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U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

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Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#301

Post by geggam »

chii wrote: post #263
ww520 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a valid argument.

Criminal cases are not precedent based are they? This whole thread is about civil suits.

Speeding can be civil or criminal based on the speed in relation to the posted limits or other parameters...

Example Arizona

Most cases of minor speeding are civil speeding violations.

However, criminal speeding tickets can be issued in these common cases:

    When a driver exceeds 85 mph anywhere in the state
    When a driver exceeds 35 mph while near a school crossing
    When a driver exceeds a posted speed limit by 20 mph in a business or residential area
    When a driver exceeds 45 mph when no speed is posted in a business or residential area

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#302

Post by frabbit »

Meh. If any of this exposes anything, it is that you do not want your secrets to rest in anyone's hands but your own. Apple may/may-not have managed to protect their keys, but there is no guarantee that is the case.

Meanwhile Joe Public comes away with the idea Apple==SafeEncryption.

If this were some new encrypted messaging service we'd all be ripping the shit out of it just on this basis.

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#303

Post by ctdonath »

girkyturkey wrote: post #300

Now does this mean that iPhones can be hacked? The government has said that in the vast majority of cases it will disclose security vulnerabilities, though in a small handful it doesn't. It would be good for everyone’s security if they disclosed, but they probably won’t

It means there is a known & exploitable flaw in one security option on one model of phone running one version of an operating system. Given that a government had to hire a computer forensics company to do it, I wouldn't call this a "hack" (a la the difference between a locksmith and a burglar).

Apparently there is a law (enacted under the Obama) requiring the disclosure of the cracking technique, at least to the manufacturer, precisely to facilitate improvements in security.

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#304

Post by ClayShentrup »

eru wrote: post #238
studentrob wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Frankly, I think we should not only abolish the electoral college, but the states as well. I was with you until this part. States gave us a path to gay marriage, and allow people to move to different areas that hold different values than the whole nation. I'd suggest trying instant runoff voting before moving to something as drastic as abolishing states. I think IRV would allow people to express their votes and opi…

Approval Voting is much simpler, and without the perverse incentives that come with instant runoff voting.

Yes, Approval Voting is simpler and radically superior to IRV. www.electology.org/approval-voting-vs-irv

Bayesian Regret calculations show IRV is actually THE WORST of the five commonly discussed alternative voting systems.

The best is Score Voting, but it's not as simple as Approval Voting. http://ScoreVoting.net/BayRegsFig.html

Clay Shentrup Co-founder of The Center for Election Science

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#305

Post by zymhan »

alanwatts wrote: post #292
noelsusman wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American government is not supposed to be a direct representation of the will of the people, but let's go through this anyway. On the PATRIOT Act, the link you provided shows that 63% of Americans either want to keep the entire thing or make minor changes. Citizens United came from the Supreme Court, an institution that is explicitly designed to be shielded from the will of the people as much as possible. The 200…

>There founding fathers did not believe in direct democracy. Do you know why they didn't? Because it wasn't feasible to do so when information was traveling at the speed of the horse drawn carriage. >In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country, it is impossible that the whole should assemble to make laws. The first necessary step, then, is to depute power from the many to a few of the most wise and good. But…

There's also a philosophical reason for the adoption of an indirect, representative democracy. One specific example is to protect against Tyranny of the Majority [1].

I'm dubious that a country where most issues are voted on directly by the people could function with any significant amount of participation, mostly because people are not experts in most fields, and don't necessarily understand e.g. the macroeconomic effects of letting the largest banks in the world all go bankrupt. We elect representatives because there is a lot of work to do governing a country thousands of miles wide with over 300 million people, and I want people who can devote their profession to improving government in charge. Ones that we get to vote for regularly, of course.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

"Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. "

- James Madison, Federalist #51 : http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#306

Post by ClayShentrup »

winstonewert wrote: post #252
eru wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approval Voting is much simpler, and without the perverse incentives that come with instant runoff voting.

Here's my problem with Approval Voting: Let's say you are left-wing, and there is a left-wing, centrist, and right-wing candidate running. Do you approve the centrist candidate? If you approve the centrist candidate, you may block the right-wing candidate, but you also may block the left-wing candidate. There is no clear and obvious way for the voter to translate their preference into an approval vote.

