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EFF On Why FBI Can't Force Apple To Sign Code (boingboing.net)
New submitter Kurast writes with this article at Boing Boing: Code is speech: critical court rulings from the early history of the Electronic Frontier Foundation held that code was a form of expressive speech, protected by the First Amendment. The EFF has just submitted an amicus brief in support of Apple in its fight against the FBI, representing 46 "technologists, researchers and cryptographers," laying out the case that the First Amendment means that Apple can't be forced to utter speech to the government's command, and they especially can't be forced to sign and endorse that speech. In a "deep dive" post, EFF's Andrew Crocker and Jamie Williams take you through the argument, step by step. (You can follow along by reading the brief itself (PDF), too.)
so that's what their calling 50 page walls of text these days, eh?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
It is true that the FBI cannot force Apple to produce new code that does not today exist.
But, code is not speech.
What the FBI cannot do is force a company to do something that will cause it irreparable harm and devalue its entire business model. Forcing Apple to produce this code goes against Apple's right to be free of unreasonable seizures, as the FBI would in effect be seizing 80% of the value of the company, if not more, to get a backdoor into all iPhones.
First, the FBI does not have a right to a backdoor into all iPhones. Second, Apple has a right to retain the value of its enterprise. Speech has nothing to do with it, and no reasonable person sees this as a free speech issue. This can and should be laughed out of court until Apple et al make the correct legal arguments.
Look. I see EFF lawyers saying code is speech and is protected. And I see EFF lawyers saying code is math and is not eligible for patent protection and sometimes not even eligible for copyright protection. I want an EFF lawyer to explain their stand on how these three mechanisms apply to code before this story gets posted AGAIN and it had better be consistent.
Not our coinage!!! Nooooooooooo...
Now I can't hoard gold! Oh wait, yes I can.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
for one in aSetWithOneMore {
change(one).intoOneWithPlus(4)
if ( one.isNot(five) ) {
print("The numbers don't jive!!")
\\/* At this point increase players score. */
}
}
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
ah you think the constitution is your ally. When your precious constitution declared warrantless search and seisure to be unlawful, we merely declared our our borders to be hundreds of miles long. We declared our wiretaps to be constitutional through "metadata."
When the constitution declared the first amendment sacrosanct, we merely declared those who spoke against us as "enemy combatants" and had them executed by drone without so much as a second thought. We bombed the news stations that refused to fall in line with our message during our wars, and we openly slaughtered their journalists in the field. When it was reported, we sentenced the whistleblower to rot in prison.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Code is instructions to a computer to do something.
Agreed.
The computer cannot interpret code as an expression, because computers are not sentient. Code cannot therefore be considered expression, as it is not being written to convey ideas to other people.
Your argument goes off the rails here. I absolutely can convey ideas to other people through code. You are making the mistake of presuming the computer is the audience for the ideas being conveyed. That is incorrect. Other people are the audience, the computer is merely the means. Saying code cannot be used to convey ideas is as absurd as saying written music cannot convey ideas because you need a musical instrument to play it.
It died in 1913 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve but few were willing to accept the fact until '64, when we enjoyed a coup and had our coinage debased.
Indeed.
For those who do not understand, try reading "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin.
https://archive.org/details/Cr...
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The government can mandate you buy a product, why not a mandate to open a product. If you believe the government can force you to do an action, why not another? What makes this any different than any other government force?
They already dictate your 4th amendment rights, so restricting your 1st for the "public good" is no stretch.
Just trying to make you think about the scope, that once you start giving up your rights for something you want, the government can limit your other rights.
Don't being a hypocrite when it comes to picking and choosing which rights you want to defend, defend them all.
And I see EFF lawyers saying code is math and is not eligible for patent protection and sometimes not even eligible for copyright protection.
Some code cannot be copyrighted, though this is the exception rather than the rule. For example I can write a hello world program but I can't copyright it because it is too basic to be considered a creative work but I can write a word processor and I can copyright that. In principle no code should be eligible for patents because the code should be adequately protected by copyright. You shouldn't be able to patent math. Patents should only be for tangible goods. But there is a sufficient level of creativity in coding that allowing a copyright is reasonable. (presuming we think copyright itself is reasonable which is a separate discussion)
I don't think the EFF is being inconsistent at all in their stance on these issues.
Ultimately it shouldn't matter...
Because the next version of all smart devices should not update unless unlocked.
Let the FBI put that in their pipe and smoke it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Should a car company be compelled into having to add government mandated components (air bag, seat belt, side mirrors, headlights, etc) to their designs which are eventually made into real and tangible objects?
