Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones • Hacker News Board

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#311

Post by kelnos » Fri, Feb 26, 2016, 12:46 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #247

kelnos wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation? It seems pretty unbelievable that a US court can order someone to do something that violates US law.

What is it you are seeking a 'citation' for? This is so obvious nobody with a legal background would question it, let alone write about it. The gp is so silly it doesn't warrant discussion. Law is not a logic game with a closed rule set, it's nonsensical to reason based on that assumption.

Just asking for an example. I don't have a legal background. No need to get defensive about it.

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#312

Post by Piskvorrr » Fri, Feb 26, 2016, 12:35 PM UTC

FrankyHollywood wrote: post #252

Piskvorrr wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is encryption? It's a method of denying access without the correct key (for as long as it takes for the data to become worthless - not necessarily forever). Actually destroying the data is one of the ways to deny access. NB: if it were so easy, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So, apparently there are some mitigation techniques which help in case of weak passphrases, and make it not-so-easy, no?

Yes, but for Apple it is easy. Just change 1 line of code, recompile and patch the phones firmware. Than some FBI intern can try 10000 lockscreen codes and they're in. No big deal. My whole point is, this is not a technical issue. It is easy. It is a legal issue. Can the government force a company to do such a thing? Especially when the impact on society is zero. The firmware upgrade is not released outside of Apple,…

"The firmware upgrade is not released outside of Apple, no other phones get it." - that's the non-obviously haaaard part. The one that would fail, sooner or later.

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#313

Post by lostlogin » Sun, Feb 28, 2016, 8:17 AM UTC

bespoke_engnr wrote: post #180

lostlogin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone cares about privacy. What are you saying exactly?

Perhaps the middle part of the argument is missing? People who care about privacy == people who use encryption. People who use encryption already have all of their communications flagged and stored, if the rumors are true.

I disagree. This surely applies to the tech sector, but what about the wider world? Many people have all sorts of privacy habits (close curtains, have tall fences and hedges, they shred their mail or don't discuss wages, etc) yet don't understand or practice anything similar in the digital world.

Re: Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

#314

Post by mattlutze » Mon, Feb 29, 2016, 1:01 PM UTC

upofadown wrote: post #224

mattlutze wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more important question is "Should the government be able to access citizen's digital data with a court order? And if so, how can that be enabled without compromising the general security of the device? The government already does have access to these citizens' data. That data simply has the quality of having been encrypted. If I have printed encrypted text and lock it in my home safe, when the government gets…

I think a better analogy for this sort of thing is an unknown location. It's like you took some unencrypted text and hid it in a tree in a national forest. Everyone strongly suspects that the unencrypted text existed in the past. It's just that only one person knows how to access that text in the present. The problem with the locked box analogy is that it implies that the cypertext is in some way equivalent to the pl…

Ah, I'm not using the safe in the above as analogy to the cyphertext; in both cases I'm talking about encrypted text being stored (printed physical form or digital data form).