Apple vs. the US Government

I go along with SE. Apple should NOT make the technique known, but would do it and provide law enforcement with the data contained only under court order and strictly controlled. This shouldn't violate their secrecy pledge, because they would not make the method known; that is, they would NOT provide a program to extract the data; but would, internal to Apple, unlock the data only under court order. You could say the accused deserves it, but that would be guilt before proof, but it might also show innocence.

If they devise a 'technique' to decrypt a phone, then that technique could end up leaked, or ordered to be surrendered by subpoena and then leaked. A 'technique that will work on 'an iPhone' will have within it information that can be leveraged to work on 'any iPhone.' This is a 'nuclear genie in a bottle' that we MUST NOT let out, which means we must not create the genie in the first place.

"You could say the accused deserves it, but that would be guilt before proof, but it might also show innocence."

You should never need to PROVE innocence, it's up to the State to prove guilt, If they fail to prove guilt, than the accused is free to go, even if he DID do it. Our criminal justice system has been corrupted too far already with innocent people being locked up, we need to reform the Prison-Industrial-Complex to get some REAL justice in this country, starting with removing the Industrial part; shut down or nationalize all private/corporate prisons.

I would think the "agencies" could download all the data on that phone and then decrypt it. No need for a "master key". They have WAY more than enough compute power to do it.

You're right. This is legal and philosophical, not political.

I agree with the New York Times Editorial Board. And I firmly believe that if Apple is forced to crack open this phone, somehow the code will get out and come back to cause us more problems than whatever benefit might come from getting into this one phone. Apple already turned over info that this guy stored in its cloud. Who knows how much more Federal agents have gleaned from all of their other sources?

For those who are interested, NPR had some interesting interviews Thursday night 2/18 during All Things Considered, from several points of view. One comment that stuck with me is that in the midst of an issue like this one, we tend to be more in favor of protecting our digital privacy. When the dust settles, we aren't as concerned. Not at all what I'd have expected.

Haven't talked with Mr. Best in Show about his legal opinion (he hasn't practiced law in decades but he still thinks like a lawyer). I'll share if he has some good points.

I think Apple is doing exactly what they should be doing, appealing in the courts one court's dangerous, precedent setting ruling. Mandating a manufacturer to make their product inferior to how they designed it is wrong. Particularly when no R&D funding is provided. If the US Justice Dept. wishes to do their own R&D on how to crack this cell phone then they should do it. Just buy a few dozen test i-phones, store some data on them and enable the same password level and hack away.

Apple DID hand over all the 'cloud-stored' data they had, the fight was the FBI trying to get a 'master key' from Apple to unlock data on iPhones that were not transferred to the Cloud before some FBI yabbo reset the password, breaking the 'link' between the on-phone storage and the Cloud.

Apple should stand fast in refusing to give the key to the henhouse to the government.

Under NO circumstances should they give in. It is, after all, only one phone.

If they do, total chaos will follow.

Millions of phones will in essence become useless for anything but gossip.

Most destructive (per the NPR discussion) is the fact that once cell phones become open books for anybody with a back door key, terrorists will develop new, even more secure secret avenues of communication.

NO!

Make this bloke unlock it. Put up or shut up John McAfee!
http://www.techspot.com/news/63861-john-mcafee-hell-decrypt-san-bernardino-iphone-free.html

I'm sick of the Feds making other people do their work for them. Apple is within it's rights to refuse. Let the Feds take them to court.

Just found this out: Surprise, surprise!!! The government f****d up. (Of course, they're blaming an employee who 'acted on his own'. Yeah, right.)

san-bernardino-shooters-apple-id-passcode-changed-government

This just in...."Apple Says the Government Bungled Its Chance to Get That iPhone's Data"

The FBI/CIA/NSA people should do THEIR OWN "dirty-snooping," NOT coercing others to do it for them!

There is a way around all this free publicity for Apple. Since the file system itself is not encrypted, just the overall access to the phone, all the courts need to do is ask Apple's cooperation in removing the memory chip from the phone and then reading the data from it.

This eliminates the need to create a backdoor, hack the phone, etc., and it's something that requires a great deal of sophisticated equipment to accomplish, making it hard to duplicate, and it isn't subject to remote attack.

I was thinking silicon valley.........same general thought

John Macafee( the anti-virus guy) explains this well

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/19/john-mcafee-fbi-should-let-me-hack-iphone.html

This is just grandstanding by both Apple and the FBI.

Apple is saying "Look what good guys we are protecting you all."

The FBI is saying "Look what good guys we are hunting down terrorists to protect you all."

