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Apple Files Final Response In San Bernardino iPhone Case (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In its final briefing before a court showdown next week, Apple said, "The court must consider the national debate surrounding the issue of mandating a backdoor or the dangers to the security and privacy of millions of citizens. According to Apple, the government also believes the courts can order private parties "to do virtually anything the Justice Department and FBI can dream up. The Founders would be appalled." In response to the government, Apple said, "the catastrophic security implications of that threat only highlight the government's fundamental misunderstanding or reckless disregard of the technology at issue and the security risks implicated by its suggestion." According to TechCrunch, Apple made an interesting change in its strategy in the court on Tuesday. From its article, "The tone of today's filing and subsequent call was much more cold and precise. Apple got some time to consider the best way to respond and went with dissecting the FBI's technical arguments in a series of precise testimonies by its experts. Where the FBI filing last week relied on invective, Apple's this week relies on poking holes in critical sections of the FBI's technical narrative." Edward Snowden also made a remark about the hearing. He tweeted, "Today I learned that "#Apple has way better lawyers than the DOJ."
The FBI/DoJ will force the technology industry to move outside of the United States if their request is granted. Moreover, the US government will be on the hook when Apple says 'you owe us an eleven-figure settlement for the loss of our operating system'.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
>> Apple: The court must consider the national debate surrounding the issue
I'm not sure Apple understands how courts work then, or they're grasping at straws. (Ideally, courts work off of law, legal precedent, etc. and they don't just listen to the "mob on the street"; that's a key differentiator between a "nation of laws" and dictatorships.)
Apple is a corporation and shouldn't have rights.
The New York Times is a corporation and shouldn't have rights. Therefore the government should be able to compel them to print only pro-government articles and editorials.
Same here. I have never liked Apple or their products, but with the insane shit that Microsoft started pushing with the released of Spyware 10 and Apple vigorously defending privacy, I think my next computer and/or phone may just be one of theirs.
If all the precedents went one way, then there wouldn't be a need for a judicial decision. The fact that precedents are going in a variety of directions is where higher courts - and this is almost bound to go to the Supremes - have to decide which way to jump.
I've never owned an Apple product in my life, but I'm thinking about it now. It's good to see someone standing up to the growing police state...
What if the FBI already easily broke into the iPhone...what if this whole court battle is a ruse?
Picture this: the FBI loses, but very, very publicly. It will be a huge win for privacy and the public. Apple will be our champion. People will switch to Apple products, thinking they will be safe from government intrusion, "terrorists" and those wishing to do us harm will use Apple products. All while the FBI knows how to break in, giving everybody a false sense of security. Apple wins, the FBI wins, privacy loses.
We're no strangers to security theater. Just look at Homeland Security for that: they accomplish nothing, but (try to) put on a good show.
Wouldn't it make more sense for the FBI to QUIETLY admit they cannot break into something? Perhaps they did start quietly, but then Apple made it public.
Why, then, would the FBI let it remain so loud and public? Wouldn't they want to sweep their failure under the rug? Say, "We already cracked it, but just want a simpler way."
I'm not a conspiracy theorist (although it can be argued that's what I'm doing here), but this whole thing doesn't make sense to me. The FBI has basically invited anyone who wants to hide anything from them to put in on Apple devices. That can't possibly be conducive to their goals.
Just food for thought.
Having been involved in a lawsuit with a city before I can say it's not "lying" about precedents but rather how you can spin precedents to suit your arguments.
The DOJ will pull every case they can and try to say it applies for X reason. Then Apple will try to argue it doesn't apply for X reason and potentially these other cases are more relevant for X reason. The DOJ will respond, then Apple will respond, then they go to court and the judge acts like an irate asshole to both sides as they present their arguments. Then the judge will deliberate over which precedents actually apply to the case and typically say who is right based on some random court case that happened 20 years ago and has little to do with the current situation.
The legal system is a bit of a joke in my opinion. You don't get penalized for bullshit. The system actually encourages you to throw as much shit at the wall just to see what sticks.
Apple is a corporation and shouldn't have rights.
Plus, Apple is defending the morally reprehensible position of not letting device owners install whatever software they want whenever they want.
On top of that, iOS isn't fully open sourced, and Intellectual Property is Imaginary Property Anwyay, so forcing Apple to give up iOS to the world doesn't matter since it's worth nothing.
Oh, wait, I'm sorry is this not the regular SJW thread but the special thread where all of those talking points are intentionally thrown out the window because Apple is doing something that is emotionally appealing to the mob?
