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Should Apple Help the FBI Unlock a Phone with a Court Order

By the by, Jon Oliver did a little segment on the topic (and importance) of encryption the other night. I think it's well worth watching - but remember his show runs on HBO so there is a bit of NSFW language.

Strong encryption poses problems for law enforcement, is weakening it worth the risks it presents? It’s…complicated.
 
let say.. apple created a back door...

but later.. it was determined it was not constitutional...
apple could release a new version of OS.. that they do every year... that closes this door.
 
dan330 said:
let say.. apple created a back door...

but later.. it was determined it was not constitutional...
apple could release a new version of OS.. that they do every year... that closes this door.
Click to expand...
then that said backdoor will actually remain due to the legalities that forced its inception.. This is bad news for everyone and ppl need to understand this.
 
dan330 said:
let say.. apple created a back door...

but later.. it was determined it was not constitutional...
apple could release a new version of OS.. that they do every year... that closes this door.
Click to expand...

This piece of the puzzle is actually two-fold.

First,
bcrichster said:
then that said backdoor will actually remain due to the legalities that forced its inception.. This is bad news for everyone and ppl need to understand this.
Click to expand...
^^
Apple has made it abundantly clear that they do not intend to comply with the order unless/until it is upheld by higher courts. Apple is not going to jump the gun and do the thing only for the order to be deemed unconstitutional at a later point in time. Once the higher courts affirm the notion that the government has the authority to compel private companies into circumventing encryption and security features built in to their devices for the express purpose of protecting customer data, the precedent will be set. That will open the door for other US agencies to force Apple to unlock their massive stockpiles of locked iPhones - and Apple's cooperation (unwilling though it may be) with these orders will also make other governments make similar requests. It's on thing for the FBI to want to break into iPhones, but what about other governments in other countries where Apple devices are sold - China, Russia, etc.

There won't be any undoing it, not on an international scale like that.

The second part is actually more worrying to me. Once the backdoor is created, it can't be unmade. That software would instantly become the target of hackers and even other less-friendly governments. Everyone will want it. The burden to secure that code (or the human element - the people responsible for designing the code) would be monumental and (I imagine) hugely expensive for Apple. It's just not realistic to think that the knowledge could be protected indefinitely. It will get out, and it will get used for less-than-noble activities. Keep in mind this is the same company whose cloud service was famously compromised, leaking the private data of many customers. And also keep in mind that many of the tools used for flashing smartphones are (or are based on) utilities designed for internal use by the manufacturers. Where there's a will, there's a way.
 
I don't care enough to get worked up about this one way or the other, but this level of encryption on phones has only come into being fairly recently. We seemed to get along fine without it before that, so acting like it'll be the end of the world when it gets defeated seems to be a bit overdramatic to me. Deep breaths, everyone.
 
In light of this information, weakening encryption is not likely going to help the US government fight terrorism. I find it unlikely that the US government did not already know that terrorists use communications channels other than phones. I recall when Bin Laden was finally killed, there were reports that he avoided phones and internet. Yet the government is pushing to allow them access to encrypted phones.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/paris-terrorist-attacks-burner-phones-not-encryption/
 
Stuntman said:
In light of this information, weakening encryption is not likely going to help the US government fight terrorism. I find it unlikely that the US government did not already know that terrorists use communications channels other than phones. I recall when Bin Laden was finally killed, there were reports that he avoided phones and internet. Yet the government is pushing to allow them access to encrypted phones.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/paris-terrorist-attacks-burner-phones-not-encryption/
Click to expand...


I actually had thoughts of burner phones when I saw this SIM vending machine at Heathrow, when I arrived in the UK last month. And I did actually buy a pre-paid Lebara SIM from it with cash.
IMG20160201112242.jpg


I'd never seen one before, just don't have anything like this in China, and in fact can't even buy a SIM here without showing ID. So it should make burner phones hard to do in theory.

I also thought of one of the Bourne movies, where Jason slips a pre-paid phone in the Guardian reporter's pocket, and the feds can't listen in on it, because they don't know the phone number, carrier, IMEI or anything about it. "Where did he get another phone from?" I think was the quote. And that was in London.
 
If there is any truth to this story, it just has to be the icing on the cake.....

any tech geek worth a grain of salt, knows that you don't keep a glass of water, or any beverage next to the product you are working on.


http://www.newyorker.com/humor/boro...hless-after-f-b-i-spills-glass-of-water-on-it

Moments after successfully unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone, the F.B.I. rendered the phone permanently useless by spilling a glass of water on it, an F.B.I. spokesman confirmed on Tuesday.
 
bcrichster said:
I'm actually grateful that this got shut down in the legal system
Click to expand...

It would have set quite a dangerous precedent wouldn't it?
How do you fancy Apple's chances of getting the FBI to tell them exactly how they cracked it?
 
bcrichster said:
I'm actually grateful that this got shut down in the legal system
Click to expand...

But it didn't, really. If it had been shut down in the legal system, there would be an established precedent to prevent the FBI from trying the same thing (coercing a private company into circumventing security protections, thus creating a potential backdoor) in the future.

Since this wasn't resolved by the legal system, it's good that the opposite precedent wasn't established (which would allow that sort of behavior), but a bit disappointing that the problem hasn't been shut down for good.

I'm sure we'll see the FBI try again with a case that's even more of a slam-dunk.
 
This is one of the rare times I'll actually say: "F" the Police! This needs a permanent shutdown
 
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