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Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

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Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#351

Post by Lawtonfogle »

BWStearns wrote: post #349
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Partial enforcement is a practical reality because we're willing to accept the injustice of partial enforcement rather than live in an Orwellian police state (a decision I'm thrilled with!). False dichotomy. If all laws are fully enforced, bad laws will soon be done away with by popular demand. If the government won't do so willingly, then they will be forced to do so by the people.

Can you clarify? I just said that bad laws would go away with full enforcement, which is the core of why it is good for a society to enforce its laws evenly and thoroughly. I don't think there's any false dichotomy produced by simultaneously noting that on a practical level you will never achieve literally 100% enforcement of laws without some serious damage to civil liberties which is why we err on the side of parti…

>I don't think there's any false dichotomy produced by simultaneously noting that on a practical level you will never achieve literally 100% enforcement of laws without some serious damage to civil liberties which is why we err on the side of partial enforcement as the lesser of two evils.

My point being there is the third option that the laws will be removed. And it seems like in part of your post you agree with this, but in part of your post you act like this isn't an option. I'm kinda confused in that regard.

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#352

Post by BWStearns »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #351
BWStearns wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify? I just said that bad laws would go away with full enforcement, which is the core of why it is good for a society to enforce its laws evenly and thoroughly. I don't think there's any false dichotomy produced by simultaneously noting that on a practical level you will never achieve literally 100% enforcement of laws without some serious damage to civil liberties which is why we err on the side of parti…

>I don't think there's any false dichotomy produced by simultaneously noting that on a practical level you will never achieve literally 100% enforcement of laws without some serious damage to civil liberties which is why we err on the side of partial enforcement as the lesser of two evils. My point being there is the third option that the laws will be removed. And it seems like in part of your post you agree with thi…

Sorry, I specifically pointing to Orwellian nightmare a false option. It's like Cake or Death? Cake's really the only thing people are going to pick.

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#353

Post by muddi900 »

mywittyname wrote: post #288
leonatan wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The encryption key is deleted. All data can remain on the flash for years, but it's useless.

But if you're planning on brute forcing the encryption key, this side-effect doesn't matter.

The key is not the password. If that were the case, the phone would have to re-encrypt everything everytime you change the pin or password. The password unlocks the key. And if you brute force the key itself, it might take decades, maybe centuries.

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#354

Post by ars »

ouiyaaa wrote: post #247
ars wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1: Yes. 2: Yes. 3: No, but they will probably be the ones asked anyway, and then yes, they would be legally required. 4: Apple. 5: What's the question? Is the question will they be compensated? Then yes. 6: They can't. They don't own their stock. Bad PR is not a good enough reason. You are treating the court like a mathematical proof and finding edge cases. I used to as well. But courts don't work that way at all - t…

Thanks for answering. And original question was great too. Are you a lawyer, not trying to dismiss your answer because it seems logical, but asking so that I can ask something else

I am not a lawyer. There was a time when I spent a lot of time reading verdicts from Judges. (The higher the level of Judge the better the writing, and they are really surprisingly very readable, not full of legalese as you might expect.)

Anyway, I used to think that law was mathematical, but after reading lots of verdicts I realized it was not.

> but asking so that I can ask something else

Ask. If I don't know, I'll tell you that.

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#355

Post by dcposch »

tptacek wrote: post #314
dcposch wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * There's no likelihood at all that other users will be impacted by the backdoor That could not be further from the truth . They are trying to set a precedent that endangers the future of consumer end-to-end encryption. They are trying to repurpose an 18th-century law (the All Writs law) to force Apple to help them break iPhone encryption. If this case creates precedent, what is to stop them from, say, forcing Sign…

You and Cardozo are hyperventilating. The DOJ can make this demand because Apple phones of this vintage are already breakable , and the DOJ is merely asking Apple to exercise a capability it already has. Apple knows this, better than most, and has for many years. They have done security design work with governments as an explicit adversary. The 5C was insecure. The 5S is not: it has an entire additional processor, ru…

You haven't responded to my comment at all.

You said:

> There's no likelihood at all that other users will be impacted by the backdoor

The backdoor, a "master key" as Tim Cook put it, that opens all pre-5S iPhones affects millions of other users.

And that's not even the main issue. The issue is the precedent it sets, which endangers a lot more than just a few million users or a few specific models of iPhone.

