

Apple patents tech that lets government disable iPhone video, camera and wi-fi - mikegerwitz
http://boingboing.net/2013/08/12/apple-patents-tech-that-lets-g.html

======
glenra
Bogus article. If you read the actual patent (
[http://www.google.com/patents/US8254902](http://www.google.com/patents/US8254902)
), the quote about some police activity requiring complete blackout conditions
is actually in reference to the _screen brightness_ , not the cameras. One
aspect of the idea seems to be that the phones OF THE COPS would be able to go
dark in response to a central command. It has nothing to do with turning off
the cameras of citizen-journalists.

(jwz nails it here: [http://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/08/oh-noes-apple-has-
patented-b...](http://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/08/oh-noes-apple-has-patented-big-
brother/) )

Here is the full paragraph from which the misleading sentence was yanked:

> _Excessive lighting emanating from wireless devices can also create
> disruption in dark environments. While it is well known that excessive or
> bright lighting in a movie theater can spoil the mood of certain movies,
> excessive lighting can also become a more serious issue in other contexts.
> For example, darkrooms used to develop film can only tolerate very low
> amounts of ambient lighting. Some biological labs also require low levels of
> lighting in certain instances (for example, as in the growth of light-
> sensitive bacteria)._ Covert police or government operations may require
> complete “blackout” conditions. _A person 's sleep can even be interrupted
> by a bright flashing or modulating display (such as to indicate an incoming
> call)._

~~~
cageface
Try again.

From the description:

 _This policy enforcement capability is useful for a variety of reasons,
including for example to disable noise and /or light emanating from wireless
devices (such as at a movie theater), for preventing wireless devices from
communicating with other wireless devices (such as in academic settings), and
for forcing certain electronic devices to enter “sleep mode” when entering a
sensitive area._

~~~
glenra
Same error here. You're reading a meaning into the undefined phrase "sensitive
area" from the abstract that doesn't seem consistent with that term's use
elsewhere in the patent. But if you grep "sensitive" and look at the other
uses it seems to mean primarily (a) places where light or sound would annoy or
frustrate, (b) situations like wanting to control EMF levels in a hospital or
airplane to avoid adverse effects (c) security issues related to "enterprise"
applications.

There's actually a REASON we can know that this patent isn't trying to cover
the specific case of turning off cameras in places where The Man doesn't want
us to have that capability. The reason is: somebody else (not Apple) had
ALREADY previously patented that explicit use case.

This patent is about adjusting general system settings, especially ringer
volume, display brightness, and communications settings, in a way appropriate
to the venue. For instance, pairing bluetooth when you get in your car and
then turning that feature off again when you get out of your car. The vast
majority of it really shouldn't be patentable because it's too obvious to any
practitioner in the field. The general thrust of it is NOT about preventing
phone users from photographing the police and it's not clear anything in THIS
patent would even make it easier for the police to have that capability. (You
have to do a fair amount of reading between the lines to even make that
connection.)

In short: the original article is still linkbait.

------
616c
I believe we call that a mobile device manager. Only this one is much more
pervasive and used by the Feds. I know of few companies that do not use one
nowadays.

Is this not old news though? The first time I was really relieved I use
CyanogenMod in particular was when the story broke the an American company was
actively encouraging carriers to use a special monitoring system that
cooperated with the necessary phone-side code baked into the firmware. This
caused shock waves, ironically dwarfed by PRISMgasm. I believe it was
CarrierIQ. The current revelations blew the scope out of the water; it took me
a while to even re-jog my memory using Google.

------
josephscott
Not sure why this is being covered again. The patent is from last year. There
were plenty of articles about it back then, here is one -
[http://www.zdnet.com/apple-patent-could-remotely-disable-
pro...](http://www.zdnet.com/apple-patent-could-remotely-disable-protesters-
phone-cameras-7000003640/)

~~~
shiven
Perhaps, because the inventions covered by this patent are patently relevant
to social issues of the day. _(Pun un-intended.)_

------
tvon
The source of the boing boing post: [http://cis471.blogspot.com/2013/08/apple-
patents-wireless-ca...](http://cis471.blogspot.com/2013/08/apple-patents-
wireless-camera-kill.html)

He also mentions there are legitimate but less headline-worthy uses for this:

> _While the patent does use "covert police or government operations" as an
> example of an application, it also mentions legitimate applications, for
> example, stopping cameras in a locker room or other place where one has a
> reasonable expectation of privacy._

~~~
cremnob
It'd be pretty great if phones couldn't get make/get calls in movie theaters
(aside from emergency calls).

~~~
mikegerwitz
It'd be pretty great if people were _polite enough_ not to make/take calls in
movie theaters.

Our devices should not dictate such a thing, unless the feature is a "hey, I
recommend that you not be an asshole, but you can disable me if you really
want".

