FBI wins this.

------
exodust
There's a certain hypocrisy I'm noticing in these forum discussions whereby
many of you are distrusting the FBI, but apparently you're fine with Apple
having the best chance of cracking your phone.

Everyone is going on about encryption, but notice it's not just encryption
that protects us, but also vendor-controlled measures such as self-destruct.

I prefer a level playing field in these matters. I don't want the FBI to have
a better chance at cracking my phone than anyone else, but I also don't want
Apple to have the best chance either.

It's all or nothing. My vote is for strong encryption, but up until that
point, everything else should be on the table for all parties such as crime
investigators, not just exclusively controlled by tech giants.

~~~
Russell91
The hypocrisy is only superficial. It seems at first thought that the
government (being owned by the people) would be more trustworthy. But...

Based on incentives, the government is incentivized to put as many people in
jail as possible. Apple is incentivized to make people's phone/laptop
experience as good as possible.

Based on worst-case actions, Apple can use your data to 1) sell you more
devices, 2) generally reduce your consumer purchasing power, or unlikely 3)
sell/share your data and seriously compromise your privacy. The government, on
the other hand, can throw you in jail, for life.

Based on history (Germany, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, ...), governments
have demonstrated real threats with user data in hand that corporations have
never really come close to competing with.

~~~
exodust
Your idea that Apple are incentivized to make people's phone experience as
good as possible sounds like a wishful proposition. There's plenty of examples
of Apple features and restriction designed as eco-system lock-in, behavior
manipulation, or control limiting for commercial reasons. "What's good for
Apple is good for our customers" is what they want you to believe, but as a
long time iOS device owner, I reject that on numerous grounds.

There's also an equivalence flaw in your argument that sounds like it's coming
straight from infowars.com: "the government is incentivized to put as many
people in jail as possible".

I'm with your on incentives though. And one thing Apple have no commercial
interest or incentive for, is fighting crime.

We don't live in Star Wars. There's more than dark vs light. My position
doesn't mean I am not aware of western government corruption, bungling, even
war crimes. But I am not permanently polarized, forever holding "the
government" in contempt for misguided actions and evil intentions.

On history... if we're talking tyrannical governments, then "protection of
user data" I suggest would _not_ have stopped any given government in your
examples from unleashing hell on its people one way or another.

~~~
Russell91
Well I think my main point was just to say that the "hypocrisy" you mention
actually has a rational backing. Not that the backing is bulletproof, but it's
certainly more than a hypocrisy.

You seem to most strongly disagree with the assertion that "the government is
incentivized to put as many people in jail as possible". It's pretty clear
from my original comment that "the government" is referring to law enforcement
agencies, such as the FBI. Note that the FBI has thousands of agents whose
performance is measured ultimately by the percent of cases they close. Thus,
the claim that FBI agents "are incentivized to put as many people in jail as
possible" is more an observation than some crackpot theory. It doesn't mean
that we should change that - running a law enforcement agency any other way
wouldn't make much sense. But it does provide the rational backing for someone
to be more concerned about worst-case government abuse of data than worst-case
corporate abuse.

------
zmmmmm
> Maybe the phone holds the clue to finding more terrorists. Maybe it doesn’t.

Interesting admission that they don't really have "probable cause" here,
rather they apparently want to go on a fishing expedition. I guess if the
owner of the phone is already established as a terrorist then that is cause
enough, but I still would have expected them to be arguing they have specific
reason to believe the phone is necessary for their investigation.

~~~
gregd
The owner of the phone is San Bernadino County, which gave the FBI permission
to search the phone. Pretty sure probable cause is a moot point when the owner
of the phone grants you permission to search it.

~~~
zmmmmm
Absolutely. I just think it significantly weakens their argument to admit they
don't even know if they phone data will be useful. I would have thought when
they are going to court to compel a company to do something they would be
asserting something more than "who knows, it might be useful?" in support of
their case.

