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Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

nytimes.com

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Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#171

Post by snowwrestler »

rawnlq wrote: post #36
jfoutz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DOJ couldn't shut down apple. Apple has $200,000,000,000 in cash and marketable securities. DOJ's budget is only 27 billion. That's a lot of lawyer time. It's a huge waste of money, but there it is. Way less likely, but Apple could move HQ to another country. And take their secret source code and keys with them.

I wonder if there's any advantage for Apple to form their own sovereign nation to operate out of. They are already richer than many existing countries. Can't they just buy out a Singapore-sized island somewhere?

There's probably no advantage; to do business in the U.S., a company must comport with U.S. laws. If Apple moved their HQ to the Sovereign Island of SteveJobistan, they would still have to follow U.S. court orders if they wanted to sell products to Americans within the borders of the U.S.

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#172

Post by studentrob »

gaur wrote: post #167
studentrob wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could be fined hundreds of thousands daily for refusing to act. We recently found out this happened to Yahoo in 2008 [1] via the FISA court. Apple shareholders wouldn't like that. I'm pretty sure Tim Cook and his lawyer mean it when they say they will comply with the law. Apple engineers need not worry so much about quitting their jobs over this. If I were there I would stick with Tim Cook. Consider, If Apple lo…

> this becomes a gigantic public debate where we scramble to enact legislation that removes this power from the government. No such thing will happen. The public will forget this ever happened, and politicians will do nothing to prevent the government from doing this again.

I don't plan to let that happen. Do you?

I'll fight this as long as it's under discussion. Talk to your friends and family, contact your representatives and let them know you care.

If we as technologists, the only ones who understand the tech side of things, are silent, then yes this defeatist attitude will win.

We need not be silent.

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#173

Post by taneq »

yarou wrote: post #20

This is very much a case of civil disobedience. Non-violent struggle is a surprisingly effective tactic. As Gandhi states: >You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

Ghandi got away with his stunts because because he was up against the British, and they had comparatively okay ethics. Try that shit on someone who's actually bad and at best you'll just end up digging your own grave at gunpoint, then being "shot while escaping".

While publicly the U.S. government probably wants to keep on the good side of popular opinion, they've proved time and again that in private they have little to no compunction about doing "whatever it takes" to get their way.

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#174

Post by pdkl95 »

lojack wrote: post #109
saulrh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think we would live in a forced back door world for too long. After another 2, 4, or 8 years, we will eventually realize that giving the government a back door to the iPhone did not give it a back door to the myriad of other encrypted communications tools out there. Terrorists will find other ways to hide their communications. I'm going to disagree with you here. Didn't we think, back in 2001, that we'd onl…

How exactly are they supposed to permanently remove all semblance of privacy? Short of infiltrating popular open source projects in plain view and proving the (potentially) unprovable, I don't see how this is possible.

> infiltrating popular open source projects

As PHK pointed out, the NSA (and other large SIGINT agencies) obviously already have some amount of influence on popular free and open source software.

If anybody find this at all surprising, watch PHK's "Operation Orchestra"[1] asap.

[1] https://archive.fosdem.org/2014/schedule/event/nsa_operation...

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#175

Post by rubyfan »

nhangen wrote: post #104
studentrob wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could be fined hundreds of thousands daily for refusing to act. We recently found out this happened to Yahoo in 2008 [1] via the FISA court. Apple shareholders wouldn't like that. I'm pretty sure Tim Cook and his lawyer mean it when they say they will comply with the law. Apple engineers need not worry so much about quitting their jobs over this. If I were there I would stick with Tim Cook. Consider, If Apple lo…

What if Apple moves their HQ out of the country...

There is no place to go.

We need to fix here because we actually have a shot of fixing it here.

