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FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

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Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#221
post #4

[flagged]

Still go to prison for not showing. So until devices have multiple pins for plausible deniability we are still screwed. What’s so hard to make 2-3 pins and each to access different logged in apps and files. If Apple/android was serious about it would implement it, but from my research seems to be someone that it’s against it, as it’s too good. I don’t want to remove my Banking apps when I go travel or in “dangerous”…

It's more a policy problem than a phone problem. Apple could add as many pins as they want but until there are proper legal based privacy protections, law enforcement will still just be like "well how do we know you don't have a secret pin that unlocks 40TB of illegal content? Better disappear you just to be sure"

For as long as law enforcement treats protection of privacy as implicit guilt, the best a phone can really do is lock down and hope for the best.

Even if there was a phone that existed that perfectly protected your privacy and was impossible to crack or was easy to spoof content on, law enforcement would just move the goal post of guilt so that owning the phone itself is incriminating.

Edit: I wanna be clear that I'm not saying any phone based privacy protections are a waste of time. They're important. I'm saying that there is no perfect solution with the existing policy being enforced, which is "guilty until proven dead"

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#222
post #104

[flagged]

> ---- All above is pure fantasy and never happened, as you probably have already guessed. Ah, while I was a bit suspicious, I thought it might be real (weirdly worded). What exactly is the point of fabricating this?- Is there a joke I'm blind to?

No joke, it is just I don't like to leave any trail about law issues, even if it is hardly a menace. This last sentence is for law enforcement in the really hard to imagine case it might be relevant sometime.

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#223
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely every aspect of it? What’s so hard about adding a feature that effectively makes a single-user device multi-user? Which needs the ability to have plausible deniability for the existence of those other users? Which means that significant amounts of otherwise usable space needs to be inaccessibly set aside for those others users on every device—to retain plausible deniability—despite an insignificant fractio…

> despite an insignificant fraction of customers using such a feature? Isn't that the exact same argument against Lockdown mode? The point isn't that the number of users is small it's that it can significantly help that small set of users, something that Apple clearly does care about.

now I want to know what dirty laundry are their upper management hiding on their devices...

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android has work profiles, so that could be done in Android. iPhone still does not.

Android has work profiles Never ever use your personal phone for work things, and vice versa. It's bad for you and bad for the company you work for in dozens of ways. Even when I owned my own company, I had separate phones. There's just too much legal liability and chances for things to go wrong when you do that. I'm surprised any company with more than five employees would even allow it.

you're surprise corporations are cheap

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely every aspect of it? What’s so hard about adding a feature that effectively makes a single-user device multi-user? Which needs the ability to have plausible deniability for the existence of those other users? Which means that significant amounts of otherwise usable space needs to be inaccessibly set aside for those others users on every device—to retain plausible deniability—despite an insignificant fractio…

Truecrypt had that a decade+ ago.

Not sure if you know the history behind it, but look up Paul Le Roux

Also would recommend the book called The Mastermind by Evan Ratliff

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...the Trump admin has gleefully flouted norms around that designation... One would have to hold a fairly uninformed view of history to think the norms around that designation are anything but invasive. The list since FDR is utterly extensive.

I didn’t say he was the first to abuse powers. Indeed it’s kind of silly to even have to clarify “but other administrations…” because that’s fairly obvious to anyone old enough to have seen more than one president. But the article is literally referencing the Trump administration seizing a reporter’s phone so the current administration’s overreach seems relevant here.

But that's not what I said.

My point was that your stated assumption of what the norms are is inaccurate. If nearly every modern administration does it, that is literally the norm. The present administration, like many before it, is following the norm. The norm is the broader issue.

Which makes the rest of it (and your followup) come across as needlessly tribal, as both major parties are consistently guilty of tending to object to something only when the other side does it.

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting sibling comments is unusual.

Funny, you're definitely right -- I've done it probably just 2 or 3 times over a decade, when I felt like I had two meaningful but completely unrelated things to say. And it always felt super weird, almost as if I was being dishonest or something. Could never quite put my finger on why. Or maybe I was worried it would look like I was trying to hog the conversation?

I don’t know about the particular claim about the new account — if true, based on what people have said, this would be consistent with an LLM bot with high probability … (but not completely out of the question for a person) … I’ll leave that analysis up to the moderators who have a better statistical understanding of server logs, etc.

That said, as a general point, it’s reasonable to make scoped comments in the corresponding parts of the conversation tree. (Is that what happened here?)

About me: I try to pay attention to social conventions, but I rarely consider technology offered to me as some sort of intrinsically correct norm; I tend to view it as some minimally acceptable technological solution that is easy enough to build and attracts a lowest common denominator of traction. But most forums I see tend to pay little attention to broader human patterns around communication; generally speaking, it seems to me that social technology tends to expect people to conform to it rather than the other way around. I think it’s fair to say that the history of online communication has demonstrated a tendency of people to find workarounds to the limitations offered them. (Using punctuation for facial expressions comes to mind.)

One might claim such workarounds are a feature rather than a bug. Maybe sometimes? But I think you’d have to dig into the history more and go case by case. I tend to think of features as conscious choices not lucky accidents.

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#228
It sounds like almost all of our devices have security by annoyance as default. Where are the promises of E2E encryption and all the privacy measures? When I turned on lockdown mode on my iPhone, there were a few notifications where the random spam calls I get were attempting a FaceTime exploit. How come we have to wait until someone can prove ICE can't get into our devices?

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#229
post #4

[flagged]

> It's a real world example of how these security features aren't just for "paranoid people" but serve a legit purpose for people who handle sensitive info. Because they're in the US things might be easier from a legal standpoint for the journalist, but they also have precedent on forcing journalist to expose their sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branzburg_v._Hayes In other parts of the world this applies http…

Which countries actually grant reporters immunity from having to reveal information related to criminal investigations (where others would be compelled to, and without criminal penalties)? Such immunity may be desirable (at least in some circumstances), but I am not aware of any jurisdiction that actually grants it.

Re: FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get so annoyed by this Socratic line of questioning because it’s extremely obvious. Terrorist has plans and contacts on laptop/phone. Society has a very reasonable interest in that information. But of course there is the rational counter argument of “the government designates who is a terrorist”, and the Trump admin has gleefully flouted norms around that designation endangering rule of law. So all of us are adults…

The better rational counter argument is that "privacy is a human right enshrined in international law". Society has zero business knowing anyone's private communications, whether or not that person is a terrorist. There is nothing natural about being unable to talk to people privately without your speech being recorded for millions of people to view forever. Moreover, giving society absolute access to private communi…

Usually such "international laws" are only advisory and not binding on member nations. After decades of member nations flouting UN "laws" I can't see them as reliable or effective support in most arguments. I support the policy behind the privacy "laws" of the UN, but enforcing them seems to fall short.
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