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Apple Might Be Forced to Hand Over iOS Source Code to the FBI (theguardian.com)
Bruce66423 writes: In its latest filing, the FBI implies that, if the burden on Apple programmers of their alternative approach is too great, then Apple should release the whole source code to the FBI to allow them to do the work, quoting the precedent of the Lavabit confrontation. Clearly it is time for Apple to move offshore!? To recall, Lavabit abruptly shut down in 2013 when the FBI attempted to get the company to hand over the encryption keys for its secure email service. While the current situation seems to put Apple in the same ballpark as Lavabit, what gives the Cupertino-giant company an advantage is the immense support it is receiving from other Silicon Valley companies and personnel.
Many believe that the FBI doesn't really need Apple's help in unlocking the iPhone. Reports claim that the iPhone in question already has a "backdoor" which could allow the government-backed institution to access the data on the smartphone. Other widely reported theories include cracking the iPhone and manipulating the innards to trick the system into spilling out all the information. One proposed method, which requires the phone's NAND flash chip to be taken out, may not work, though. Daniel Kahn Gillmor, a technology fellow with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, pointed out the risks in playing with flash memory. He said that an error in removing the memory could make the data unreadable forever.
The FBI doesn't want anybody to be able to keep any secrets from it ever, with no regard to what impact this might have on commerce. They are attempting to use this case to ensure that they get complete authority and ability to decrypt everything at their whim. If they can offload the work to other companies for free, all the better, but the real win is that nothing anywhere can ever be kept secret from them for any reason.
That's all this is. Everything else is just politico/legalease/bullshit.
Let's be honest, the FBI's goal isn't to access one iPhone. They want access to all encrypted communications. This should be obvious. Handing over the source code to iOS will probably allow the FBI the opportunity to look for other vulnerabilities that could be exploited to read private communications. This isn't acceptable. Furthermore, wouldn't Apple still need to cryptographically sign any build of iOS that would be loaded onto the San Bernardino shooter's phone? The FBI has carefully picked the fight in a case where there's no defending the deceased shooter to maximize public opinion being on their side. They're being disingenuous and it's obvious to anyone who's willing to look carefully at their claims. What is it that makes elected officials almost unanimously support reducing the privacy of the people when there's no such consensus among the people? And why isn't there an effort to impeach the leaders of these three letter agencies for their activities? Impeachment isn't limited to the President, and those who violate the Constitution as they do should be accountable through impeachment.
. . . but it's difficult and there is a danger of data loss.
So what they want, is a master key, so they can unlock any iPhone whenever and wherever they want, without a big hassle. Or a warrant. So they're claiming they can't access it, simply because they want easier access.
Well played.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Well played.
Not really - They've backed Apple into a corner. In response, Apple has only two logical next moves - Send all their platform-level development overseas ("You can thank the FBI for the loss of those 1500 highly paid American jobs"), and make the encryption truly unbreakable (absent some unknown weakness in the algorithms themselves), both at rest and in-transit.
Apple may well lose this round - But they can salt that field so deeply as to make Uncle Sam wish he'd never asked. "Gee, sorry, did we just make all your expensive Stingrays almost completely useless, boys? Oops, our bad, wink wink nudge nudge!"
Apple is attempting to be socially responsible. The cell phone is a worse instrument for oppression than Orwell ever imagined. I can make your phone record every moment that you are carrying it. I can compress your voice so well that the existing storage is just fine for that. How long do you think it will be before that's happening for governments, if we embark upon this slope?
The problem is that if you attempt to be socially responsible, the government will do its best to damage your business. Or other companies will. So, corporations have to be cowards to survive.
Ultimately, we can't rely on a corporation for hardware that we can trust. It needs to be independently verifiable. Verifying software is possible. Verifying what is in an IC, less so at present time.
Bruce Perens.
It's even worse than that. Many of the individuals who have tried to sue the government have had their cases dismissed because they can't actually prove that the government spy programs that we've become aware of were actually spying on them even though they've been collecting data on almost everyone. Basically a giant catch-22 where you can't actually bring a case to court until you have the information you could only get from successfully bringing a case to court.
We need another Snowden who'll dump enough data to clearly give at least a few individuals legal standing. Or just release it all so we can have a massive class action suit involving the entire country against its own government.
Does this include Apple's signing key which is required to create a firmware image that the phone will run?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Where would they send those jobs? I doubt there's a foreign country with enough skilled workers whose government wouldn't make the same demands or worse. This type of BS is not unique to the US federal government.
The government is trying to regulate a PHONE because "terrorism" -- but of course, won't lift a finger to impose any regulation on the other, more important device used in terrorism -- the GUN itself.
So, lemme get this straight: you want to impose all these restrictions on my phone, listen to my every phone call, read every email and text message, look at pictures of my GF, and basically peer into my personal life and the personal lives of every American, all because you won't even regulate keeping an eye on someone when they buy 50000 rounds of ammo and large capacity magazines?
Dude, I have to show my driver's license to buy cold medication, but you won't even perform simple background checks when someone buys a gun?
This country is truly fucked up.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
In many cases, we live at the whims of giant corporations and our only hope is that a government agency can help us. For example, if your local cable ISP - likely your one source for wired, high speed Internet - decided to drastically cap your data rates to prevent streaming while pushing their TV services. Complaints to the ISP would go unheeded and there would be no competition to jump ship to or to help keep them honest. Only a government agency would have the power to keep them in check.
Here, though, it's reversed. A government agency has decided that they should have access to all phones all the time. (Let's be honest, that's the FBI's end game. They've all but admitted it.) What can the average person do? We can vote for other candidates, but that will only have so much of an effect. The powerful tend to know how to stay in power - even if it means subverting the voting process or corrupting new politicians. A big company (Apple) standing up to the government agency is our best hope at keeping the government agency at bay.
In either case, it's a story of two giant monsters fighting in a big city and the little people getting crushed. It's just a matter of which giant monster is on our side this time. (Next fight, it might the other way around.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Oh thank God. I was worried we may have a 24 hour break without this critically important story to the Slashdot readership appearing on the front page.
FTFY.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)