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Apple Letter on iPhone Security Draws Muted Tech Industry Response

nytimes.com

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

#161

Post by mariodiana »

Outdoorsman wrote: post #23
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…

Agreed...there is a difference...a whole new precedent may be set when all this is sorted...

Yes, the FBI is arguing that it's no hardship for Apple to write the software to do this, since writing software is the business they're in. Once that precedent is established, then no software the government asks Apple to write should be any "hardship." I'm betting the government has a well thought out wish list.

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

#162

Post by eridius »

Oletros wrote: post #160
eridius wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an article from last year claiming that Google made 75% of its mobile search revenue from iOS: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-...

As I said, when you can find that "report" we can start to discuss about the figures. Until then, it has the same validity as using a random function in a computer to guess those numbers

That's completely ridiculous. Even if the exact figures in the articles are wrong, it's still generally accepted that Google makes a significant amount of its mobile revenue off of iOS. Demanding that I unearth some vague "report" to give you specific figures is completely meaningless. Doubly-so since it doesn't even matter what the numbers are, because the whole point was that Android users switching to iOS are still extremely likely to be using Google products, which means Google's still making money off of them.

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

#163

Post by huxley »

riq_ wrote: post #73
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…

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.

I'm sure that it's easier for them to do it because it's aligned with their business model but Tim Cook has shown himself willing to pursue policies that aren't solely ROI-related.

Cook very publicly tangled with shareholders that argued against Apple's environmental & accessibility initiatives:

"'When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI,' Cook said, adding that the same sentiment applied to environmental and health and safety issues.

He told Danhof that if he did not believe in climate change, he should sell his Apple shares. 'If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock,' he said.

Cook’s comments and visible passion over the issue are one of the strongest signals yet of his commitment to reducing Apple’s environmental footprint. He told shareholders that he wanted to 'leave the world better than we found it'."

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/03/tim-cook-...

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

#164

Post by timothya »

mconley wrote: post #100
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.

> 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. FWIW, Mozilla does the same thing for Firefox Accounts sync data - it's an opaque blob that we couldn't decrypt even if we wanted to. (Disclosure: Mozilla employee)

For the record, Chrome's sync data can also be an encrypted blob that Google can't decrypt[0].

[0]: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/1181035?hl=en

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

#165

Post by Jordrok »

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…

I've actually been having similar feelings lately. I'm still not totally happy with Apple and fundamentally disagree with their closed ecosystem policy, but over the years I feel like they have been gradually gaining trustworthiness just as Google has been losing it. (Of course, Facebook never had it in the first place.) I still don't think it's so much a true desire to "do no evil" rather than Apple's business incentives happening to be more compatible with consumer privacy in this case, but that's really about the best you can hope for from any gigantic for-profit corporation.

I'm not quite ready to jump ship yet, but it's looking more and more tempting every day.

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

#166

Post by pdkl95 »

Oletros wrote: post #126
pdkl95 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data that Google (or anybody else) collects is probably going to be around approximately "forever". Do you really believe Google will: 1) never sell that data at any time in the future (perhaps if they should suffer a bad year financially), and 2) that they will be able to retain control of that data (no leaks, no employees that abuse access, no attacks from other people interested in the data). Without these cri…

> Do you really believe Google will: The same can be said about other for profit organization. If the times changes and the board changes they can change their behaviour. So, it is only ifs. > Of course, this doesn't matter when talking about Google and their data. We already know they give data to the government because they are part of PRISM[1]. So is Apple > As for advertisers, the scenerios "Google gave customer…

> The same can be said about other for profit organization.

Only those for-profit organizations that are keeping personal data for long periods of time. This is not at all universal, and nobody[1] is collecting data on anywhere near the scale that Google is, across such a wide range of data sources. How many other corporations have entire browsing histories (google-analytics), email histories, and phone call and location logs?

Do you deny that the aggregation of this data is a risk, should someone abuse it? Do you think this data is going to ever be deleted? You call this "only ifs", but this is a constant risk as long as the data exists. The numerous leaks of personal information we've heard about in the last ~year prove this risk exists. I suspect that Google will do a better job at securing their valuable data than most organizations, but nobody is perfect.

> So is Apple

Entirely off topic. The fact that there are risks when giving data to other businesses doesn't make the risk of giving data over to Google go away. While it is a common meme recently, appeal-to-popularity is still a fallacy.

> Yes, NOT giving access to the data to advertisers is just a minor detail /s

Advertisers... like Google.

[1] save for a couple other corporations that are in the data-collection business

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

#167

Post by 5ilv3r »

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.

My interpretation was that it would affect future iphones, not current ones. This is less to do with what was said, and more to do with what is practical.

It would be absolutely trivial to disable security features before selling to the customer. Afterward is more difficult.

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

#168

Post by teacup50 »

unfunco wrote: post #122
AngrySkillzz wrote: post #69

Of course the industry response is muted; this is the chilling effect that we were all worried about. Most Big Co's don't want to put themselves in opposition to an organization as powerful and well-funded as the US intelligence apparatus. I'm sure they are all on Apple's side, but are less willing to speak out about it because they fear the consequences. If you're cynical, you might think that this case is all about…

I don't think it's about opposing the government, the line in Apple's letter that symbolises for me the importance of their argument is "because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business." – for many other companies, the contents of your device is absolutely their business, it's how they maintain revenue. If Facebook can't read your data, then they can't sell your eyeballs to advertisers.

If the contents are none of Apple's business, why did Apple give themselves (via their signing keys) a backdoor that allows them to replace the firmware out from under the owner of an ostensibly locked device?

If Apple couldn't do an end-run on the key derivation protection mechanisms, then they couldn't use that backdoor to aid the FBI.

"Can't do it" is a strong defense.

"Won't do it" isn't.

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

#169

Post by danielsiders »

mmaunder wrote: post #101

We came out and vocally supported Apple on our blog yesterday. The response from our customers, mostly consumers and small businesses, was overwhelming. Many long comments and passionate views. https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2016/02/wordfence-supports-st... I'd encourage every other tech company who has the ability to talk about this (in other words you don't sell to the intelligence community), to also inform your c…

We've done the same: https://flynn.io/blog/against-forced-updates

I also urge other founders and exec teams to join in. The best chance we have of stopping this is a strong show of agreement across the community.

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

#170

Post by sp332 »

petra wrote: post #121
AngrySkillzz wrote: post #69

Of course the industry response is muted; this is the chilling effect that we were all worried about. Most Big Co's don't want to put themselves in opposition to an organization as powerful and well-funded as the US intelligence apparatus. I'm sure they are all on Apple's side, but are less willing to speak out about it because they fear the consequences. If you're cynical, you might think that this case is all about…

Could it be possible that the government want to lose in this case(and in the media) - creating a strong illusion that the iPhone is 100% safe from spying ? How valuable such an illusion would be ?

In fact, they swore to it. https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/700394031218499584
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