I don't think there is any debate that the government can mandate companies follow regulations. I think the point here is that the government is attempting to mandate Apple perform an action that is arguably unconstitutional. You can make reasonable arguments against the FBI's actions under at least the 1st and 4th amendments. The FBI's actions would have all sorts of negative knock on effects if they get their way.
Sure... Unless laws are passed that outlaw the sale or import of any devices that the manufacturer or service provider cannot unlock upon request with a warrant.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I think the First Amendment argument is not as strong as the argument against the government forcing a company to build something that it does not normally build. Should the government be able to force Black and Decker to build firearms? Should they be able to force Dupont to manufacture napalm? Now, if these companies WANT to manufacture these goods, that's one thing, but forcing them to do it is quite another.
Proverbs 21:19
Even if that fell under "free speech", you are completely free to design and even BUILD a car without that stuff. What you can't do is drive it on public roads with other drivers.
Even if that fell under "free speech", you are completely free to design and even BUILD a car without that stuff. What you can't do is drive it on public roads with other drivers.
Applying the car analogy back to the current topic: perhaps Apple can create an unhackable iPhone, but would they be allowed to let it emit radio signals?
The radio spectrum, like most roads, is public property.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Have you never seen COBOL?
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
Calculator.
PERFORM 3 TIMES
DISPLAY "Enter First Number : " WITH NO ADVANCING
ACCEPT Num1
DISPLAY "Enter Second Number : " WITH NO ADVANCING
ACCEPT Num2
DISPLAY "Enter operator (+ or *) : " WITH NO ADVANCING
ACCEPT Operator
IF Operator = "+" THEN
ADD Num1, Num2 GIVING Result
END-IF
IF Operator = "*" THEN
MULTIPLY Num1 BY Num2 GIVING Result
END-IF
DISPLAY "Result is = ", Result
END-PERFORM.
STOP RUN.
Should a car company be compelled into having to add government mandated components (air bag, seat belt, side mirrors, headlights, etc) to their designs which are eventually made into real and tangible objects?
Free speech is not absolute and courts recognize the need to balance freedom of speech with public interests. In the case of safety regulation, you'd be hard to find any judge who thinks that requiring safety devices is violating free speech. Now if the government mandated what specific colors a car company could use, that is different. The government can regulate the type of paint (lead-free, anti-corrosive agents, chemical base) but not the color.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It would seem to me that EFF's line of defense is dependent on the Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission, where it was ruled that corporations have the same constitutional rights to free speech as people. If Apple did not have such a right, then the government could force them to produce and sign code. I personally was unhappy with the Citizens United vs FEC ruling, but this is an area where it could have a positive impact on me.
If the recovery key is based on the password, and San Bernardino changed the password, then they've pretty much screwed themselves, haven't they? Can't they just throw the NSA and a few thousand years of computer time at the problem and brute force it?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They want more money for prisons because they have stock in the for-profit prison companies, duh! If you were profiting handsomely from locking people up, you'd want more people locked up to! Unless, of course, you weren't a total douchebag, but in that case, you wouldn't be a "conservative" either, would you?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They can't because Apple's encryption system will only accept 10 PIN attempts. If you don't get it right within 10 times, it'll wipe the phone. The FBI isn't really saying "decrypt this phone for us." What they do want is for Apple to push an update (remotely and with the phone still locked) that will 1) disable the 10 time limit and 2) allow them to key in the PIN attempts via a computer (simulating a keyboard connected via USB).
All this being said, Apple is right to resist this because, despite the FBI claiming it's a one-time thing, the FBI and others have hundreds of phones lined up for Apple's help to unlock. If Apple writes this software, it won't be tied to one phone. It'll need to be used over and over for new phones every day. And if you say, "They can just write it for one phone and delete it," then the courts will just answer "well, you wrote it once, you can do it again." Alternatively, the FBI might demand a general tool to use for future investigations once they have a record of getting these phones unlocked whenever they want.
The time to fight this is now and thank goodness Apple is taking up the fight. This is one of those all-too-rare occurrences when corporate interests and consumer interests align.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
None of your examples are even remotely close to being compelled to say something that you don't approve of, and especially forcing you to sign it in a manner that uniquely ties it to you.
Not our coinage!!! Nooooooooooo...
Now I can't hoard gold! Oh wait, yes I can.
Well sure, today you can... but in 1964 you couldn't.
Private ownership of gold was illegal back then. It wasn't legalized again until 1974.