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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

#311

Post by madaxe_again »

kelseydh wrote: post #296
s_q_b wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do go to jail, usually just court house holding, for contempt of court. That doesn't mean your due process rights disappear. You can challenge the warrant and the applicability of the All Writs Act all the way to SCOTUS. You can even still file a writ of Habeas Corpus. You can even say that you forgot how to make the modifications. The onus is on the DOJ to prove you haven't. Awfully hard to prove what's in a man…

Anybody who actually went to jail for conscientiously objecting to this would be making one of the smartest moves possible in their career. They'll go down in the history books, their jail time will be minimal, and they will be a celebrity / employable in the security community for decades.

History is written by the victors, and you assume that we will win.

An equally likely outcome is that we lose, they end up known in the future in the same light as Guido Fawkes - you know, that guy who fought for freedom of religious association and an end to oppression based on your flavour of christianity some three hundred years ago, who we still get children to burn in effigy every year.

Or more likely they're completely forgotten and ignored, and our grandchildren can't even imagine a world in which your boss doesn't know your most intimate personal details, for the word "private" no longer exists.

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

#312

Post by madaxe_again »

cubano wrote: post #284
madaxe_again wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll go to jail. That's the cost of resistance in a totalitarian society.

We don't live in a totalitarian society. We live in a society which is governed on the idea of the Rule of Law. Big difference.

Soviet Russia was "governed on the idea of the Rule of Law".

North Korea is "governed on the idea of the Rule of Law".

Germany and Italy were "governed on the idea of the Rule of Law" in the 30's.

Franco's Spain was "governed on the idea of the Rule of Law".

Shall I go on?

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

#314

Post by snowwrestler »

X0Refraction wrote: post #257
snowwrestler wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But would the U.S. populace put up with not being able to buy Apple devices at all? That starts sounding like restriction on free trade to the average American which is something they are much more likely to stand against as the government couldn't leverage fear to make the populace go against their own interests.

Would Apple's shareholders put up with Apple not being able to sell into the U.S. market?

We're getting into "kill the company to make a point" territory, which is probably not realistic however we might imagine they do it.

Whatever leverage Apple has over the federal government will come from the millions of citizens who are customers, shareholders, developers, fans, employees, etc. They can activate those people just as well from Cupertino as they can from their own island.

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

#315

Post by JustSomeNobody »

nickles wrote: post #133
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no terrorists. It's a fiction imposed upon the American people by a government with a power trip.

That assertion is patently absurd. There are absolutely people and organized groups who perpetrate horrible acts solely to terrorize others. They are not some 'fiction' created by a 'power tripping' government. However, the risk that these people present to the world, at this point, does not merit sacrificing economic and civil liberties in their entirety to combat them. Rather, the dilemma is in determining an accep…

Of course it is absurd; it was meant to be. It is also absurd the amount of money the US Govt is spending every year fighting a "War on Terrorism" when I am much more likely to die falling off my couch.

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

#316

Post by CWuestefeld »

nickff wrote: post #212
gaur wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> contact your representatives and let them know you care. Unless you have a lot of money, your representatives don't care. It seems like the only way to make progress is to support stronger encryption, with less of a possibility of engineering backdoors.

This is not true; there are any number of studies and interviews which have shown that elected representatives will only act in favor of donors if the voters are silent or supportive. No congressman or senator will ignore dozens of letters and phonecalls (, though there has been some debate as to the utility of e-mails).

I don't see why the myth persists. If money really did speak so loudly, Jeb! would already have clinched the GOP nomination.

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

#317

Post by LordKano »

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.

You are absolutely correct.

I remember being told that I was paranoid when I had concerns about CALEA. I was worried that it would be used for purposes other than warrant-backed monitoring of actual criminals and criminal suspects.

Here we are, 20 years later and even though there's no evidence that things are quite as bad as I feared, it's certainly much more invasive than we were told it would be.

Even the most controversial and contentious of issues are quickly forgotten or mis-remembered by the public.

This IS the last stand on this front. If Apple loses, we all lose.

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

#318

Post by afarrell »

gaur wrote: post #211
studentrob wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> contact your representatives and let them know you care. Unless you have a lot of money, your representatives don't care. It seems like the only way to make progress is to support stronger encryption, with less of a possibility of engineering backdoors.

Apple has $38 Billion in liquid assets [1]. Facebook has $18 Billion [2]. Amazon has $20 Billion [3]. Alphabet (fka Google) has $73 Billion [4]. Microsoft has $102 Billion [5]. In the last quarter of 2015, the largest companies by market capitalization were Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft [6].

All of the companies I've mentioned have filed or joined in an Amicus Curiae brief in support of Apple [7]. If money mattered more than voters, then congress would have already passed a bill to satisfy the wishes of America's most financially successful company.

Why haven't they? Because money can only buy advertising and campaign staff. It can't buy votes and votes are what keep them in office.

[1] https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/cash_on_hand

[2] https://ycharts.com/companies/FB/cash_on_hand

[3] https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/cash_on_hand

[4] https://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/cash_on_hand

[5] https://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/cash_on_hand

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by...

[7] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2016/03/03Amicus-Briefs-in-S...

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

#319

Post by acveilleux »

cubano wrote: post #273
s_q_b wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my tech-illiterate grandfather knows about this debate, and all he can understand is that the FBI has a terrorist's phone and Apple is obstructing their investigation. He thought encryption was something we could easily ban, and he's a civil engineer. I walked him through it mathematically, then gave examples until he understood, but not everyone has a technical background. We are losing because we aren't prese…

It was 56-bit maximum key size btw.

And before that 40-bit RC2 and RC4 were the strength that was easily exportable, which was laughable.

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

#320

Post by s_q_b »

acqq wrote: post #309
s_q_b wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has quarter trillion dollars of cash on hand. Without calculating interest or expected value, at 100k a day, Apple could hold out for over a millennium. I'm sure Apple has a legal army gaming out each one of these scenarios.

> Apple could hold out for over a millennium. No, it doesn't work that way (see the post from dolske 7 hours ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11310214 Under these rules in only a few months all the money would be gone.

My point was that Apple swings a big stick in this argument.
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