Should Apple Decrypt the San Bernardino iPhone?

All that doesn't bother me at all! I believe that anything you found is public knowledge.

If someone is desperate enough to find my info, address or phone number, because they need to get a hold of me that badly, they're more than welcome to stop on by or give me a call! I've got nothing, nothing to hide!

Now, in your searches of me, you were to find out that I had plans to rape and pillage a town, or run down somebody with my boat or car, or go on a killing spree, or harm myself, wouldn't you do something about it or contact the proper authorities? Or would you just let "nature" take it's course?



Cheers
What's 'too far' in your opinion....where do you draw the line on snooping? What's private to you?
 
All that doesn't bother me at all! I believe that anything you found is public knowledge.

If someone is desperate enough to find my info, address or phone number, because they need to get a hold of me that badly, they're more than welcome to stop on by or give me a call! I've got nothing, nothing to hide!

Now, in your searches of me, you were to find out that I had plans to rape and pillage a town, or run down somebody with my boat or car, or go on a killing spree, or harm myself, wouldn't you do something about it or contact the proper authorities? Or would you just let "nature" take it's course?



Cheers

I'm not sure if your understanding what's at stake in TonkaBoaters example of what he was able to find from public records I have been a victim of identity theft 4 times in the last 4 years, the 1st time was a post box at the post office being broken into, Target, Home Depot & medical records that were breached. I now have a lifetime security lock on our credit which has stopped 2 failed attempts trying to open up credit accounts.

Once your data is out there it's forever these scammers are not idiots they are very experienced well educated professionals, running very sophisticated databases that capture small amounts of data into databases putting together a full and detailed account of all your history including your whole family.

If a backdoor is created or found on any device it will be breached by someone. In Apples case users are depending on encryption to keep their data safe right or wrong folks using apps like Apple Pay have a lot to lose.

This isn't the first time the government has asked for backdoors it dates back to the late 80's just do a google search on software backdoors here's a couple examples.

Never let it be said that the NSA doesn't have some clever tricks up its sleeve. Recent revelations about its TAO (Tailored Access Operations) program show that one of the NSA's tricks involves intercepting hardware slated for delivery overseas, adding backdoors to the device's firmware, and sending the bugged hardware on its merry way. Aside from network gear, the NSA also apparently planted surveillance software in the firmware for various PCs and even in PC peripherals like hard drives.

Yet another from the NSA, perhaps the sneakiest yet: a deliberate, stealthy weakening of a random number generator commonly used in cryptography. Theoretically, messages encrypted with the Dual_EC_DRBG (Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator) standard, ratified by NIST, had a subtle weakness that could allow them to be decrypted by an attacker. Only after Edward Snowden leaked internal NSA memos did it come to light that said agency had manipulated the approval process for the standard to allow the backdoor to remain in the algorithm. Fortunately, plenty of other random number generators exist, and NIST has since withdrawn its recommendations for Dual_EC_DRBG. Small wonder people speculate what else the NSA may have hidden up its (and other peoples') sleeves.
 
Okay. Thanks!

Cheers
 
Since the phone belongs to the County....not the Terrorist, it should be opened if the County says open it! A work phone should never be considered private!

So, to paraphrase what you just said, the rightful owner of the phone, the FBI, and the courts can force a private company to build keys to the safe that will also unlock the safe of all their other customers. That is what is at stake, whether or not the citizens of the world can have encryption our overseers cannot access.

MM
 
So, to paraphrase what you just said, the rightful owner of the phone, the FBI, and the courts can force a private company to build keys to the safe that will also unlock the safe of all their other customers. That is what is at stake, whether or not the citizens of the world can have encryption our overseers cannot access.

MM


That and the Feds now want APPLe to unlock phones apprehended in non terror related cases. This is not a slippery slope the feds are greasing. This is a Lemming Cliff and we the people are the lemmings.

Like it or not, politics has to enter this.

Justice Scalia would have had a field day with any federal attorney arguing against 4A in this case or any other. More the reason to vet the next justice with great care.
 
We are from the government. We are here to help. LOL ;0) The question really is 'can you purchase "safety" by compromising security?'. When seconds count the police are minutes away, when minutes count the Government is days away, or maybe even years. From the founding fathers we have (as country) prized Liberty over life itself. Understood (as a people) that freedom involves the protection of privacy. The information thing is Pandora's Box. Once you allow personal Liberty to be compromised in the pursuit of "Public Safety", you can never go back. Sure it would be great to know if the cell phone in question contained terrorist contacts. But what if you were a contact? Maybe an innocent work related contact, or his favorite Starbucks barista?? Who is gong to decide how to interpret what is on that phone, and what might the price be for giving that information to a government that can not close Guantanamo, and wants to take away our guns?? My wife is from Malaysia. My household has regular phone (and email) contact with a Muslim Country!! Probably all you guys I 'associate with' on this web site are Muslim sympathizers, and we are all going to GITMO ;0).
 
Since the phone belongs to the County....not the Terrorist, it should be opened if the County says open it! A work phone should never be considered private!

To be clear... this is not an issue of opening or unlocking the phone. Apple does that all the time with court orders. Apple could easily give the feds the info off the phone right now but the information is encrypted so they would be handing over a garbled mess of nothing. What the feds are demanding is that Apple change the firmware of their phones to include a decryption key (a back door). The feds will then update the firmware on the bombers phone and enter through the back door that they made Apple create.

