Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 204 posts

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#71

Post by jayd16 »

ignoramous wrote: post #37
gtrubetskoy wrote: post #3

What sets Apple apart from Googles and Facebooks is that it's the only company that stores the data in way that Apple itself cannot read it. This is why the others have little to say on the subject - there is no issue of a "backdoor", because there is no wall to begin with when it comes to Google or FB, their business model depends on reading and analyzing your emails and posts.

This just made me realise that Apple is a true "do no evil" company and not Google, for all its technology powress and fancy marketing. A sad realisation as I have been using Google products for almost everything-- they pitch up everything under the F/OSS banner and it's so tempting. I think I should consider moving to iOS pretty seriously. I had been dismissing it for being over-priced and not being OSS. But the tru…

>This just made me realise that Apple is a true "do no evil" company and not Google, for all its technology powress and fancy marketing. A sad realisation as I have been using Google products for almost everything-- they pitch up everything under the F/OSS banner and it's so tempting.

There's nothing evil about wanting to provide contextual information and to do that they need the context. Its just the nature of the service they provide.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#72

Post by 05 »

MCRed wrote: post #27
0xffff2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it's interesting to note that Apple has complied with requests from law enforcement in the past... It's also very important to note that preview law enforcement requests are not in the same scope as the FBI's request published yesterday. All of the information disclosed above is data held by Apple . The new request is for Apple to commit development resources to produce brand new software, not just turn over…

Brand new software that-- and this seems to be missed in the wider discussion-- may be impossible to produce. It may not be possibly for Apple to comply. For instance, you can't install firmware on a locked phone.

You certainly can - you can try it out yourself by rebooting the phone while connected to USB with Home button pressed - it will reboot to the Recovery mode that (since iTunes 12 AFAIR) allows you to choose between update and restore. Should you choose 'update', it will keep your data and rewrite the system partition, all without asking for your PIN.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#73

Post by riq_ »

ignoramous wrote: post #37
gtrubetskoy wrote: post #3

What sets Apple apart from Googles and Facebooks is that it's the only company that stores the data in way that Apple itself cannot read it. This is why the others have little to say on the subject - there is no issue of a "backdoor", because there is no wall to begin with when it comes to Google or FB, their business model depends on reading and analyzing your emails and posts.

This just made me realise that Apple is a true "do no evil" company and not Google, for all its technology powress and fancy marketing. A sad realisation as I have been using Google products for almost everything-- they pitch up everything under the F/OSS banner and it's so tempting. I think I should consider moving to iOS pretty seriously. I had been dismissing it for being over-priced and not being OSS. But the tru…

What Apple is doing is protecting its business model. It is a good thing what Apple is doing, but they are doing it only because it is aligned with its business model. Apple is a for-profit organization. Same as Google. Same as Facebook.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#74

Post by blinkingled »

Gotta love how some are using this as a marketing tool for Apple! For quite some time after Snowden we know well that Microsoft and Google at least believe the same as Apple - you can wax judgmental over strong or weak, loud or muted but fact of the matter is it is quite well known through their actions that both MS and Google are in opposition to government back doors and sweeping collection of information.

But yeah all that be damned - let us see how quickly we can paint the other teams in gray. Let's also ignore that Google's CEO basically agreed with Apple's and if someone brings it up let's dilute it - not strong enough words and it's on Twitter!!

Oh and while we are at it let's jump to the "you're the product" bandwagon as well especially when it isn't relevant to $subject at all. Clearly since Google and MS sell your data (whatever that means) they don't care about your privacy right? I guess Google forgot about violating your privacy if you are using ChromeOS - https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/... ?

Microsoft also forgot to violate the privacy expectations of their Irish customers I guess - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corporation_v._Unite... ?

And yes let's also imply that since Google and MS can read your email - getting that to the government is no big deal for them! It's the same thing right - government's just gotta sign up for Bing Ads and Google Ads?

