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Google CEO Finally Chimes In On FBI Encryption Case, Says He Agrees With Apple (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: After Tim Cook's eloquent letter explaining why Apple wouldn't help the FBI get encrypted data from the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, the internet looked to Google to take a similar stand. Now Google CEO Sundar Pichai has posted five tweets that seem to show he agrees with Cook.
Edward Snowden had previously suggested that Google's silence meant Google had "picked a side, but it's not the public's."

5 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Apple Unlocked iPhones for Feds 70 Times Before by whipslash · · Score: 5, Informative

    True but this case related to iOS 8. Previous iOS versions were not as secure

  2. Re:Rulers of corporations... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Informative

    I get that you're trolling, but I just came in from walking the dog and was listening to some Right Wing talk radio in between periods of the Blackhawks-Rangers game. All the Right-Wing jackoffs are going on about how Tim Cook should be jailed for contempt or treason or something or other and how a corporation giving up encryption keys and backdoors is the same as if the local cops come to your door with a warrant and we should trust the NSA and FBI and all the three-letter agencies to make sure it's only the information on one phone that is decrypted.

    It just shows they don't mean a bit of it when they say how they hate Big Government. They just want Big Government on their own terms.

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  3. Re:It's all well and good... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hey whipslash, on a side note...

    I agree with you here, but even if I didn't - I'd like to say I find it refreshing that you're taking the time to participate in the discussions here on Slashdot. It shows that you're invested in this site in more ways than just financially, and I appreciate it!

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  4. this isn't a backdoor as such.. by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Informative

    this one case is a bit more tricky, since the fbi can reasonably say that apple can do what they want and it's not even that expensive. anyone with apples toolset and more importantly the signing key can do what fbi is requesting. fundamentally it's not even about 'creating' such a tool and that it would open a can of worms. it wouldn't. if something that could be created in half a day by altering a few lines would be a can of worms then it would already be a can of worms. on iphone 5C. those few lines would be the line where is the check for ten tries and the amount of delay introduced between tries. that would be enough to brute force it with a robot finger. another few hours would have the sw just brute force through all combinations on the phone itself - at just a rate of 1 per second it would be just few hours and since you can query the cpu/soc multiple times per second if the given pin is correct then if it's a 4 number pin it would take only something along the lines of half an hour, 5 number one would be still under half a day and six not too much long either. the part on the cpu on 5C that coughs up the code does not have extra protections or limits or any of that fancy stuff that 5S would do.

    because it's an iphone 5C and apple _CAN_ write firmware for it and load it on the phone to brute force the correct pin on the cpu to make the cpu cough up the encryption key this is not quite how apple spins it up. but apple doesn't want to admit(nor is it denying) that it can write the requested software - it's trying to argue that it doesn't have to, I guess in order to fight off further requests to modify firmwares that actually are delivered to consumer phones, which would need backdoors installed before hand.

    on iphone 5S and onwards it would not be possible. but try explaining this to a normal journalist. if apple opens it, they think that iphones all can be opened in same way - and apple has been publicly saying that they can't open them, (which is true for newer iphones than the 5C). suppose they do open it for them? what then? lawsuits from 5C owners who could arguably argue that they were mislead with marketing about the capabilities of their phone.

    so, on 5C the encryption key is on the cpu and can be queried multiple times per second with the right firmware and the right firmware can be loaded on boot from usb if you have apples signing keys(or if you can break the bootloader, I suppose). that is, on an iphone 5C the penalty wipe for guessing more than 10 times is performed in firmware loaded software and can be trivially circumvented if you have firmware source code and signing key. apple doesn't deny or admit this due to marketing and that it would confuse the hell out of people who don't understand the difference between 5c and 5s.

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  5. Re:Is he really agreeing? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's because Google isn't currently fighting in court with the FBI. I'm sure his lawyers have told him to phrase it that way, in case Apple loses and Google is next. No point giving the FBI ammunition to use in future legal arguments.

    In any case, Google is in a stronger position than Apple because its secure storage on its Nexus devices has firmware in ROM. It can't be modified or updated like Apple's, so there is no way they could introduce a back door or remove protections like rate limiting or a maximum number of incorrect guesses. It's in the silicon, so the FBI's current argument won't work.

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