Tim Cook Says Apple Can't Read Users' Emails, That iCloud Wasn't Hacked

Apple CEO Tim Cook insists that Apple doesn't read -- in fact, says Cook, cannot read -- user's emails, and that the company's iCloud service wasn't hacked. ZDNet presents highlights from Cook's lengthy, two-part interview with Charlie Rose. One selection of particular interest: Apple previously said that even it can't access iMessage and FaceTime communications, stating that such messages and calls are not held in an "identifiable form." [Cook] claimed if the government "laid a subpoena," then Apple "can't provide it." He said, bluntly: "We don't have a key... the door is closed." He reiterated previous comments, whereby Apple has said it is not in the business of collecting people's data. He said: "When we design a new service, we try not to collect data. We're not reading your email." Cook went on to talk about PRISM in more detail, following the lead from every other technology company implicated by those now-infamous PowerPoint slides.

Comments

Is this technically impossible - no.

[queazocotal]

Is it legally possible... Not everywhere certainly.
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/in...
Is he required to lie about this?

Re:Is this technically impossible - no.

[Tuidjy]

I personally don't believe that the NSA can't crack strong encryption.

I'm not quite sure what you are saying. It sounds to me as if you think that there is no encryption strong enough that the NSA cannot crack it. This is completely false.

A simple example is using one time pad encryption. Without the pad, you you cannot even theoretically crack it. Try every possible pad, and you will get every possible message of the proper length - some of them will make perfect sense, so you will not be able to find the right one.

Taking it a bit further, there are encryptions that would take too long to crack, if they are properly executed, and the NSA does not have a backdoor. And by too long, I mean that there is not enough time before the heat death of the Universe.

Hell, I am perfectly sure that I could establish communication with some of my friends from college that could not be cracked, even theoretically. I would have to exchange some information with them in a secure manner before hand, of course. But I would never take the risk of doing something like this. It would attract the wrong kind of attention.

Poor Apple

[obarthelemy]

It seems they've picked "privacy" as a fighting point vs Google. They don't seem to realize that people either
1- don't care anyway
or
2- care, and know Apple is bullshitting.

tanslation for the masses:

[nimbius]

Tim cook, talking head who has only ever held managerial roles in various fortune 100 companies, expels platitudes about the sanctity of the iGalaxy for users who slept through FISA and NSA backdoors and only recently began giving a shit when selfies and nudes were leaked from the magical cloud by notorious hacker 4chan.