Apple could easily call the FBI's bluff by publicly handing over the phone's contents to the FBI without giving the FBI the back door and then sit back and see if they still ask for the back door.

Game Over.

basically.

I think Apple is just pimping a PR opportunity. no tech company is going to indulge a back-door, I'm skeptical it was even truely requested.

RE: your post and #17 - has anybody given thought to how much the media may have inflated or distorted the story to maintain or boost ratings?

Apple doesn't have the phone and the chain of custody of the evidence would be broken if FBI gives the phone to Apple.

Problem is, this is like collecting meta data. There may be nothing at all on the phone of any interest.

"We want it, just in case".

Would the chain of custody of the evidence would be broken if FBI gives the phone to Apple, but an agent is present while Apple technicians work on it?

That I cannot answer.

Reuters is reporting: "San Bernardino County reset the password on the iCloud account at the request of the FBI, said county spokesman David Wert."

And, "The Apple executives said that the reset occurred before Apple was consulted."

If the password had not been reset, the contents of the phone would have gone to the cloud where it would have been easily retrievable.

So the FBI screwed itself, out of ignorance and arrogance, before trying to compel Apple to turn over the code.

I can... no, the CoC would not be broken, that is 'after' Apple became certified as an evidence processor... Any external entity can qualify after meeting certain requirements... for example... many DNA testing labs are privately or publicly owned orginizations that subscribe to evidence processing procedures and are certified to receive evidence, they just become another link in the chain.

In that case wouldn't the judge have down a better job by ordering the FBI to turn the phone over to Apple and at the same time ordering Apple to break in any way they choose and then give the full contents of the phone to the FBI without compromising their encryption system?

That will be the ultimate course of this PR sideshow.

They should refuse. They are not subject to the government, they are subject to their market. Their market is the people who use their product and THEY are not asking to be unlocked! If they unlock, then they have betrayed the market. Either the government or the producer of product will be changed going forward as far as the market is concerned. People will call for a change in government ability or a change in the product produced by companies that make secure products.

We have a government that is "Of the People, For the People, By the People". If the Government is Not acting in a manner that is supported by the People (the Market), then, Apple is NOT obliged in any way because The government cannot prove cause! They have no standing in the issue. The government must have some kind of support and since the Apple market is clearly a majority of the population, then the government cannot justify it's own demands. Apple has more standing than they do. Whether or not that is how it goes down in the world of "law and order".

its a court order, they can't refuse without consequence

True. However, if Apple as the designer of the phone architecture simply complies by making a back door or master key the consequences can be worse than any consequence a court can produce. This is Apple's primary point in this legal debate.

Tim Cooks grand daddy complying......https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDkTkpoyfL0

People died in two world wars so that you could have your freedoms. Now you are just to happy to give it all away. In the words of BA Baracus: Wake up fool.

It is clear in the good old US of A, you live in constant fear for your lives, yet love the drama. You are one big soap opera. Drama Queens extraordinaries.

Glad that is out now and I feel better.

Unless of course you're a politician that has a charity foundation that carries your name.

The real question is : what degree of encryption for individual use should reasonably be disallowed ?

The idea that government resources can't get whatever the hell they want strains my credulity. Should Apple give over if they ask nicely? The horse is out of the barn but the head-scratching and drama continues.

A secondary point in this debate is the probable minimal value the information locked on this particular phone will have in preventing a future crime or identifying and capturing allies of this horrific crime. The FBI already have the information from this phone's cloud storage. The FBI can identify via the service provider records all communication meta-data to and from this phone. What's left, the latest Candy Crush score from this phone?

I would think the most valuable data is the address book

I believe the contact list stored on the last cloud update is already known. The data in question is what was stored on the phone since the last update and anything stored only on the phone.

Mr. Best in Show, Esq. and I discussed this. According to him, US citizens have a Constitutional right (Fourth Amendment) to protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. In Apple's case, and in countless other cases in the past, if a court deems a request for information, or whatever, to be reasonable, a court order for cooperation ensues. In this case, Mr. BiS agrees with the government.

Among the topics we touched on:

• Is Apple is defending its marketing plan under the guise of protecting a presumed constitutional right? Maybe so.
• Would an Android phone owner be equally immune to having his/her phone unencrypted? Why should the right to data privacy protection be modulated on the brand of software you have?
• Didn't Apple cave in to the Chinese government, which insisted on a back door to its citizens' phone data? Is Apple picking and choosing whose citizens get privacy protection?
• Should the potential for the back-door code falling into the wrong hands enter into deciding the legal question -- which is whether the government has reasonable cause to think the phone in question has critical evidence unobtainable elsewhere.