I'm simplifying this but here's the gist... the only way to decrypt the phone is with the decryption key. For an iPhone the key is on the phone itself and it's on a separate chip than the main processor. The only way to access the decryption key is to enter your phone's password or your fingerprint if you have Touch ID enabled. If too many incorrect attempts are made then the phone self-destructs by way of the decryption key being destroyed. The feds were about to hit the limit with the attempts at unlocking so they had the county reset the passcode. Now the feds are screwed because the decryption key is tied to the original passcode.

There are so many issues at stake here...here are just three... 1) government forcing a private company to create access for the feds, 2) a back door that weakens the whole integrity of the phone, 3) a person's right to privacy.

You need to understand that this is not about "I have nothing to hide". The encryption isn't to help sickos hide... companies use these phones for business and they contain confidential information and trade secrets, people like me keep personal and confidential info on them too.

Think of this... what if you or a family member had an abortion or had a prescription for birth control? What if you miscarried? What if you were diagnosed with something bad? We all have things to hide but that doesn't make us sickos or criminals. We have a right to privacy.

Like I said, I make no attempt at anonymity but I do value my privacy.
 
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A nice thought provoking take on Apple's "high-mindedness" on the washingtonpost.com, "Deposing Tim Cook". Perhaps Apple is not quite so pure principled?

Besides, somewhere in Raqqa: "Allah Akbar. Mustafa, make sure all new arriving holy warriors are issued Iphones. Those stupid infidels at Apple are making crypto gear for us and making sure the Crusader forces can not break into them to learn our secrets."
 
I may be late to this party but....

If anyone here thinks that the government wants this "back door" for the San Bernardino case, you are either fooling yourself or you are as naive as a new born child. Frankly I am a little disappointed that people are not shouting from the roof tops.

The FACT is that they had more information on the two shooters MONTHS before the actual day of the crime then they could ever hope to get from the phone. They had him on multiple watch lists for over a year (that we know of). The case of unlocking this phone is all about unlocking all phones.

A couple hundred years ago (according to folk lore), citizens were warned "The British are coming. The British are coming." Guess what......"Our Government is coming. Our Government is coming".
 
A nice thought provoking take on Apple's "high-mindedness" on the washingtonpost.com, "Deposing Tim Cook". Perhaps Apple is not quite so pure principled?

Besides, somewhere in Raqqa: "Allah Akbar. Mustafa, make sure all new arriving holy warriors are issued Iphones. Those stupid infidels at Apple are making crypto gear for us and making sure the Crusader forces can not break into them to learn our secrets."

That's the worst piece of drivel that I've read in a long time... can I get the last 10 mins of my life back? Completely uninformed and he picks one single objection from Apple and bases his whole point of view on China. I hope this nut job is an attorney and gets to cross examine Apple because it will ensure their victory.

Apple is not the only phone maker with built-in encryption... terrorists have a ton of options beside Apple. Blackberry's whole sales pitch was their ironclad security... until they created a backdoor for Pakistan which just aided them in more human rights violations.

Let me ask you all this: None of us have anything to hide, right? How would you feel if the government installed a video camera and microphone on a pole and had it pointed at your house 24x7 recording your every move? The government promises not to look at it or use it against you unless you commit a crime. But if they "suspect" you have committed a crime they have a right to look at the footage. You have nothing to hide so it shouldn't matter, right? Building a mechanism into your phone that allows the government easy access is the same thing.

Feds, "We suspect you committed a crime and the court granted us a warrant to search your phone. Hand it over."
You, "I didn't commit a crime. Prove it."
Feds, "We suspect you did and we have a court order. We'll search the phone in order to prove it."

You can be forced to hand over your phone but you can't be forced to give them your password because of self incrimination.

This whole case is evolving every day. What the feds have asked Apple to do is update the firmware to remove the 5 second delay between passcode attempts and allow them to make password attempts via bluetooth and wifi. The way it is now, the iPhone has a 5 second window between password attempts. Too many wrong attempts and your phone is a paper weight. 5 seconds is not enough time for the government to try every possible password combination so if that restriction is removed they can automate password attempts using every possible combination. A 4 digit code can be hacked in about an hour. A 6 digit code in about a day. Alpha-numeric passwords could be anywhere from a day to 10 years to 1M years to hack.

I would really feel comfortable if the feds could brute force password attempts via wifi while I was sipping coffee at Starbucks or from a "Cable Company" van parked outside my house.
 
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The Washington Post is a rag. Used to make a good lining for the trays of the flight cages in the aviary.
 
This is great news for citizens and our country. Google, Facebook and Twitter are filing amicus briefs in support of Apple. Microsoft is expected to file it's own in support of Apple as well as the ACLU and EFF. As Boat Guy said, they understand the value of strong encryption. Weakening encryption will weaken our country and all of us -- it will not strengthen the bad guys. Bad guys will always find ways to do their bad things.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/te...le-amicus-briefs/ar-BBq0Eui?ocid=ansmsnnews11
 
Apple was able to create, produce and market a devise with no back door and fully encrypted in the US. No regulation say a devise needs a back door for government access.

Now they want to make Apple unlock it and jeopardize all the safe guards and credibility of the phone after the fact.
Take a hike g-man.
 
A couple of interesting quotes from the judge.

"What the government could not achieve in Congress, the judge said, it cannot now get from the courts. "The relief the government seeks is unavailable because Congress has considered legislation that would achieve the same result but has not adopted it."

"It is also clear that the government has made the considered decision that it is better off securing such crypto-legislative authority from the courts," Orenstein said, "rather than taking the chance that open legislative debate might produce a result less to its liking."

MM
 

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