> U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
Ah, OK, so this is as meaningful as the judge who decided that the ACA was unconstitutional.
Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
171–180 of 294 posts
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct, I just did this yesterday while idly fidgeting around with my phone. Fortunately I cancelled it in time to avoid creating a false alarm. Glad to hear it can be turned off, doing that now. WTF were they thinking, making it so easy to trigger by accident? (Edit: OK, I'm confused. There doesn't seem to be an option to disable the emergency trigger entirely, but there's an "Auto Call" slider whose relationship t…
They made it easy to trigger so that people can use it as a panic button. That was a customer request.
Apple gets a lot of customer requests, 99.9% of which they ignore, and 95% of which they should ignore. This was a funny one for them to select for implementation.
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you expect the guy to get off free for murder?
Guilt is orthogonal to due process. What if the kid hadn't committed the murder but was duped into making incriminating statements anyway? Furthermore, considering testimony given while under the influence is ridiculous.
And the prevailing sympathy on HN for defendants is orthogonal to due process as well. There is no violation of due process here, without regard to the number of commenters who just don't like it.
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm thinking about a good device strategy. I think I need a disposable smartphone for situations like this. I should not lose any data if I lose the smartphone and nobody should gain any data if he finds/steals/takes it.
A lot of "freedom" fighters suggest this as SOP anyways. You keep all of your needed data in the cloud, and download on the other side of whatever security you are clearing. This goes for any device, not just phone. Some people even go ports on their laptops filled in with an epoxy or something so that ports can't be accessed. Of course, that just makes you look that much more suspicious. How paranoid are you, and wh…
> what data do you have
That's really irrelevant. The question should be, "what data does the government think I have, and what evidence do they have that I have it?"
Crossing the border feels like "guilty until proven innocent", which completely goes against everything this country was founded on. If I'm not traveling with my wife and kids, I'll put up a much bigger fight at security check points. Yes, it's annoying to the people who have to check me, but they're being paid for it (well, not while there's a shutdown) so I don't feel too bad.
If they do have evidence of wrong doing, it shouldn't be hard to get a warrant. We should be following due process at the border, especially for American citizens.
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
More like: Police: "We have a warrant for your apartment, let us in" Suspect: "Sorry, I lost the key when I went hiking in the Rocky Mountains, there's no way in. Oh, and be aware that if you try to force your way in more than 5 times, the apartment will catch fire and destroy everything inside" What would happen in this case? Can the suspect be held in contempt?
That is a degenerate argument. an apartment is clearly yours. Without your password there is no way to conclusively prove that a phone is yours. SIM cards can be swapped, for example. The incriminating is not stating the password. it is the fact that you are proving the phone as yours.
Phone's have serial numbers tied to the hardware. It's certainly possible to prove that a given phone is the same physical unit that one purchased.
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a Border Search Exception to the 4th Amendment established by the courts; this ruling has no relevance at at port of entry.
It has no relevance to the Border Patrol within 100 miles of a US border or coastline, which is even more ridiculous.
Yeah, it should be more like 10 miles or less. I don't understand why they're given so much leeway.
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#177There is something extremely disturbing about the state wanting to go through your private papers. The only way this should be possible in a democracy is rarely and only by due process with a judge's order and ample safeguards, explicit conditions built into the law with no room for abuse by 'friendly judges' or 'overzealous' state machinery. Anything else is a police state in the making. This is fundamental to the d…
This is 100% true.
I really wish the lobotomized "I have nothing to hide" sheep would understand this.
For every one of these laws, you need to think about what a world in which searches like this happened routinely to everyone - even the "good guys™" - would be like.
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#178This is a magistrate's response to a warrant application. It doesn't have minimal jurisprudential value, it has zero jurisprudential value.
The headline is wrong to even use the word "judge" - at the federal level, there is a meaningful distinction between a judge and a magistrate.
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Francis Rawls is still in jail after 2 years for not decrypting his hard drive. He's in contempt indefinitely until he decrypts the drive.
However, that's a unique case, because the authorities know the hashes of the cleartext files on his machine match the hashes of illicit media. "Foregone conclusion" so long as you believe in the mathematics behind hash collisions.
I don’t understand this. Are the hash values stored somewhere unencrypted?
Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let’s hope the Supreme Court hears it and it stands.
It won't stand because it's not pragmatic. The issue around 'passwords being in your mind' is interesting, but they'll move past it. If you have evidence of a crime on your phone, it must be part of the process. There's nothing remotely unlawful about search of property so long as there is merit, oversight, warrant etc.. Ultimately, this will be no different than searching your car. Now, the cops doing it without a w…
And in 20/30 years when the phone is embedded in your brain?
A phone isn't a car. It's an extension of my brain. I use it to store memories that I offload from my brain. As an example I used to have 50 to 100 phone numbers memorized. Now I have zero because they are on the external part of my brain.
I see this as no different than having to decode the secret code in the ledger. You can see the encrypted data. I'm not required to decrypt it. (or am I? I don't know the law on coded ledgers)