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Edward Snowden Calls For Google To Side With Apple On Encryption Debate (techinsider.io)
An anonymous reader writes: Edward Snowden, the most famous whistle blower in the world, is calling for Google to side with Apple and against the FBI in the "most important tech case in a decade." On Tuesday, the FBI asked Apple to help it crack the password on an iPhone belonging to a shooter in the high profile San Bernardino case. Apple CEO Tim Cook quickly responded with a public letter denying the request, calling it "an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers." Google creates Android, the most-used mobile operating system for smartphones in the world. Google has been nowhere near as firm as Apple about its stance on un-compromised encryption - Android is famously an open sourced platform that anyone can modify. Snowden issued his message in a tweet.
Thus far it seems Apple is not cooperating.
and... Enabling a party to defeat all the security measures that implement an encryption method is distinguishable from breaking the encryption, how?
They aren't being asked to compromise security so that the government* can get the data,
they're just being asked to compromise security so that the government* can get the data.
*and totally just the government, no way it would be abused by others
You don't think that the second it's been done, that the government won't attempt to reverse engineer the "firmware update" thus enabling them to do it to anyone? Regardless of whether or not it is POSSIBLE to reverse engineer it, the government will try to.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Ok, maybe this will be overstating it a bit for effect, but here goes:
In a sense, Google as an organization is a bit more conflicted in its mission, because its mission is/was to make the world's information free and available. Along the way it came up with services that customers liked, and they found that customers also benefitted from not being hacked, so they have some good security along with those services. But from the start it's mission wasn't the front line of being a secure service.
Apple is different. It designs and puts devices in people's hands which they come to regard as personal, inviolable, and private modes of communicating, and keeping information to themselves.
Merely from a practical view, I would say that Google should support Apple, just because in the future, if this case falls, they may find themselves in the same position of having to help the government over and over with increasingly mandatory tasks...
I don't have a problem with the specific thing that Apple is being asked to do. They aren't being asked to break the encryption they are being asked to change the firmware on the device to one that doesn't have an artificial throttle on the number of brute force attempts per second; and to disable the wipe command that is engaged with 10 wrong guesses.
I'm glad you're not the only one judging this then, because I have a problem with this. It would essentially mean that security could be defeated, which means it could be done by corrupt officials or corrupt Apple employees.
Sorry, maybe if Feds wanted info from the San Bernardino "terrorists" they shouldn't have shot them up and arrested them instead for questioning later using the guaranteed $5 exploit: https://xkcd.com/538/
I guess when you just gun down everyone you might lose key data!
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The problem is this is how the slippery slope is entered. Today it's a terrorist's phone, tomorrow a drug dealer's, the day after that, a shoplifter's. The day after that, arrested protestors' phones. The day after that, anyone who is arrested for any reason gets their phone swept. And so on. The Supreme Court has already said that a locked phone is protected under the 4th amendment. Just exactly where does the line get drawn on who that amendment no longer applies to?
The problem with that is the tool thats been created can then open every phone of a generation and is been seen as been in gov hands via an open court.
Once a federal gov gets that back door ready OS, so do states, cities, their workers, contractors, other nations that work with the USA.
Former staff, ex staff, the private sector, contractors start walking with the methods and skills to anyone with cash for the OS backdoor.
Once a brand gets to be seen as spy friendly in open court its hard to pull back from the optics as every phone after that will be seen as gov ready as designed and sold.
Its not just one phone, its a method for a generation of phones. If that becomes legal and public, people of interest change their habits and the brand is seen as spy friendly. Interesting people dont have to use a phones. Govs now have signals intelligence as a main tool as they now lack human informants and skilled undercover teams. All the new funding went to signals intelligence that "always" worked as big brands always helped.
The UK had the right idea over decades, never comment, never go to court, never have anything in the press. The public was none the wiser and keeps on trusting cell networks tame encryption, buying from big brands, talking and networking. Collect it all was easy for the UK and the wider legal system never worked out how a case really started.
Now the US is undoing decades of global device access in months in public with requests for OS and product wide backdoors.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I dont know how Apple does it on its chips but other companies have done it via one-time-programmable fuses.
I have long been one of those to poke fun at Apple fanbois and their walled garden. But Tim Cook's ethical stance is making me seriously consider my next phone choice.
Public/government information should be free, but what's mine should stay mine.
Come on Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Cisco, Twitter, Yahoo, Motorola - be Spartacus! Collectively you can face down the Leviathan!
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If it were "possible" why wouldn't they simply reverse engineer the current firmware and remove the restrictions themselves.
You don't think that the second it's been done, that the government won't attempt to reverse engineer the "firmware update" thus enabling them to do it to anyone? Regardless of whether or not it is POSSIBLE to reverse engineer it, the government will try to.
You would fairly be within the realm of probable cause if you suspected your government's information gathering acronyms were breakers of rules.
Don't you think Apple is trying to take the high road and regain some integrity on the international market? Many US corporations, especially tech firms, have suffered from their government's exploits.
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I respect Apple's stance although I have no love for their business practices.
To me this just says that they have crunched numbers and found this to be the fiscally sound stance to take. They are the richest company - I hope there is a reason beyond faux status symbols and "ooooh shiny".
All of those companies will lobby whatever they think is best for their bottom line even if they're in opposition to everything else - even themselves.
I'm sure Cisco would love to sell you network encryption options while also selling the equipment to allow mass collection of that encrypted data for attempted cracking. Why sell weapons to only one side?
Obviously their are mathematical reasons why breaking strong encryption is hard, but security is only as strong as its weakest link which in the case of an iPhone is the 4 digit pin code. Modifying the OS to allow brute forcing of the pin code isn't a mathematical impossibility.
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