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Former NSA, CIA Director Michael Hayden Sides With Apple Over FBI (foxbusiness.com)
cold fjord writes: General Michael Hayden (Retired), who served as head of both the NSA and CIA, has taken a position supporting Apple in its conflict with the FBI. Apple is fighting a court order to assist the FBI in breaking into the government owned phone used by one of the two dead terrorists responsible for the recent San Bernardino massacre. General Hayden stated, "You can argue this on constitutional grounds. Does the government have the right to do this? Frankly, I think the government does have a right to do it. You can do balancing privacy and security dead men don't have a right to privacy. I don't use those lenses. My lens is the security lens, and frankly, it's a close but clear call that Apple's right on just raw security grounds. ... I get why the FBI wants to get into the phones but this may be a case where we've got to give up some things in law enforcement and even counter terrorism in order to preserve this aspect, our cybersecurity."
If, eventually, a computer can do whatever a human can do, and do it better, what is the point of human existence?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Who are we to believe?
I've stated before this case is theater to allow Apple to comply without damaging their bottom line.
It's a show to make you feel better.
Now Snowden basically sums it up.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/snowd...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Can we can bring him out of retirement and put him back in charge?
if secrets are outlawed only genocidal mutants will have secrets?
Translation... The NSA/CIA is already able to break into iPhones without Apple's help and we don't want to share our advantage with the FBI.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Cunning straw man he's raising. Note he's not objecting on constitutional grounds, and agrees the government has a right to ask Apple to do this. He's objecting for some nebulous 'security' reason. What, precise, impact to the security of iOS phones could -actually- crafting the exploit (rather than keeping it as a theoretical concept that we all know is possible) cause?
Why, the threat it escapes Apple's control, and can be used to hack any iPhone on the planet of course!
Leaving aside the obvious argument that, if Apple can keep the existing source and signing key secure, why would it suddenly lose control of a patched build for the FBI, watch his buddies at the FBI demolish that straw man by promising that Apple can keep the patched iOS version under lock and key, linked to a single iOS serial number, and destroy it afterwards. See, no problem now! No threat to the wider iOS ecosystem, no risk it could released into the wild.
Objecting to this on security grounds, that you think there's a risk that coding this exploit poses a danger to all iPhones, that it 'escaping' could be a problem, means you don't understand the issues. The true objection should be on grounds of freedom.
You can argue this on constitutional grounds. Does the government have the right to do this? Frankly, I think the government does have a right to do it.
I disagree. I think the government doesn't (or at least shouldn't) have the right to compel companies to break security protocols on behalf of the government when that would affect parties other than the one under legal scrutiny. Furthermore it seems clear to me that this creates an unreasonable burden on Apple (or any other company) to support the government. I'm not sure the court in this case fully appreciates what they are asking from Apple. By breaking the encryption on this device they materially devalue the product Apple is selling substantially. I think you can argue this on at minimum 1st and 4th amendment grounds.
it's a close but clear call that Apple's right on just raw security grounds.
"Close"? No it isn't. Apple is clearly correct that breaking security for one phone breaks them all. That's how it works. Anybody with even a basic understanding of cryptography on computers would know this. If we break it for the US government we break it for foreign governments, black-hats, paparazzi, etc. There is no way to restrict it to just one specific party. Apple is 100% correct to do what they are doing. I'm not always a fan of Apple but they are both morally and technologically correct in their position here.
If, eventually, a computer can do whatever a human can do, and do it better, what is the point of human existence?
Some humans can do everything certain other humans can do and do it better. Does that make the existence of less capable humans pointless? I think not.
Anyway it's a moot question. You can argue that the point of human existence is to pass on their genes and robots cannot in any manner pass on human genes. So there is always at least one thing humans can do better than robots.
Why is it that only former and retired officials have them, and never the current ones? Pure public relations bullshit.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Really, the guy is coming down on the side I think is right, for both 'security' and (of course) technological reasons, but I don't trust him, have this sneaking feeling that there is some hidden agenda, or that we're being misdirected somehow. Isn't that sad?
Am I the only one that feels this way about this? Somehow I think not.
See what you've done to us U.S. Law Enforcement and Government? You've fucked everything up so much that we can't trust anyone anymore, even when they agree with us.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
General Hayden stated, "You can argue this on constitutional grounds."
