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Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

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Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#91
post #83
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First many of those crime cartels could not exist without the banning of drugs, prostitution and gambling. The same goes for violent crimes in general. Large numbers of violent crimes are done by people involved in drug dealing or consuming. If drugs were legal you would not put so many people in these situations. Falling crime rates is happing all over the first world. Most countries have know-where near the policy…

> First many of those crime cartels could not exist without the banning of drugs, prostitution and gambling. That doesn't mean that it's an "invented crime." It's undeniable that drugs, gambling, and prostitution have real social costs and harms. The people are entitled to regulate commerce in their society generally, but trade in harmful things especially. When people uses organized violence to circumvent that regul…

> It's undeniable that drugs, gambling, and prostitution have real social costs and harms

So does banking and the police. Or firearms and alcohol. Both are regulated, but not outlawed.

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#92
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if they aren't being asked to build a tool, then there's nothing for them to help the FBI with because the device functions as designed. It is precisely the design of the device that the FBI wants Apple to alter using some sort of tool that Apple will make for them.

My point was just that the FBI didn't ask Apple to "build a tool for the FBI that will allow them to look at any user's data". They asked Apple to prevent some security mechanisms of that particular device from working. Whether Apple builds a tool or uses manual labour with existing tools to do so is irrelevant for the FBI.

The point that gets lost here is that it's close to impossible for Apple to build a tool that will only allow them to look at any users data. Once the tool exists it's a simple hexedit away from working on anyones phone. While the court may be asking for something single use that same court may not understand the full implications of what they are asking. Thus the need for a public discourse on the topic.

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#93
post #18

Twitter doesn't seem like an appropriate medium for a response to this issue from a CEO of a major tech company. Hello! This isn't a picture of the burger you had for lunch or a pithy remark fest, it's the most important thing affecting your users today. Take some time and write a god damn letter with your company's stance.

They also made a post about it.

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#94
post #91
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First many of those crime cartels could not exist without the banning of drugs, prostitution and gambling. That doesn't mean that it's an "invented crime." It's undeniable that drugs, gambling, and prostitution have real social costs and harms. The people are entitled to regulate commerce in their society generally, but trade in harmful things especially. When people uses organized violence to circumvent that regul…

> It's undeniable that drugs, gambling, and prostitution have real social costs and harms So does banking and the police. Or firearms and alcohol. Both are regulated, but not outlawed.

Heck so does "pursuing happiness". Skiing accidents. Bankruptcy when your art studio goes under. Smoking. Pretty much anything fun.

As a country, the USA is actually constituted to allow these things. Because, individual freedoms. And inalienable rights. I hear somebody want to crack down on something, I think "There goes somebody who forgot what it means to be American"

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#95
post #45

How long would it take, given the immense computing capabilities of the government, to try every possible permutation of Apple's signing keys in order for them to be able to sign their own home-grown version of iOS? With over a billion devices at stake, isn't that what intelligence agencies would actively be targeting?

Using brute force (i.e. "immense computing capabilities") for properly sized keys is unlikely to ever be practical with classical computers. With quantum computers, many currently deployed key lengths that would be impractical to brute force with classical computers would become vulnerable to attack, but nobody is currently known to have quantum computers of sufficient power. See Wikipedia for basic details[1]. IMO,…

Very interesting. I wonder how one feasibly could test "quantum resistant algorithms" without having a quantum computer to test it against.

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#96
post #83
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First many of those crime cartels could not exist without the banning of drugs, prostitution and gambling. The same goes for violent crimes in general. Large numbers of violent crimes are done by people involved in drug dealing or consuming. If drugs were legal you would not put so many people in these situations. Falling crime rates is happing all over the first world. Most countries have know-where near the policy…

> First many of those crime cartels could not exist without the banning of drugs, prostitution and gambling. That doesn't mean that it's an "invented crime." It's undeniable that drugs, gambling, and prostitution have real social costs and harms. The people are entitled to regulate commerce in their society generally, but trade in harmful things especially. When people uses organized violence to circumvent that regul…

When the gov't attempted to prohibit drug use, it created the opportunity for a black market in prohibited drugs to thrive. If you can accept the following:

  * Some people are going to take drugs without regard to legality.
  * Some people are going to fill the market's need for drugs through smuggling or manufacturing.
  * The government is utterly incapable (by design, actually) of completely preventing the above.
  * Without criminalization of drugs manufacturing and sales, there would be very little or no reason for violence in the drugs trade.
Then it's fair to say that criminalizing drugs use is the cause of the violence, or at least that decriminalizing drugs use will result in a reduction in violence.

>violent street gangs long predate any restrictions on drugs or alcohol

Violent street gangs opportunistically traffic in contraband because prohibition creates a dearth of supply, driving prices high enough to support an illegal black market.

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#97
post #77
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First many of those crime cartels could not exist without the banning of drugs, prostitution and gambling. The same goes for violent crimes in general. Large numbers of violent crimes are done by people involved in drug dealing or consuming. If drugs were legal you would not put so many people in these situations. Falling crime rates is happing all over the first world. Most countries have know-where near the policy…

Possible, but unlikely. According to a recent study, the majority of offenders are sentenced for violent offenses, and the majority of those sentenced for violent offenses have never been convicted of a drug crime.

>According to a recent study

Please post the study.

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#98
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman sounds less and less crazy every year.

Nobody ever said the danger that he was talking about are not real. However his is still a very edge position.

RMS was openly ridiculed and scoffed at until the Snowden revelations.

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using brute force (i.e. "immense computing capabilities") for properly sized keys is unlikely to ever be practical with classical computers. With quantum computers, many currently deployed key lengths that would be impractical to brute force with classical computers would become vulnerable to attack, but nobody is currently known to have quantum computers of sufficient power. See Wikipedia for basic details[1]. IMO,…

Very interesting. I wonder how one feasibly could test "quantum resistant algorithms" without having a quantum computer to test it against.

The same way we create and vet conventional cryptography: withstanding public scrutiny of experts until we are reasonably confident that there are no major issues. Most attacks are theoretical and require only novel analysis and a new bound on computational difficulty, not a proof of concept (i.e., algorithms are abandoned by cryptographers long before attacks become feasible).

Post quantum algorithms are simply algorithms designed and analyzed against a stronger threat model. Some of the attacks and techniques are still being developed, so no one knows if new quantum algorithms will be invented tomorrow that trivialize certain problems but the same danger is present to some extent for conventional cryptography today.

Re: Sundar Pichai Responds to Apple and the FBI Hacking Request

#100
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's undeniable that drugs, gambling, and prostitution have real social costs and harms So does banking and the police. Or firearms and alcohol. Both are regulated, but not outlawed.

Heck so does "pursuing happiness". Skiing accidents. Bankruptcy when your art studio goes under. Smoking. Pretty much anything fun. As a country, the USA is actually constituted to allow these things. Because, individual freedoms. And inalienable rights. I hear somebody want to crack down on something, I think "There goes somebody who forgot what it means to be American"

Being pedantic: pursuit of happiness and inalienable rights are in the Declaration of Independence, not the constitution. The right to regulate interstate commerce (and thus put restrictions on a lot of the fun things) is enumerated.
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