This isn't a problem. Numerous contentious Approval Voting elections and exit polls have been held with Approval Voting, showing voters can certainly cast a vote without being paralyzed by indecisiveness.

If YOU can't make up your mind, then just don't vote. Seriously. You can get Approval Voting and just not even show up and vote. You'll still get massively better election outcomes because of all the people who do show up to vote are using an objectively better decision-making algorithm. Yes, objectively better.

http://ScoreVoting.net/BayRegsFig.html

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#307

Post by ClayShentrup »

gfunk911 wrote: post #275
eru wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point. Yes, approval voting, like all other voting systems, requires voters to not only know their preferences, but also to play a little `game' (in the game theory sense of the word). The optimal strategy on who to vote for depends not only on preferences, but also on what you know about the other voters. Polls help here. The nice thing about approval voting is that, even though their might not…

I like the idea but don't agree that all you do is vote above the cutoff. If there are 10 choices and I approve of 3, but I know my 7 and 9 are the only possible winners, I'll likely vote 1 2 3 7.

Your best strategy is to approve all candidates you prefer to the expected value of the winner. http://www.electology.org/score-voting-threshold-strategy

This works out well, tending to elect Condorcet winners. http://ScoreVoting.net/AppCW.html

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#308

Post by LordKano »

mtbcoder wrote: post #280
LordKano wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The framers never intended for individuals to give up their rights just because they form corporations. I have the right to freedom of speech. You have the right to freedom of speech(assuming that you're an American citizen). If you and I form a partnership with the express purpose of working together to combine our voices and speak together, we retain that right to freedom of speech. That was what Citizens United he…

> The framers never intended for individuals to give up their rights just because they form corporations. A person never lost their individual right to freedom of speech if they formed or became a member of a corporation.

A person never lost their individual right to freedom of speech if they formed or became a member of a corporation.

That was precisely the issue before the court in this case. Did the individuals who formed the corporation Citizens United retain their right to freedom of speech as it related to releasing a documentary about Hillary Clinton near an election, in violation of McCain-Feingold?

The court ruled that they did not lose their right to freedom of speech.

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#309

Post by thothamon »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #281
enraged_camel wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Versus the stupid and the ignorant?

You realise it's not either/or? The US is a plutocracy. It's in no sense a working democracy. There's a public voting circus every couple of years, but policy - which is the only thing that really matters in politics - is largely defined by Wall St, the Fed, and by mil-ind corporate lobbying groups. All of the above are politically unaccountable and legally untouchable. See for example the ridiculous excuses made to…

This sort of thing is said all the time, but we do see significant policy changes based on voting, such as the switch to Barack Obama from George W. Bush. It's not clear to me that the corporations drove that in a major way. Another example is Herbert Hoover to Franklin Roosevelt. I imagine you wouldn't suggest that the corporations wanted the Socialist ideas proposed by Roosevelt.

Just because an election or a vote doesn't go your way, or the government doesn't shift dramatically every election, doesn't mean the nation does not have a working democracy.

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#310

Post by peterwwillis »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #290
mchahn wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Citizens United came from the Supreme Court, an institution that is explicitly designed to be shielded from the will of the people as much as possible. The people have nothing to do with that decision. It is just plain unconstitutional. The framers of the constitution never meant for personal rights to be applied to corporations.

Let's make sure we know what we're talking about here. The CU decision was over a bunch of people who made a movie that was critical of a political candidate, and aired that movie not long before the election. Is it your contention that we really should prevent this kind of thing from happening? Because to me, it seems like the very cornerstone of the democratic system. The minute such activity is illegal, the people…

> The minute such activity is illegal, the people have lost and we've become an oligarchy, unable to provide information to our fellow citizens necessary to cast informed votes.

'The people' aren't the ones 'providing information', campaigns full of biased individuals trying to beat a competitor are. The system and its 'elections' has nothing to do with the people, it has to do with a few powerful wealthy entities struggling for power.

Yes, we should definitely prevent a very small minority of political Übermenschen with more money than God from being able to control the system for their own aims.

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