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#356

Post by rhizome »

ethbro wrote: post #281
rhizome wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be contempt and possibly more if you don't unlock the device with your fingerprint. It's not hard, the "precise distinction of law," is "unlock this with your finger, whichever one does it." I don't know what complicated back and forth you're imagining, but it's never occurred in any case that I've heard of. they would effectively be asking you the question "which finger did you use to lock this phone" to which…

As other have noted, the distinction is between fingerprints (all of them) and the correct fingerprint (one of them). If you would like to claim that there's no difference between the two, then you (and your hypothetical court) should have no problem with a user supplying copies of all their fingerprints when asked to unlock their phone. That's obviously not what's being asked for, hence other people's distinctions.

As I said, the court doesn't care about the, "which finger?" question. If they tell you to unlock your phone with the fingerprint that unlocks it, you replying with "which finger?" isn't going to help you.

Of course "the finger," and "which finger," are different things, but that's irrelevant.

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#357

Post by rhizome »

carboncopy wrote: post #200
rhizome wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be contempt and possibly more if you don't unlock the device with your fingerprint. It's not hard, the "precise distinction of law," is "unlock this with your finger, whichever one does it." I don't know what complicated back and forth you're imagining, but it's never occurred in any case that I've heard of. they would effectively be asking you the question "which finger did you use to lock this phone" to which…

> We already covered this in the link above: the 5th Amendment covers passcodes, not fingerprints. No, it is you who is not understanding schrodinger's assertion. The secret knowledge of which finger unlocks it is in itself a passcode and subject to 5th Amendment protection.

OK, whatever you say.

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#358

Post by ouiyaaa »

ars wrote: post #354
ouiyaaa wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for answering. And original question was great too. Are you a lawyer, not trying to dismiss your answer because it seems logical, but asking so that I can ask something else

I am not a lawyer. There was a time when I spent a lot of time reading verdicts from Judges. (The higher the level of Judge the better the writing, and they are really surprisingly very readable, not full of legalese as you might expect.) Anyway, I used to think that law was mathematical, but after reading lots of verdicts I realized it was not. > but asking so that I can ask something else Ask. If I don't know, I'll…

I was going to ask what happens if Apple says no! I don't know what the next step of FBI will be. What do you think? Can Apple be sued over this? Can they say okay give us the device and we will give you the data but not the actual 'modified os'?

(Or we'll just have to find out?)

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#359

Post by rhizome »

Someone wrote: post #197
rhizome wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be contempt and possibly more if you don't unlock the device with your fingerprint. It's not hard, the "precise distinction of law," is "unlock this with your finger, whichever one does it." I don't know what complicated back and forth you're imagining, but it's never occurred in any case that I've heard of. they would effectively be asking you the question "which finger did you use to lock this phone" to which…

But, as Schrodinger says, this is not about your fingerprint; it is about a bit of information you have that the government does not have: which of your finger(s) this device knows about. "A bit of information you have that the government does not have" is a password.

I really don't understand this line of thinking. What is the scenario you imagine where the question of "which finger?" is relevant? I'll lay out the beginning:

- Police want to get into your phone for some reason - You refuse to help them based on 5th Amendment or admiralty law or whatever - They go to court for a order compelling you to operate the touch lock to open the phone - You receive the order - ?

Please lay out the "?" part, if you don't mind. I'm highly curious.

Re: Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shooter's iPhone

#360

Post by ars »

ouiyaaa wrote: post #358
ars wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer. There was a time when I spent a lot of time reading verdicts from Judges. (The higher the level of Judge the better the writing, and they are really surprisingly very readable, not full of legalese as you might expect.) Anyway, I used to think that law was mathematical, but after reading lots of verdicts I realized it was not. > but asking so that I can ask something else Ask. If I don't know, I'll…

I was going to ask what happens if Apple says no! I don't know what the next step of FBI will be. What do you think? Can Apple be sued over this? Can they say okay give us the device and we will give you the data but not the actual 'modified os'? (Or we'll just have to find out?)

> what happens if Apple says no.

They would be fined, or executives charged with contempt of court and possible jail time. That would also make the Judge mad at them, and not likely to agree to anything they ask.

The Judge has a LOT of power - he can impose some really high fines, and that's just to start with. Apple will not mess with him.

> I don't know what the next step of FBI will be.

Not FBI. If the Judge says to do it (so far he has not), he will be the one making sure they do it. The FBI will just complain to the Judge if necessary, not actually do anything.

> Can they say okay give us the device and we will give you the data but not the actual 'modified os'?

They can ask the Judge if they can do that. It's up to the Judge to say yes or no. They'll probably have to explain why it's better that way, and that the end result would be the same. The FBI can then argue against it, (or accept it). The Judge will listen to both sides and explain his reasoning in a paper.

You might want to try to read all the stuff the Judge writes in this case. Ignore what the lawyers for Apple or FBI write, read just what the Judge writes (he will summarize what the lawyers wrote, so you won't miss anything).

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