And so it goes. An interesting argument with a lot riding on it. I used to think I should've gone to law school but I don't know if my brain could tolerate all of this thinking.

'unreasonable....' I do agree to a point, however, who defines unreasonable? You, the government, the preacher at the church, the next door neighbour?

Point in question: The USA has more than enough spying and spyware, as most developed countries have. DRT boxes, email hacks, employed hackers, drone's in skies, satellite surveillance you name it you have it. So, is it proposed to the world, and this forum, to believe that this phone has not been hacked previously by your authorities. Are you purporting naivety and believing that a court order is going to show up anything they did not already know, or are we to believe that this idiot was so very, very, important that the government had to come clean and ask for a back door and court order. Because they screwed up.

Look at the reality and not the argument, for some truth. Some options;

1. This is a good PR stunt for Apple.

2. Your FBI security boys are not so hot after all.

3. You are all about to be screwed over and loose your rights yet again by a court case president.

4. You should really worry as this terrorist was so, so, good and a key man.

5. The supposed encryption is so advanced the FBI needs the technology.

Many anomalies exist. And how odd the Error 53 occurs suddenly on iPhones, but no doubt it is dismissed easily, justly, down to a programming error, (silly boy), and all is perfectly believable

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/apple-apologises-for-error-53-iphone-malfunction-releases-update-to-fix-bricked-phones-20160218-gmy35g.html

Try your TV:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2513592/Is-TV-spying-YOU.html

Don't jump to agree to things which you have no information on and to things that don't make any logical sense. If the FBI needs a court order to access a phones records, really, the USA should worry, as this lad was the best of the best and avoided all the intercepts, so the technology he used must be fantastic and sorely needed.

you clearly hate America and couldn't give a damn about 14 slaughtered lives.

Quite wrong in fact, I detest your governments idea that they rule the world and everyone should obey America and it is time, the USA stopped meddling in the world affairs. Your government has murdered enough people around the world. Pretty much a terror organisation all on their own.

The USA held the world to ransom in a cold war. The US has held Cuba to ransom (and now want to be nice and Obama wants to go and have a holiday there now. How heroic after making life lousy for a small island and for people who helped built the USA).

Why, because they could not compromise and agree to share,work together, for the benefit of all world inhabitants. We have the same hassle 30 + yrs later with the same country and they have a few more to boot to deal with, and the meddling affects the entire world.

And, I do have a hassle when my wife is murdered in my home, in front of me, so excuse me when I speak from a position of experience. I do give a damn. Does your govt give a damn? Do you give a damn or are you selective only when it is your own kind, on your doorstep and in your face. Or out of America?

These terror acts would not happen if people took time to take notice of life, the living and the surroundings, rather than taking notice of Facebook, Twitter, Snap Chat, Periscope and the such like rubbish.

I have a good point so look from another view point for a change, You might discover something new.

it never occurred to you, that it was because of the United States prior to Cuba's revolution that Cuba had a comfortable life style.

Stop blaming the United States on cuba's third world conditions, after thier revolution It was the Cubans choice, they turned their backs on democracy and the third world conditions was only the consequence of the choice Cuba made.

As though the then USSR had nothing to do with it. They made their bed... That they had to sleep in it.

Please accept my condolences on the loss of your wife; regardless of the cause, it is not easy to accept.

You seem not to be too familiar with the history of the human race: terror is nothing new. Just look up the source of the word assassin, and you will see what I mean.

Terror has existed long before the United States was even a handful of settlements on the Eastern coast of North America.

Ever hear of the Spanish Inquisition; ever read about the attacks by the Gauls on Rome, the murder, plundering and enslavement by Germanic tribes. or tribal warfare among the natives of both Americas even before the arrival of European settlers ?

Does the name Genghis Khan ring a bell?

Though it may have made some poor moves after the World Wars, mainly the second, did you ever stop to think that at the end of the Second World War the United States was the only participant that had not had suffered any significant damage to its homeland?

Who do you think provided the military protection that allowed Europe to develop its socialist welfare states?

Explain how the United States "held the world to ransom in a cold war" when there was another power willing to destroy this nation, if it knew it could do so without suffering severe destruction itself?

I think Fredski handled the Cuba situation if not to your liking, then at least with enough explanation as to warrant my not getting involved there.

I expect that this reply will be marked as "Off Topic", but I would like to see what the rest of the world does when the next earthquake, tsunami or other natural disater strikes and the United States decides not to "meddle".