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#176

Post by studentrob »

ohyeshedid wrote: post #130
enraged_camel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing any sort of "gigantic public debate." Sure, it looks that way from within our tech bubble, but let's be real: the overwhelming majority of people in the United States do not give a shit and could not care less. And among the remaining small minority, encryption is way down on the list of issues they care about and choose to spend time and mental energy on. Further complicating things is the fact that t…

Exactly. People are already aware. It's being covered in all forms of media, across all demographics. Awareness and understanding are wildly different concepts. People are aware, they just don't understand. The public can't be properly educated in the matter, because it's so nebulous and complex that it requires dedication to understand it. That goes for most of the issues we face as a society.

That's so defeatist. How do you know unless you try? You are the one with the knowledge. Try!

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#177

Post by pjscott »

evan_ wrote: post #170
staunch wrote: post #141

It may be time for that hippocratic oath for engineers idea to become a reality. I'd take it and live by it.

The ACM has a code of ethics that I like a lot: http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics/ Nothing is stopping you from just affirming yourself to live by them without paying the dues, if you want.

Alternately you can affirm the "never compromise cryptography" code of ethics, which I just made up and which is exactly what the name says.

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#178

Post by studentrob »

enraged_camel wrote: post #91
studentrob wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could be fined hundreds of thousands daily for refusing to act. We recently found out this happened to Yahoo in 2008 [1] via the FISA court. Apple shareholders wouldn't like that. I'm pretty sure Tim Cook and his lawyer mean it when they say they will comply with the law. Apple engineers need not worry so much about quitting their jobs over this. If I were there I would stick with Tim Cook. Consider, If Apple lo…

I'm not seeing any sort of "gigantic public debate." Sure, it looks that way from within our tech bubble, but let's be real: the overwhelming majority of people in the United States do not give a shit and could not care less. And among the remaining small minority, encryption is way down on the list of issues they care about and choose to spend time and mental energy on. Further complicating things is the fact that t…

> too ignorant to understand the important nuance

Lindsey Graham came around. Sam Harris changed his point of view after a fairly combative initial stance against technologists.

We will never know if we can inform the public unless we try. There are some good analogies out there supporting encryption. Use them. I recommend the one from Sam Harris' third video on the subject. There is also the whack-a-mole argument.

Honestly, the biggest thing standing in the way of the public being informed is not the unwillingness of the public to listen. It's the technologists' unwillingness to try to educate them.

I understand your trepidation. In life, we scientists are often ignored. But sometimes we are right and I do feel if we push hard here we can figure out ways to reach people.

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#179

Post by dangero »

hysan wrote: post #147

Question, does Apple employ any engineers that are not US citizens? Or are telecommute workers living in other countries? If so and they were one of the key engineers, what would happen if they refused? What type of international laws would come into play here?

The answer is yes on all counts. Apple has engineers in many different countries.

To take your question in a completely different way, China could compel their Apple manufacturing staff to install a back-doored chip into Apple devices on the production line. Seems reasonable if the US government is asking for a software back door into all phones.

Re: Apple Encryption Engineers, If Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist

#180

Post by tacos »

jacquesm wrote: post #27
iamleppert wrote: post #24

I bet none of these engineers have spent a single night in jail. All it would take would be for a judge to send a single one to jail for the weekend, and they'd be happy to quickly bang out whatever the government wanted as soon as possible on Monday morning. The sentiment is nice, but I doubt the government is worried in the slightest. The government is all powerful and can be whatever it wants, lest we forget.

How could they be ordered to do anything if they are no longer employed by Apple? Resigning is a pretty powerful statement, being compelled to work for an employer you no longer want to work for is orders of magnitude worse than anything else suggested in this whole sordid saga to date. Compelling a company to produce a product is bad enough, let's not add treating people like chattel on top of it.

A Judge can issue an Order saying whatever they hell he or she wants.

A Judge can order you to leave work and sit on a Federal Grand Jury for 36 months.

A Judge can order an innocent bystander to testify or sit in jail until he agrees to do so.

Employment status has nothing to do with anything. Just because you quit the police department doesn't mean you don't have to cooperate with a federal investigation or anything that a Judge orders you to do during that trial, from the grand jury phase up to and through sentencing.

I so often agree with the general sentiment of HN posters but the lack of understanding around basic civics is disheartening.

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