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."

Comments

Can you compel a backdoor?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're saying FBI can compel features intended to backdoor the security measures, then you're establishing the legal principle of forced backdoors.
It takes a company to push back to see how this works.

Can I remind you of Microsoft's response to these 'informal' requests:

http://mashable.com/2013/09/11/fbi-microsoft-bitlocker-backdoor/#LWWoIFIk28qM

They were asked repeatedly and often to backdoor Bitlocker, and Windows 10 comes out and it uploads the encryption key to Microsoft servers ready for the FBI to demand it with legal warrant.... well the FBI, FSA, Chinese and everyone else regardless of jurisdiction of the person to demand the key. Because it no longer matters what jurisdiction the person is in, it only matters which (multiple) jurisdictions Microsoft operates in.

Re:Is he really agreeing?

[grim4593]

Any statement that Google wants to make will need to be proofread by multiple people and then vetted by lawyers, not just to ensure they don't overstep some legal bounds but also to make sure there wouldn't be anything in it that the shareholders could target later if there is some backlash.
It would not surprise me if Apple had been developing their response in anticipation to the judges request for some time.

Not in China

[DNS-and-BIND]

Apple is openly defying US security orders, but in China it takes a very different approach

Apple’s response to US and UK government demands for backdoors to user data has been direct, bordering on defiant. Yesterday (Feb. 16), Apple CEO Tim Cook published a letter explaining the company’s refusal to comply with a US federal court order to help the FBI access data on a phone recovered from one of the attackers in the San Bernardino, California shootings.

Apple appears to take a different tack in dealing with data security demands from China, a key growth market for the company.

In January 2015, the state-run newspaper People’s Daily claimed, in a tweet, that Apple had agreed to security checks by the Chinese government. This followed a piece in the Beijing News (link in Chinese) that claimed Apple acceded to audits after a meeting between Cook and China’s top internet official, Lu Wei. China’s State Internet Information Office would reportedly be allowed to perform “security checks” on all Apple products sold on the mainland. According to the report, this was despite Cook’s assurances that the devices didn’t contain backdoors accessible by any government, including the US.

If Apple had indeed agreed to a Beijing security audit, it could have shared vital information with the Chinese government, such as its operating system’s source code, that could indirectly help government agents discover vulnerabilities on their own. It would have been a serious departure from Apple’s public, privacy-centric stance.

So, Apple proudly stands up to the US government, while bending over and submitting to special audits from China. It's like Hollywood and how they would never, ever censor their true artistic vision - except in China where they happily cut out the hero's heartfelt speech about how people should be free. It's like some kind of cuckold fetish where American companies feel great pleasure to submitting to violation. And yet, at home, they maintain the facade with angry denials and "we love freedom" speeches.

Ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFA

we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.

Does this mean that we own our iphones and that it is ours to hack and mod as we see fit?

This is the problem with selling flawed products

[bigpat]

The FBI isn't asking for a new backdoor, they are asking to use one that Apple already created inadvertently. Call it a design flaw, but this older model phone has a flaw that allows Apple to send it a signed software update that will disable the limit on password tries.

And if it is a 4 digit numeric pin that means only 10k possible combinations. Basically someone trying every combination manually could probably crack it in a few days assuming Apple can also update the firmware so that it can check the password without delay.

I agree that Apple should be able to design and sell phones without back doors and that they should not be compelled to provide back doors to the government. But they are the ones that got themselves into this with a poor security design on this older phone.

On the newer phones apparently this is apparently not an issue since the chip that stores the encryption keys is what enforces the password try limit.

This case isn't about privacy. I don't think anyone with any knowledge of the law and legal precedent would seriously dispute the government's right to search the phone of someone who has carried out a terrorist attack.

What this case is about what a third party can reasonably be ordered to do (without compensation?) to facilitate a legal search. This goes well beyond a landlord being ordered to unlock a back door. Or even allowing a wire tap to be installed on a phone line. My guess would be that assisting the FBI would probably take a few days and potentially disrupt Apple's iOS QA cycle for that long if they have to utilize in house resources.

Maybe longer since they essentially have to fork the iOS code base for this one device and then somehow isolate and target this one device for a software update. Oh and really trying hard not to brick the phone in the process. Not trivial, but certainly a somewhat borderline case considering the relatively vast resources of Apple.

And being ordered to turn over their iOS signing certificate and iOS source code so the FBI can do it themselves should be way way off the table.