1. You're correct about a lot of people misunderstanding what corporate rights are, so no criticism from me there.
2. I'd be happy if Apple let you unlock the bootloader and attain superuser access. But that's totally irrelevant to this case. If you unlock the bootloader of an Android phone, it wipes all the data. That's the only thing the FBI is (putatively) interested in.
3. I would also be happy if iOS went fully open source. Nobody cares about that part though. What the DOJ is trying to swindle is Apple's signing keys.
Apple is a corporation and shouldn't have rights.
The New York Times is a corporation and shouldn't have rights. Therefore the government should be able to compel them to print only pro-government articles and editorials.
I've made this same argument numerous times when arguing about the "Citizens United" decision. People opposed to the ideas that "corporations" can "have rights" are really throwing out the baby with the bath water. The corporation itself really does not have the rights--it's the people who form that corporation (stakeholders, employees/volunteers, what have you). Arguing "corporations shouldn't have rights" is to argue that people, when acting in concert, lose rights that they have individually.
I cannot support that notion.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
The FBI isn't used to being told "no". At least not by anyone who isn't easily intimidated into changing their mind.
As I understand it they (quietly) asked Apple to unlock the phone and Apples said "that's impossible" so the FBI more loudly said "then make it possible, or else.", and Apple responded with "HELP HELP I"M BEING OPRESSED, COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERINT IN THE SYTEM".
It's more likely that we're seeing the governmental equivalent of when a parent says "I will turn this car around" and the unruly child says "yeah? do it then". Than that there's a conspiracy to make people think Apple hardware is more secure than it is in order to promote use of a compromised system. Especially when teh security of iPhones is public knowledge and the principles behind it quite sound.
If you read the sequence of briefs from Apple (and the Assistant US Attorney) since the middle of February (when Apple brought on former Solicitor General Ted Olson, heavy firepower), the gap in legal analysis and writing capabilities is painfully obvious.
In the previous govt brief (all of the briefs history on this site as well), it is outright embarrassing how the govt's legal team (or maybe summer intern) has sunk to having to accuse Apple of marketing tactics, unpatriotic behavior, and reductio ad absurdum examples to support its position. Honestly, if I were the judge, I'd be calling the govt into chambers to rebuke them for such shoddy arguments and telling them to put more skilled people on the task, given the importance.
For those who didn't read the previous Apple one or this one (which are both quite similar), in reply to the govt Apple cleanly and convincingly dissects each of the govt's arguments point by point, and an outsider reading this for the first time would be easily convinced about the merits.
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By the way, I add a few points here for other commenters/readers so that some baseline facts are easily available. Just for your reference, the reason the encryption keys are so important / secret is that:
-- All recent Apple iPhones have built-in encryption-dedicated processing hardware
-- This hardware has firmware burned-in with Apple public encryption keys that validate that any code has come directly from Apple without modification, on startup
-- This key validation structure is designed to ensure that only code signed by Apple's private key can run on the phone
-- Every iPhone has the same public keys burned on it, because that's how public keys work.
So if Apple is forced to give its private keys to the FBI (assuming the remote likelihood they even knew what to do with it), the FBI would have the ability to encrypt and sign software for any of these iPhones. The idea (legal argument-wise or technically) that "this is about one phone" is laughable.
Forcing someone to disclose encryption keys would be a huge violation of the First Amendment. If there is anything that qualifies as speech and knowledge, it is an encryption key / industry trade secret. Then on top of this, there is the question of whether the people at Apple who are in charge of the encryption keys (yes, individuals) would even voluntarily turn it over if given such a blatantly unconstitutional order.
If the FBI requires access they can get a court order forcing the owner to give up their PIN, the device manufacturer should have nothing to do with it. Cases where the owner is dead will be few and far between - and mostly irrelevant. The fact that the FBI is so aggressive in this case indicates that they want access without a court order and we all know where that leads. I hope Apple does not cave.
As I understand it they (quietly) asked Apple to unlock the phone and Apples said "that's impossible" so the FBI more loudly said "then make it possible, or else.", and Apple responded with "HELP HELP I"M BEING OPRESSED, COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERINT IN THE SYTEM".
The FBI/DoJ should never had made the request public. They expected to shame Apple into complying (because of terrorism) and the opposite happened.
The sad thing is that Apple has a better reputation of trust when it comes to trust the our government.
Judge: What was the source of this information?
FBI: Uhm... a hunch?
Yeah, you see, they'd have to admit the ability in open court for it to be useful.
Because the FBI would never use parallel construction in order to have a pat answer that had nothing to do with the real source of information.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables