Apple not willing to help FBI

[Jersey mike]

I see their point of view about giving the FBI access to how they might/would/could unlock the phone, but I don't see why not get to an agreement to unlock it and keep the info of how it was done private.

To me this is what Trump was trying to convey in one of the debates, getting private business to cooperate with fighting terrorism of course they should be able to submit a bill for time and effort involved too.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/17/apple-to-fight-order-to-help-hack-san-bernardino-shooters-phone.html

[FLAVALK]

A very slippery slope

[Serk]

I normally feel that Apple is one of the most evil, vile, slimy entities currently in existence but in this one case, they've got it right, and I salute them for their stance.

[Sorcerer]

It sounds like the Goberment would like to have a back door installed on EVERY I-phone as an update. Truly a start to a Orwellian society.

[Sorcerer]

I normally feel that Apple is one of the most evil, vile, slimy entities currently in existence but in this one case, they've got it right, and I salute them for their stance.

not nearly as slimy as the junk Microsoft puts out.

[Patrick]

Geez, just give the phone to a 12 yr old.

[Thunderbolt]

They had the landline phone companies give them a port into all of the telephone switches back about 15 years ago.  Why should Apple be any different?

[Michvalk]

I feel that if you murder people, you lose your right to privacy. Not a real brain burner here

[Serk]

I feel that if you murder people, you lose your right to privacy. Not a real brain burner here

The catch being there's no way for Apple to "unlock" this one phone. What the FBI is demanding they do is basically build a compromised version of iOS that would unlock ANY phone.

It's a Pandora's Box situation, and Apple is refusing to build the box in the first place to make sure it never gets opened.

[Valker]

As others said, let a hacker do it. It CAN be done already. No Apple™ company involvement needed.

[Jersey mike]

I feel that if you murder people, you lose your right to privacy. Not a real brain burner here

The catch being there's no way for Apple to "unlock" this one phone. What the FBI is demanding they do is basically build a compromised version of iOS that would unlock ANY phone.

It's a Pandora's Box situation, and Apple is refusing to build the box in the first place to make sure it never gets opened.

I'm not a computer guy but I find it hard to believe this guy was smarter than anyone else out there to make an encryption which cannot be broken.

As far as the FBI's demands I would think anything Apple made to unlock this phone would remain proprietary to Apple after all it would fall under their R&D. If the FBI,CIA or any other branch wanted to take the time, effort and resourses to develop a way to access this and any other device then that would be theirs to do with as they deemed necessary.

[Rams]

Personally, I've got no problem with Apple helping the FBI as long as that help is ordered by the court.   

[Jess from VA]

Agree, but I don't think that is what they are looking for.

[Rams]

Agree, but I don't think that is what they are looking for.

My understanding (from the news) is that the FBI wants Apple to develop the software to disable the encryption and give it to them.    Apple doesn't want to do this saying that if they have to give it to the US FBI then, they might have to give it to Russia, China and any government that wants it which means (IMHO) Apple will no longer have that safe phone that folks want to use.   Obviously, something that could affect their sales.

I understand the slippery slope folks are talking about but, with a court order, authorities can come in and search my home, have access to my financial records, ect, ect, and on.   I don't have a major concern if it's done under a court's order.

[Robert]

Commanding Apple to make software that can hack encrypted software puts all of us at risk and may destroy all encrypted software, which is what the NSA has been doing.

   Just as it was found that the encryption that Microsoft made had a back door and once this back door was exposed it basically destroyed all ability of encryption to keep any files safe. It has been tried many times before and many companies lost business because of it and we were not more secure but less. AT&T regularly allows government agencies to look into the calls of those in its networks. Edward Snowden's information revealed that the government has much more ability to collect information.

Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

In June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have "direct access" through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court (not an elected court or responsible to public oversite)allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time. Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3361633/San-Bernardino-shooter-NOT-fully-investigated-granted-U-S-visa-official-claims.html
Questions have been raised over whether the checks carried out before allowing Malik into the country were thorough enough after it emerged she had been posting extremist messages online for years before applying for the documents.

http://conservativetribune.com/reason-obama-san-bernardino/
A recently retired employee of the Department of Homeland Security named Philip Haney, who had devised an innovative program for tracking radical Islamic jihadists that might have identified the San Bernardino shooters before it was too late, is now blowing the whistle on how the Obama administration shut him and his program down.

The program was shut down on the request of the State Department and the DHS Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Division on the basis that the dangerous groups being watched by the program were not “specially designated terrorist organizations,” meaning the tracking of individuals connected to the groups would violate their civil liberties. NOt only was the program shut down but all records it had gathered were erased.

  The real question is for 18 minute of phone records does Apple build software to destroy the encryption that keeps us all safe even to banking records on line transactions is worth it? We have given the government access to most all personal records we have right now, are we any safer?

  Why do we allow open boarders and allow these people in the country in the first place without doing proper background checks. But you want to destroy a system that keeps all safe possibly violate our civil rights for information that may or may not be there?

                                        THANK YOU APPLE FOR YOUR FIGHT


Zimmermann is best known as the creator of Pretty Good Privacy, a desktop encryption program so powerful that U.S. authorities attempted to have its distribution stopped and Zimmermann imprisoned for writing it. The case was abandoned in 1996.

[scooperhsd]

My personal opinion - The GOVERNMENT screwed themselves on these concerns a long time ago. The phone makers decided that they were not going to provide said backdoors any more. If the phone vender can't get in - oh well.

BTW - no encryption is perfect - it all can be broken - with enough time and computing resources. This is the problem the government has - computing resources they can get - it's TIME that's the problem. Also - at least Apple has builtin a "timebomb" - meaning that if you make bad guesses x times - it erases what you were going after.

I suppose the government could figure out a way to make a virtual image of the phone that they can make copies of and start attacking.

[BradValk48237]

The main issue is Apple has made a phone that is secure and market it as the most secure made.... I like that.. as I have had them for years....

The problem is the secure password- the 4 digit code- and if you try to do it more than 10 times it can/will erase all the data on the phone. The level of encryption makes it so that you cant read the raw data to figure out what the password might be..... So what most hacks do is run a program that outs in password automatically a million times... so this won't work on the iPhone without clearing the phone.
Basically they would have to make a whole OS system at their expense none the less....

The biggest thing is that the government is demanding that a private citizen is being forced to basically work for the government for their purposes.... Not good.... last time it happened was when the British were here....

I think Apple is right.... its not their fault they made a good product and they are not responsible for how someone uses it..... What next, the government holds gun company liable for how a person uses their products????

[Jersey mike]

I guess this is just one of those we'll have to wait and see things.

to me there is only two reasons for this guy to have such a hard encryption;
1) he has something very important to hide or 2) knew his phone would be found, has nothing on his phone, knew this encryption would be a pain in the a$$ to unlock and is wasting time and resources of the gov't.

[RP#62]

This has got to be the best advertisement Apple has had in years.  The FBI shouldn't be asking for revised software that can be used on all phones anyway.  They should be handing that phone to Apple and asking them to open it and retrieve all the data and give it to the FBI.  That is if all they really wanted is the data on that phone.

-RP

[Valker]

Seems to me they shouldn't have tried ten times. Fingerprint access? Did they try it?

[Serk]

This has got to be the best advertisement Apple has had in years.  The FBI shouldn't be asking for revised software that can be used on all phones anyway.  They should be handing that phone to Apple and asking them to open it and retrieve all the data and give it to the FBI.  That is if all they really wanted is the data on that phone.

-RP

Apple (And most other decent tech companies these days) intentionally designed the encryption so that no one, not even Apple, can bypass it. Apple has had engineers made available to the FBI to assist in any way possible on THAT phone, but what the FBI is demanding is WAY beyond just helping them for this specific phone.

If there was a way for Apple to just unlock this one phone, they would have done it, but by design not even Apple can do that.

[Rams]

If there was a way for Apple to just unlock this one phone, they would have done it, but by design not even Apple can do that.

Yeah well, that's the part I'm not buying.    What I think is, if they break into this one, then obviously, there's a way to break into all of them and Apple doesn't want to upset that "Apple" cart.

[Willow]

Didn't someone in this administration comment once about not letting a crisis go to waste.  It seems to me they're using this situation to try to set a precedent.

[FLAVALK]

Seems to me they shouldn't have tried ten times. Fingerprint access? Did they try it?

The phone in question is pre-iPhone 6. It lacks the fingerprint ID function

[Rams]

Seems to me they shouldn't have tried ten times. Fingerprint access? Did they try it?

The phone in question is pre-iPhone 6. It lacks the fingerprint ID function

Seriously?  I don't pretend to be knowledgeable on high tech stuff but, my IPhone 5s has fingerprint id to open it up.   Surprised the 6 doesn't have it.

[hubcapsc]

If there was a way for Apple to just unlock this one phone, they would have done it, but by design not even Apple can do that.

Yeah well, that's the part I'm not buying.    What I think is, if they break into this one, then obviously, there's a way to break into all of them and Apple doesn't want to upset that "Apple" cart.

Everyone has access to free encryption that nobody can break, it has been available for years.

Nothing is really encrypted with a four character password... just try all the combinations
of four characters, one of them is the password, child's play.

I don't have an iPhone, I don't know anything about them. Apparently they have some kind of
fail-safe so that after you try ten wrong passwords, the data is wiped.

As I understand it, thwarting the ten-try limit is what the government and apple are fighting over.

-Mike

[Gryphon Rider]

This has got to be the best advertisement Apple has had in years.  The FBI shouldn't be asking for revised software that can be used on all phones anyway.  They should be handing that phone to Apple and asking them to open it and retrieve all the data and give it to the FBI.  That is if all they really wanted is the data on that phone.

-RP

Like Serk said, Apple can't even unlock it.  Here's how it works:  If you don't have fingerprint unlock, you have, I think, five tries to enter your code and unlock the phone.  After that fingerprint unlock won't work and you have to wait one minute to try your code again.  If you fail then, you have to wait five minutes, then 15 minutes, then 60 minutes each time until... after your 10th or 11th failed attempt, you're done trying.  If you have your phone set up to erase the memory, that will happen.  If not, you have to connect to your computer that you've already set up with iTunes and your phone, and go through a process to reset your phone and restore from a backup.  It's a royal pain.

I guess this is just one of those we'll have to wait and see things.

to me there is only two reasons for this guy to have such a hard encryption;
1) he has something very important to hide or 2) knew his phone would be found, has nothing on his phone, knew this encryption would be a pain in the a$$ to unlock and is wasting time and resources of the gov't.

If your mom has an iPhone, she has that same level of encryption.  It's not something you have to install or activate intentionally.

In my opinion, the implications of the government being able to break into your phone are too great to justify forcing Apple to engineer some way for them to do it.  I use my phone as an extension of my memory.  I'd rather that the government has just as difficult a time reading my phone as they do reading my mind.  If a cop or security agent demands I unlock my phone, I guess I'm going to jail.  And not because I have anything criminal to hide.

[Alpha Dog]

The main issue is Apple has made a phone that is secure and market it as the most secure made.... I like that.. as I have had them for years....

The problem is the secure password- the 4 digit code- and if you try to do it more than 10 times it can/will erase all the data on the phone. The level of encryption makes it so that you cant read the raw data to figure out what the password might be..... So what most hacks do is run a program that outs in password automatically a million times... so this won't work on the iPhone without clearing the phone.
Basically they would have to make a whole OS system at their expense none the less....

The biggest thing is that the government is demanding that a private citizen is being forced to basically work for the government for their purposes.... Not good.... last time it happened was when the British were here....

I think Apple is right.... its not their fault they made a good product and they are not responsible for how someone uses it..... What next, the government holds gun company liable for how a person uses their products????

Yesterday Rush Limbaugh, who in private is a tech junkie of sorts explained the same thing you just did.  Just an absolutely fabulous system by Apple.

Not sure how this will go down.  I understand both sides however I always err on the side of privacy.  1984 is just to damn close for this guy.
Chuck

[GiG]

The main issue is Apple has made a phone that is secure and market it as the most secure made.... ....
....
.... its not their fault they made a good product and they are not responsible for how someone uses it..... What next, the government holds gun company liable for how a person uses their products????

Hasn't this already happened? S&W lawsuit comes to mind...   

[DirtyDan]

ya know just me

if our NSA cant get into that phone I think we are being hoodwinked

dan

[RP#62]

You guys just overlooked the obvious.  They just want you to think they couldn't get in.  Apple sales are down, they needed a boost.  The FBI can't get into a phone and they want to in the worst way.

The FBI says they tried for two months to get in and couldn't.  In exchange, Apple tells them how to get in.  Apple sales go up and become the phone of choice for terrorists since not even the FBI can get in (which they now can).   Win Win.

-RP

[Basquerider]

Let's remember folks, the    government let these people in to this country.  So if their so concerned about secutity how aboufthem doing  a better job of vetting all these Tom, Dick and Ahaabs they let  in!
Their supposed to to keep us safe, not the otherway around.

[Bighead]

What you fail to understand is THEY ( gov) don't give two craps about your saftey. If so they wouldn't be letting a single one in at this time in history.

[hukmut]

I currently, nor will I ever, own an Apple product.  Too proprietary.   



ride safe.

[Valker]

And I love using my Apple products. They just work so much better than their competition.

[Bighead]

And I love using my Apple products. They just work so much better than their competition.

+1

[Robert]

Apple is really the last OS system manufacture that is purposing making an operating system to use to make peoples lives easier to do what they have to do. They dont want to know your secrets and have designed an os and devices to NOT know your secrets.  Android was made to sell products, and Microsoft with a subscription os is now also the same, both business models have profit and selling information in mind.

Some have also forgotten Apple Pay, a system that keeps credit card information on your phone, notes and appointments also.

If this information is on your phone do you really want a back door to this information?

Apple has gotten better all the time at encryption and keeping your information safe because they want their phone to be all you need to keep your personal information close by. Its their business model to keep your information safe and use your phone like a personal assistant. How would it effect this model to give the government and possibly anyone else a back door to this information?

A great article on Apple chips the heart of the controversy.
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-johny-srouji-apple-chief-chipmaker/
Cupertino’s chief chipmaker, Johny Srouji.