Your iPhone just got less secure. Blame the FBI

1. If the vulnerability the FBI used worked because the device was an iPhone without a secure enclave, Apple probably knows how they did it, but they can't really fix devices that have already shipped without the security features. While this obviously hurts users of those phones, every phone going forward won't have this issue, and this won't be replicable on a mass scale.

2. Because this was a vulnerability that was found, not intentionally created, there is a high likelihood that the bug will be found again by security researchers, or at the very least paid for handsomely by Apple. This isn't necessarily true (Heartbleed existed for 2 years without being noticed), but it means that the vulnerability has a timetable that rapidly closes. This is far different from an _introduced_ backdoor/vulnerability, where Apple knows exactly what can be used to get into a device, but has their hands tied by the government, which would _unilaterally_ make our phones less secure. I don't like buying a door lock if I know there's a master key that can open any of the doors of that brand.

3. The author I feel is misleading when he says things like "A vulnerability in Windows 10, for example, affects all of us who use Windows 10". Even if a piece of software has a vulnerability, that vulnerability could perhaps only be exploitable under certain conditions, like software running on certain hardware (eg: without a secure enclave), or under certain conditions (passcodes of less than 4 digits). It also can be highly theoretical or impractical to do on any sort of scale -- if the vulnerability involves reading data off a hard drive using an electron microscope to check for magnetic signatures, I'm not going to be too worried that it will be abused, as the man hours to have it work for a single case would be astronomical and only feasible in the most extreme circumstances.

It's probably very frustrating on Apple's part that the FBI found a vulnerability that they (likely) don't know about, and in an ideal world, governments would disclose those vulnerabilities to make us more secure. But as long as the software and hardware continue to get more secure and not intentionally crippled, any benefit they derived feels short lived at best.

What amaze me is the tendency for our society to call for more privacy that favors the more powerful, hence the more likely to be corrupted.

If we want make it easy for our leaders to be corrupted I definitively would call for more cryptography.

Me except the normal "shameful" stuff from the common people I want privacy to. Like anyone I have stuff I want to hide. But, it is okay if I get _caught_. I will not say everything I did is okay, because, I still have hurt indirectly people. There are stuff I want to hide to protect myself from the intolerant crowd.

But guess what, I have as much as I could went to present my excuses, and took responsibility for my own shitty actions. And for the stuff I should not be ashamed of, I don't see the need to hide it, in a democracy we have the freedom to fight for our opinions.

None of my stupid stuff requiring privacy have been leading to blood being shed, exploitation, or making the market noncompetitive.

With greater power/wealth should come greater transparency. And iPhone are definitively more expensive than most phones.

So let's remember that is often the look from the others that makes us more virtuous, and let us all accept to live in an house made of glass (except for the bathroom, and the bedrooms).

In a fair competitive market access to information is symmetrical. In a real democracy government are expected to be openly enforcing the choices of the voters.

In a world tending towards virtue, there is no need for more privacy.

Interesting. What obligations do governments have? On the one hand we have government agencies (the CPA, e.g.) whose entire function is to protect consumers from bad products and marketing. On the other hand there's the many regulatory and standards bodies, which are to ensure orderly marketplaces and discourage anti-competition. Then there's an agency that protects the environment, one that administers health, education....yet there's no obligation to disclose security vulnerabilities? Hmmppf. I'm stumped.