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Apple Details US Requests For Customer Data

Posted by samzenpus on from the give-me-a-number dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Not to be left out Apple has released details about government requests for customer data. The company said it received between 4,000-5,000 government requests, affecting as many as 10,000 accounts or devices. From the article: 'The iPad maker said that it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies for customer data from December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, and that 9,000 to 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in the requests. Apple did not state how many of the requests were from the National Security Agency or how many affected accounts or devices may have been tied to any NSA requests.' Facebook and Microsoft released their numbers this weekend."

9 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Just keep calm, nothing to see here by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just keep shopping America, pay no attention to the camera over your shoulder. I mean if you don't have anything to hide, you have nothing to fear.

    --
    I got here through a series of tubes
  2. Less complaining, more fixing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's easy to criticize the status quo. It's harder to work on a long-term solution. But the fact is, we won't be able to control the rise in totalitarianism in government if we continue to cede our control of the government itself.

  3. Shocked I am not. by Kenja · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Government is doing what we said they could (and in some cases insisted) do. Not sure why everyone is acting so shocked.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:Shocked I am not. by Kenja · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just because I'm not shocked they're doing what we said they could do does not mean I like it. However the time to raise objections was when the laws where passed. We can't really get mad that they are following the laws we let pass. Now if you want to talk about overturning the laws, that would be a constructive discussion. But getting mad about the NSA watching us after the Patriot Act etc passed is just silly.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    2. Re:Shocked I am not. by x_t0ken_407 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So if we did not want to the Patriot Act to be passed in the first place, according to you it's "silly" to continue being mad that it was passed? And now that the [pacified] public realizes the extent that the unconstitutional law is being used, those who were against the law from the beginning are "silly" to try to capitalize on said realization? If some of us have objected to the law since it was passed, should we not now continue objecting to it, because it would be "silly"? Flawed logic, imo.

      Perhaps you meant "those who idly watched as the Patriot Act was passed are silly to be mad about the current events"? Not everyone who posts here "idly watched"...your post makes the incorrect assumption that everyone did -- apparently by the fact that the Patriot Act still remains active. Just because it remains active does not mean that there was a minority of those who were against it.

  4. Tech industry is not the problem, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem is not technical at all, we have secret courts that account to no one, and have no public records - these are referred to as FISA courts but they could also be called Kangaroo Courts.

    The second issue is the national security letters that companies like Apple, MS, Google and Yahoo receive - they cant even acknowledge that they got the damn letter! how re they then supposed to be upfront with their customers about what they hand over?

    The problem is really that the judicial and legislative branches have given the executive too much power, and this isn't a Red vs Blue thing, Bush was bad, Obama is bad, and whoever is next will be as bad or worse unless we fundamentally change things bacl to the way they were structured under the Constitution/.

  5. This is Transparency without actual Transparency by paulsnx2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft gave a bit of detail about how this is done:

    "We are permitted to publish data on national security orders received (including, if any, FISA Orders and FISA Directives), but only if aggregated with law enforcement requests from all other U.S. local, state and federal law enforcement agencies; only for the six-month period of July 1, 2012 thru December 31, 2012; only if the totals are presented in bands of 1,000; and all Microsoft consumer services had to be reported together."

    That way nobody can really tell what these numbers mean...

  6. What About Bulk Data Dumps to NSA? by Ron+Bennett · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At first glance, 5,000 or whatever "government requests" doesn't seem that bad out of millions of accounts. But that number doesn't account for data that the NSA has access to from eavesdropping / backdoors, bulk data dumps, and data acquired via 3rd parties.

  7. Truthiness by Meneth · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What, if anything, compels Apple and the others to be truthful about these numbers?