I wasn't aware that ever worked.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
there is something on the phone that implicates General Hayden as a terrorist!
This guy Michael Hayden is a war criminal and couldn't care two shits about any of us personally nor the FBIs ruthlessness. He and the FBI commit and cover up the same crimes. See below. They have methods of surveillance and murder so high tech they don't even need access to our cellphones by the way. It is one big cover story. They already have access to all the intelligence they just want us to believe they get it off our cellphones sometimes.
The Executive Summary:
Neuropsychological and Electronic
No-Touch Torture Report
Based on “The Torture Memos” and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Declassified “Torture Report”
By Robert Duncan, A.B., S.M., M.B.A., Ph.D.
04/2015
Download: PDF, DOCX | Visit drrobertduncan.com.
Torture is a horrific topic and most minds will turn away from it because it can’t be comprehended that humans can be motivated, or computer programs can be run to do this to other sentient beings. Just when we believed we were becoming more civilized as a culture, the technology for torture has advanced more than a hundred fold in recent decades.
This summary will get into ‘the minds of the dishonorable monsters’ of the psychology of torture. Those like Dick Cheney who helped authorize it under certain administrations and regimes of the U.S. government which have been proven to be criminal under U.S. law, treaties, and the International Criminal Court. There are many people involved in the conspiracy and cover-up including General Hayden.
The full report discloses the spectrum of techniques of interrogation and torture used by the U.S. and its allies. The United States government will officially deny the claims of this “no-touch torture report” but in time it will stand firm.
The technologies used are still classified as state secrets and will not be discussed in this summary. The torture methods have been leaked through thousands of American citizens who have survived the no-touch torture programs. The research and testimony has been accumulated since 2002 and merely used as examples but the names of the victims are withheld.
This report will not use skewed, misleading language such as “enhanced interrogation” to describe the torture techniques.
Why torture? The CIA claims it works. The assumption is that it works to gain actionable intelligence. Torture is often used for revenge, punishment, interrogation, and behavior modification. In other terms torture is used to remove the continuity of thought to confuse the target to reveal information, erase brain patterns such as values and beliefs, or to break down the human spirit to make them submit and obey their handlers.
The downside of torture is that the countries that do it lose “moral soft power” in world politics. Without due process, over 25% of those reported in the Senate Torture Report were declared innocent. Blowback is always a repercussion of torture. Torture often takes a long time to affect the target from months to years. Torture has shown to be unreliable except for getting false confessions and bad information but the U.S. and its allies are improving on their tactics and techniques.
The purpose of this report is to draw the parallels between physical torture techniques and no-touch torture methods used in secret by governments who possess the technologies that still go on today. This is a brief summary of offensive psychological and information warfare methods using traditional methods and modern cybernetic techniques while exploring hyper-game theory to walk the target to the desired path: leak intelligence, commit assassinations, or change beliefs.
Numerated Torture Methods for
Interrogation and Behavior Modification
(A comparison between physical and no-touch torture tactics)
1. Induction of Depressive/Manic states
The idea is to shake up the emotional states of the target because different information can be accessed at each state. Making the target fee
Govt doesn't have rights.
Question everything the spooks, Schmidt, Cook says.
Blackmail works. Coercion and Cooperation are sisters.
The only reason this is happening, is that the key in question is expected to be unusually easy to brute force. (We think the user's passphrase was 4 or 5 decimal digits.)
The general case is much harder, and it doesn't matter how much you beg/force a manufacturer or anyone else:
No matter which side wins this battle, the war is settled: attack loses and defense wins.
It should be worthless to the government to attempt to win this new right of theirs, since they're in the closing days of ever getting to use it anyway. It also looks like it's nearly worthless to Apple and the public, to win the defense against this government expansion. No matter which side's shoes I try to wear, victory and defeat look nearly the same, and there's little risk of dangerous precedent.
What am I missing? Tell me how a government or Apple win causes a future that is unlike its alternative.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
He wasn't talking about Apple's position on encryption. He was saying the argument that the government should be allowed to force Apple to break the iPhone security.