Casper

It seems that there is also a breakdown in definitions, too. What the FBI appears to be asking for is a reasonable search as defined by a court order. Apple claims the order is more than a search of one phone but for a systemic security change to all of their phones. A redesign of all i-phone operating system security is clearly more than a reasonable search of one i-phone.

Added into this foray is John McAfee making an "amicus curiae" like public plea to be granted permission (and "chain of custody" rights) to hack the phone in question without a systemic change of all i-phones. John's plea highlights the real crux of this problem. If the operating system security is designed so well that it cannot be hacked (as Apple claims) then John's team will fail in their attempt. If John's team succeeds then Apple's security is not as good as they thought. Apple has a severe conflict of interest that the court should recognize. This conflict will inevitably taint any result Apple produces if they are compelled to work on this i-phone.

I would be willing to bet that the phone has already been decrypted.

They don't want to spend the computing power to crack every block of encryption.

No warrant, no following the law. They have a very long track record of violating rights.

I'm backing Apple all the way on this one and I can't stand Apple.

I recently read that the FBI reset the phone (incompetently) before it could back up to the cloud, which would have made it easier to access.

I didn't see this coming....

Unlike Google, Facebook, and Twitter, Bill Gates is siding with the federal government.

Might this be his reason to help?

The Corrosive Effect of Apple's Tax Avoidance

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/business/making-companies-pay-taxes-the-mccain-way.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Then again, Bill Gates is notorious for hating his customer base. His first real communication with computer users was an angry letter accusing them all of being 'thieves' and 'leeches.' And his desire to control every Windows user has just grown since then. He would LOVE to have Microsoft 'ordered' to put in a 'backdoor' that the government could use to spy on people; Microsoft itself could use that same backdoor to spy on their 'userbase,' quietly extracting account names and passwords from everyone so they could 'correct' the actions of 'dissidents.' (And if they manage to skim a buck a week from every bank account paypal account, bitcoin account, etc access by a Windows machine, well, that's just the 'cost of doing business' paid for, in his mind. After all, he STILL feels like those Altair 8800 hobyists still haven't paid hm properly for AltairBASIC.)

One thought I had about this is that even if Apple took possession of the phone, unlocked it, supplied the information the the FBI and then destroyed the phone and software, it is still possible for the info to get out. They would have to employ extreme security measures to make sure that the people involved with this were vetted and kept to essential personnel only. Remember when their prototype iPhone was left in a bar by one of their software engineers? I wonder how much trust they have in their employees and faith that they can keep this from leaking. That would be a disaster for them.

U.S. Hacks iPhone, Ends Legal Battle
So what are the odds that the US government shares their hack secret with Apple? I'm sure there is zero chance that the US is telling Apple or anybody else how they did this.

The 'hack' consisted of: (Simplified for the sake of discussion, there would be multiple glones made at once, and the chip would be replaced before the 'erase data' count was reached, since there are 'lockout delay' checkpoints before that, when the phone will not even allow an attempt until 5 seconds, 10, seconds, 30 minutes, 24 hours, etc. after the last attempt.)

1. Removing the encrypted chip.
2. 'Cloning' it onto a pin-compatible flash memory chip (The data on the chip can be copied freely, but the copy is still encrypted)
3. putting the flash memory chip into the phone in place of the original chip
4. Testing passwords by brute force, until the phone erases the flash-memory chip.
5. Repeat from step 2 until the correct password is found.

The FBI could have done that at any time, but:

1. It is slow and expensive.
2. They did not want the data from that phone, they wanted a PRECEDENT of being able to 'order' the tech companies to install 'backdoors' for them to exploit 'when needed to protect National Security' (aka 'whenever the hell they wanted to, with or without a warrant').

Sadly, because the FBI 'stopped prosecuting' the case against Apple, there is no Judicial Precedent set in this case, so they can try again with another phone (of which they have plenty in evidence lockers across the country) in the hopes of finding a judge sympathetic to the plight of the 'poor FBI' hampered by that 'horrible Fourth Amendment.'

They should've given it to CSI:CYBER. They would have hacked it during the commercial break.

Surely the hacker was paid handsomely. $$$$

No, he was paid according to his GS-rating⁽¹⁾. The 'hacker(s)' was/were FBI agents working in the Digital Forensics lab, using a technique already known to crack this type of encryption. The technique is just slow, and requires a lot of supplies, so they were probably working on it during the whole time the FBI was demanding a 'backdoor' from Apple.

Notes:

1. Government Servant rating, it's like saying 'pay grade' in the military.
   

So he and his buddies now have hack proof iPhones.

My friend has the safest method, he talks into the envelope, then posts off his voice mails. Unhackable!!!!