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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

#281

Post by madaxe_again »

Intermernet wrote: post #213
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.

I hate to break this to you, but the majority of people no longer remember the name Snowden. Give it 6 months and this will be such old news that you'll sound like a nut trying to get the majority of people to care about it. The window of opportunity is short, and closing every day.

Oh, they remember the name Snowden, in the same way as their alter egos remember the name Goldstein. Snowden the great traitor, the demagogue, the terror-sympathiser, the subject of the five minutes hate.

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

#282

Post by madaxe_again »

jacquesm wrote: post #29
kstenerud wrote: post #26

Taking this further down the rabbit hole: Suppose that only about 5 people can do what the FBI wants done. Suppose all 5 refuse, to the point of quitting Apple. Does the FBI now compel them to return to Apple and write the software or go to jail? And what if one of those engineers says that he doesn't actually know how to do it; Apple only thought he could, but he actually can't. Now we get into territory of proving…

You're in the territory of outright slavery. That would be a new low on all fronts.

It's debatable that slavery was ever actually abolished - it was just formalised, given a new brand, and life went on. If you are the subject of a state, you do not have any rights beyond those which they choose to grant you - and their ultimate backstop and means of control is the threat of violence against the person. It is illegal to be stateless - you must be the possession of a state.

Now consider how slavery is defined. The slave-owners just got bigger.

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

#283

Post by wyldfire »

studentrob wrote: post #220
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.

You may enjoy This American Life's episode on "Take the Money and Run for Office" [1] > Dick Durbin: I think most Americans would be shocked-- not surprised, but shocked-- if they knew how much time a United States senator spends raising money. And how much time we spend talking about raising money, and thinking about raising money, and planning to raise money. And, you know, going off on little retreats and conjurin…

So is there a super PAC that supports the agenda of encryption as a right? If not, should we make one?

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

#284

Post by cubano »

madaxe_again wrote: post #238
kstenerud wrote: post #26

Taking this further down the rabbit hole: Suppose that only about 5 people can do what the FBI wants done. Suppose all 5 refuse, to the point of quitting Apple. Does the FBI now compel them to return to Apple and write the software or go to jail? And what if one of those engineers says that he doesn't actually know how to do it; Apple only thought he could, but he actually can't. Now we get into territory of proving…

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.

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

#285

Post by mizchief2 »

studentrob wrote: post #79
kstenerud wrote: post #26

Taking this further down the rabbit hole: Suppose that only about 5 people can do what the FBI wants done. Suppose all 5 refuse, to the point of quitting Apple. Does the FBI now compel them to return to Apple and write the software or go to jail? And what if one of those engineers says that he doesn't actually know how to do it; Apple only thought he could, but he actually can't. Now we get into territory of proving…

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 wouldn't count on that "gigantic public debate" We found out that our government spies on all of our digital activities and just recently was announced that the data the NSA collects will be made available to the FBI as well as other agencies for domestic purposes, not just for catching terrorist.

And what is the response from the general public? "Well I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear"

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

#286

Post by cubano »

mindcrime wrote: post #182
kstenerud wrote: post #26

Taking this further down the rabbit hole: Suppose that only about 5 people can do what the FBI wants done. Suppose all 5 refuse, to the point of quitting Apple. Does the FBI now compel them to return to Apple and write the software or go to jail? And what if one of those engineers says that he doesn't actually know how to do it; Apple only thought he could, but he actually can't. Now we get into territory of proving…

does the FBI now compel them to return to Apple and write the software or go to jail? I can't imagine any way in hell that would fly. The only remotely conceivable path to doing something like that would be to have Congress implement a draft, and draft them into the military. Anything else would almost certainly violate the 13th and/or 10th Amendments to the Constitution. And the draft thing is probably a stretch as…

I sure can, and fully expect it to eventually happen, unfortunately.

The sad part is, As Tim Cook said, all this will do is push the bad guys to use an encryption app from somewhere else.

I have a good deal of experience in the US criminal justice system, and the one thing everyone I've met and done time with inside the system, from bank robbers to drug dealers to murderers say is, in the end, "They (the courts and prosecutors) Do What They Want"

In fact its such a common saying, its almost a running joke inside.

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

#288

Post by zaphar »

kbart wrote: post #204
kstenerud wrote: post #26

Taking this further down the rabbit hole: Suppose that only about 5 people can do what the FBI wants done. Suppose all 5 refuse, to the point of quitting Apple. Does the FBI now compel them to return to Apple and write the software or go to jail? And what if one of those engineers says that he doesn't actually know how to do it; Apple only thought he could, but he actually can't. Now we get into territory of proving…

" "Suppose that only about 5 people can do what the FBI wants done." Maybe 5 people now can do that, but give a smart programmer (I'm sure Apple has more than a bunch of those) source code and I'm sure he will figure how to do what government requests in max few weeks time. It's not a rocket science.

I'm a pretty decent engineer. Give me the source code and I guarantee that the first month will be almost entirely figuring out what it does and where it does it. IOS is a and complex system. There will be a LOT of source code. Just figuring out which parts actually matter will be a challenge.

Add in that I'm probably not super enthusiastic about the task and that month could end up being two months. And the end result due to unfamiliarity and stress has a non-zero chance of messing up and accidentally wiping the phone anyway. Notice I didn't use quotes there. You would need some significant qa resources to ensure that I didn't mess anything up.

Or maybe I'm wrong and there is a clearly marked single easy place to make all the changes that Apple has requested to make and there are already unit tests that verify it does something it wasn't originally designed to do. Then sure a few weeks time is all it will take. But Apple estimated 6 months for trained familiar engineers. Anyone else and we could be looking at close to a year.

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

#289

Post by hysan »

Sacho wrote: post #269
hysan wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wouldn't that be opening a whole different can of international worms? In this hypothetical, - Is China doing this with or without Apple's knowledge? - If not, then it's a very very different situation th…

> - Is China doing this with or without Apple's knowledge? In this hypothetical, sure. The Chinese govt orders Apple to install a backdoor chip on the production line. > - If so, then Apple presumably would openly fight this and could even move all of their production outside of China as an extreme last resort. Moving their production doesn't seem to be more or less difficult than moving their corporate HQ.

Production lines can be moved to other factories at great cost, but the labor is replaceable. Convincing your entire US living (mostly citizens) engineering staff to live/work outside the US would be much harder. You can have them telecommute but there is no way that the company would run anywhere near as well as it did prior.

Unless there is something in US law that says you can reincorporate outside the US, keep an office in the US, and yet somehow be excluded from US jurisdiction. Cause from what I understand, if you have an office in some country, you are bound to those laws to some degree.

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

#290

Post by kelseydh »

studentrob wrote: post #79
kstenerud wrote: post #26

Taking this further down the rabbit hole: Suppose that only about 5 people can do what the FBI wants done. Suppose all 5 refuse, to the point of quitting Apple. Does the FBI now compel them to return to Apple and write the software or go to jail? And what if one of those engineers says that he doesn't actually know how to do it; Apple only thought he could, but he actually can't. Now we get into territory of proving…

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 doubt they could be fined. The government can not force someone to continue to be an employee of a company.

Please cite me an example of somebody who hasn't broke the law being forced to work against their will for months to do something as an employee.

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