RTFA yourself. That is a distinction without a difference. Security = Encryption in this case. The iPhone's security relies on encryption. To break the iPhone security means to circumvent the encryption. By breaking or circumventing the encryption you make the encryption (security) immediately worthless on every iPhone in the process. Arguing that the government has a right to force Apple to break this security means that ALL citizens are no longer entitled to first and fourth amendment rights and the privacy rights that flow from them. It also creates an unreasonable economic burden on Apple as a company. Furthermore the government is arguing a position that would fundamentally weaken the security of products the government uses itself.
Short version is that I completely disagree with his assertion that the government does (or should) has any constitutionally granted authority to force Apple to break the security of their own products.
If you do not understand, you may listen to Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina.
What they say is that "computer security is a threat to national security. We must be able to break into ANY system, as it may contain operational data of terrorist". Worldwide, anywhere. (Ok, my words, but read them, that's what these women say).
Now, how do they procure Security by Computer Insecurity ?
The most important element is the C language, which has successfully displaced Algol- and Pascal- based operating systems like the ones from HP (MPE), Unisys, ICL and Elbrus. By small coincidence it was the U.S. government who invented the C language (through their Bell Laboratories organization, also an NSA contractor).
The mentioned Memory Safe Languages had lots and lots of built-in Safeguards against cyber intrusions. That was deemed a national security threat. So USG started to push the C/Unix Crack. Just imagine how horribly dangerous it would be for Hillary if people could communicate in private (with truly secure ciphers running on a secure OS) using their computers ! The undisputed rule of the 1% would be in danger and they could no longer hose the 99% thoroughly.
See ? Your computer must not be secure, because only terrorists need secure computers. And Cyber War is a good thing, creates revenue for Raytheon, L3, Lockheed and similar benevolent outfits.
there's ponies in that?
Michael Hayden presided over the increased Mass Collection "just in case" of innocent communications data. He essentially excremented on Magna Charta and the U.S. constitution.
His reasoning was that "all that data is stored in a lockbox. It will only be touched when an analyst searches (like googleing) in the lockbox". Of course even if that is true they can ANYTIME change the rules. They can write algorithms which will do much more than the described search engine does. E.g. "give me all persons who ever called the anoymous alcoholics phone number and a MD in the same time frame".
If General Michael Hayden were a lover of freedom, he would never have allowed the collection of totally innocent data. Instead, he would have limited the collection to the 0.1% of suspicious persons and their immediate communications partners. But he is a control freak, he is a traitor to freedom and we better do not trust him.
Captcha "redneck". Yeah, what a rooten people you are. You deserve NSA, slashdotters.
They apparently got hold of hundreds of thousands of SSH and IPSEC keys. Best guess is that they run a covert, automated program to
1.) subvert firefox by means of main-in-the-middle malware injection - they own the network backbones
2.) install a keylogger in X11
3.) collect pass phrase and .ssh contents
4.) Store them in a big data silo for future use
5.) use said keys to unmask any SSH and IPSEC communications
In other words, I cannot seee them losing. Rather, it seems their total victory has already happened.
cold fjord, surveillance state apologist.
Hayden is sitting on the fence to get back in the TV/Cable common tater game for $$.
When the bitcoin trail from China, to Syria/Somalia/Yemen/Iran leads to Cook's bank accounts in Ireland then the real fun starts.
Ha ha
dead men don't have a right to privacy
Is this true? is that the law in USA? ... If death makes private information easier to legally obtain, doesn't that make it very dangerous for the people still alive with private information? it's far easier to make people dead and then legally obtain their secrets than convince the courts that they have no right to privacy while alive.
Hell has frozen over!
GNU Hurd hits version 1.0!
systemd releases to universal acclaim!
The Sagrada Familia cathedral is finished!
The Linux Year of the Desktop is formally proclaimed!
A final gesture of good will to the people of this little planet who have given—from whom he have taken—so much.
The bottom line on Cops / FBI is one thing and one thing only...
YOU CANNOT TRUST THEM.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
Even if you yourself just got murdered by a crack addict
in broad daylight wtih 10 witnesses, they're still going to
be looking at you sideways and eyeballing your coffin with
desire to search it and dig up the dirt over you so they can
send you to rot in jail too.
Cops are WORTHLESS, before, during and after the crime
(which by the way is just the shameful state sanctioned
vengeance you called for, not real healing between parties.)
FBI can be useful in the strictly feds on feds/public cases,
but feds on citizens are the same as Cops.
This seems to be counter to his usual opinion.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.