~~~
russellsprouts
Yes, I think that would be a good option. When you enter the theater, it pops
up with a dialog - "You have entered Regal Cinemas - your phone is going to
theater mode. Press here to cancel."

Making it opt-out rather than opt-in would create much more social pressure to
not text during the movie.

------
ozziegooen
This is one patent I really hope gets used in litigation.

~~~
cageface
Ha. Came here to say exactly the same thing.

This is why mobile is too important to be in the control of a single
proprietary vendor.

------
D9u
Just what we need, _more government intrusion_ into our lives. Yet another
reason not to embrace proprietary technology.

------
abalone
Pure 100% linkbait.

If you actually read the patent the one place where they mention government
blackout is clearly in the context of the _agents of the government_ blacking
out their own devices so as not to give themselves away, not some sort of
"kill switch" for their targets. It is like a more extreme version of the mute
switch.

All the things describes in the patent pertain to opting-in to policies that
shut down aspects of the phone in certain environments.

------
tzs
This was widely covered over two years ago, when the patent application was
published. Boing Boing was among those that covered it [1].

It was also widely covered a year ago, when the patent issued. Again, Boing
Boing covered it [2]. That article was written by the same author as the
present article. In that article, he mentioned likely legitimate uses (movie
theaters), and said that the paranoid side of him imagined government might
use it for bad purposes.

This new article seems to be redundant. Everything it says was already covered
in their second article.

[1] [http://boingboing.net/2011/06/16/apple-patents-
mobile.html](http://boingboing.net/2011/06/16/apple-patents-mobile.html)

[2] [http://boingboing.net/2012/08/30/apple-granted-patent-for-
lo...](http://boingboing.net/2012/08/30/apple-granted-patent-for-locat.html)

------
pazimzadeh
This is good. Apple is probably the least likely company to implement
something like this, so the fact that they own this patent means that other
companies may have a harder time implementing this feature.

~~~
anologwintermut
Really. What has Apple ever done to make you think they value privacy more
than say Nokia, Twitter, etc? Or, Aside from the fact that they don't do ad
supported services, even Microsoft or Google?

The only thing I see them doing is deploying a allegedly end to end encrypted
messaging system that rather clearly isn't[0], and participating in "PRISM"
while loudly asserting their system is secure. I'd actually say this puts them
in a worse position than say Google or Microsoft, since neither of them ever
claimed to provide end to end security and in the case of Skype admitted as
much in their ToS.

[0] [http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2012/04/icloud-
who-h...](http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2012/04/icloud-who-holds-
key.html)

~~~
pazimzadeh
Apple makes money by selling hardware and software, whereas Google and Twitter
make money selling ads, which incentivizes them not to encrypt our data so
that it can more easily be used to target users. Or at least that's what this
post seems to imply: [http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/11/two-honest-google-
employ...](http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/11/two-honest-google-employees-
our.html).

I'm not convinced that this story is necessarily reliable, but it's better
than the reverse: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57577887-38/apples-
imessag...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57577887-38/apples-imessage-
encryption-trips-up-feds-surveillance/).

And in Apple's statement on privacy: [https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-
to-customer-privacy/](https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-
privacy/).

"For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are
protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can
see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, we do not store
data related to customers’ location, Map searches or Siri requests in any
identifiable form."

As John Gruber says, "That last sentence separates Apple from many other
companies." ([http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/06/17/apple-
privacy](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/06/17/apple-privacy))

------
adamnemecek
Yeah, that's not going to get abused at all.

------
minor_nitwit
I could see this tech being a hit with theatres (that is - if they stick
around.)

------
alexcroox
Patent != Feature