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#75

Post by stepanhruda »

jayd16 wrote: post #71
ignoramous wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just made me realise that Apple is a true "do no evil" company and not Google, for all its technology powress and fancy marketing. A sad realisation as I have been using Google products for almost everything-- they pitch up everything under the F/OSS banner and it's so tempting. I think I should consider moving to iOS pretty seriously. I had been dismissing it for being over-priced and not being OSS. But the tru…

>This just made me realise that Apple is a true "do no evil" company and not Google, for all its technology powress and fancy marketing. A sad realisation as I have been using Google products for almost everything-- they pitch up everything under the F/OSS banner and it's so tempting. There's nothing evil about wanting to provide contextual information and to do that they need the context. Its just the nature of the…

Apple does that/is moving into that area too. They use your own hardware instead of their servers to do it.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#76

Post by karlshea »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #44
digi_owl wrote: post #36

Wonder what the NYT's headline would be if it was Google that has gone out strongly.

Google doesn't care. They're the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, and you better not fear advertisers, because we just told them all about you" crowd. Few years back Cornell University adopted Gmail for their staff and faculty under the condition that the company wouldn't data-mine the emails. Google did anyway. Now we use Outlook.

Google does care in some cases, a couple of years ago they started encrypting links between their datacenters because the NSA was snooping on internal Gmail traffic.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#77

Post by venomsnake »

vinceguidry wrote: post #40
venomsnake wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in that case FBI will load their custom OS and open it. The entropy provided by the user in the apple current security solution is just too little for the device to not be vulnerable. Apple tried to do it by providing also their own key, but that helps little when a dedicated agency has physical access to the device. And legal hammer to compel Apple to spill the beans.

This article explains the situation nicely: http://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/02/17/apple-can-comply-with... The short answer is, Apple compensates for the low entropy of 4 digit PINs by rate-limiting the number of guesses you can make.

But that is the root of the problem. Apple can control how the system is unlocked, they can update it, so they are able to circumvent their own measures. I wouldn't be surprised if they are able to do it with secure enclave too.

So apple didn't provided their users security. They provided security with potential backdoor in the design.

So I say - it is good if FBI can force apple to exploit their own backdoors - to learn their lesson.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#78

Post by draw_down »

blinkingled wrote: post #74

Gotta love how some are using this as a marketing tool for Apple! For quite some time after Snowden we know well that Microsoft and Google at least believe the same as Apple - you can wax judgmental over strong or weak, loud or muted but fact of the matter is it is quite well known through their actions that both MS and Google are in opposition to government back doors and sweeping collection of information. But yeah…

"This is an Apple marketing ploy" is the absolute dumbest take on this issue. Please drop the tech horse-race bullshit for two minutes, sheesh

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#79

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

School-Cotton wrote: post #52
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too far off. Obviously nobody would smoke at work for the same reason they probably wouldn't drink, illegality aside. But, what people do outside of work is their own business. If my boss started seriously inquiring about my vices, first thing I'd do that night is update my resume. I've considered federal work before but every time I think hard about it, I keep coming back to the scene in Snow Crash where the fed…

Do you live in China (or Russia) and work for the Chinese (or Russian) government?

>>I've considered federal work before

>Do you live in China (or Russia) and work for the Chinese (or Russian) government?

No.

Re: Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

#80

Post by curt15 »

cvburgess wrote: post #61
SquareWheel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple also makes most of it's money by selling phones, not user information... Google is the advertiser. I'm surprised how often people make this mistake. They don't sell user data to other advertisers. This not only goes against their terms of service, but also makes no business sense. Why would they give up their best signal for targeted ads?

They effectively sell user information by way of allowing their customers to target individuals for a price. They aren't directly selling the data itself but they are selling a service that is an extension of that data. I think the semantics are negligible. They make money selling [ads based on] user data.

The incentives of those two business models could hardly be more different. The value of their services derives from the exclusivity of their data. It is directly in their financial interest to ensure that no one else can access that data.
Post reply on HN