US Government Pushed Many Tech Firms To Hand Over Source Code (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Apple isn't the only company that has been asked to hand over the source code of its operating system. In an effort to find security flaws that could be used for surveillance or investigations, the U.S. government has made numerous attempts to obtain the source code from other tech companies. From the ZDNet report, "The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. The Justice Department wanted to draw outrage, painting Apple as the criminal. With these hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time.'"

Comments

Turs out the US of A is no different!

[bogaboga]

...hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time...

Can some one explain to me how this behaviour by our [democratic] government, is very very different as compared to similar action taken by "those regimes" to the east? I mean, I do not see the difference here!

Re:Turs out the US of A is no different!

[bigpat]

...hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time...

Can some one explain to me how this behavior by our [democratic] government, is very very different as compared to similar action taken by "those regimes" to the east? I mean, I do not see the difference here!

We "Aspire" to be better... Americans aspire towards Liberty, Freedom of Speech, Free elections and when we fall short we are supposed to feel bad about it. For over two centuries we have been unsteadily moving towards our ideals. Belief in Liberty had to overcome the realities of slavery and then Jim Crow laws. Belief in Freedom of Speech is always under continuous assault by those with power to coerce. Our rights to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures have come under increasing attack lately, but have always been at the mercy of the fears and threats of the day. Our right to bear arms to defend ourselves have steadily eroded in the past 30 or 40 years or so. Democracy is just as beholden to the Party bosses that manipulate local elections and local press with casual ease. And good old fashioned corruption is still a big problem in the US as it is everywhere else in the world... These things ebb and flow with the times.

What we are supposed to do as Americans is draw inspiration from the dreams of our founders for Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and not give into the cynicism that this is 'just the way it is'

Re:Turs out the US of A is no different!

[jedidiah]

...as is true with nearly any "democracy".

Don't get confused by abuse of terms in the vernacular.

Re:I thought we liked open source?

[MightyMartian]

If an organization or individual wishes to license their code under an open source license, then that's great. But when someone is forced to hand over proprietary code to the government via secret tribunals, that's very very fucking bad.

I Goes Deeper Than That, Folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple isn't the only company that has been asked to hand over the source code of its operating system.

I heard that even Linux had to hand over the source code of its operating system.

Makes me wonder

[cloud.pt]

Can't help but guess the reason why they lose 'most of the time' is precisely because they don't need to be painted to the public as criminals - if a business is induced by the state to incur in practices most of its client-base would condemn, but these practices are done under cover of darkness, there's really no reason (other than an ethical one) to even attempt to fight such demands. And pragmatically, why would you spend money to defend your customers' rights when they were the same customers who elected officials that in turn stripped away those rights... (I'm being ironic - we all know law is ever changing and only through continuous scrutiny, even in lower courts such as the Apple case, can the people be defended from abuse of something that was initially considered fair).

Re:Makes me wonder

[Gr8Apes]

This just points out that the secretive FISA court does far far more harm than good. There should be no secret laws, and no courts to deal with secrets. The NSA is allowed to spy on foreigners, and does not need a court order. The FBI and underlings do need court orders, and those should at most be sealed for the duration of the activity. IOW, FISA was a work around the Constitution.

No shit

[penguinoid]

It's becoming obvious that the government needs to be outright forbidden from doing just about anything except a few specific things, rather than merely not authorized. Just like there's hardly any difference between pointing a gun at someone and saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if I had more money?" as compared to saying "Your money or your life." -- nowadays there's very little difference between the government "asking" and the government demanding.

Re:No shit

[kbonin]

I love your comment! You know, that is EXACTLY what the original intent of the US Constitution was - the founders essentially said 'here's a short list of what the Federal government is allowed to do, anything else is up to State legislatures to decide for themselves'. And since then, through a myriad of little cuts, the Constitution has been reinterpreted (as a "living" document) to mean the opposite, and anyone talking about State's Rights is now called a Racist (Because state's rights were cited during slavery debates, therefore all State's Rights are racist, see what they did there?) The Commerce Clause has been interpreted so widely that the Feds can claim authority over almost anything (Wickard v. Filburn: you can't feed your own wheat to your own animals if we tell you not to, as your production of wheat could influence the supply of wheat, which is sold across state boundaries, and therefore we can tell you what to do.) FISA lets our secret tribunals order anyone to do anything without even letting them talk to their own lawyer about it, and thanks to the latest interpretation of the All Writs Act now any court can order anyone to do anything. Welcome to the new definition of "freedom". And pick up that can.

Re:No shit

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a great interpretation of my country vs our country.

If you want, no one stops one from selling his own wheat within the state and never crosses state lines--it's called a local market... or you setup your own store. It's been done. It's just that to fulfill free market *growth* and higher profits, federal corporations/global conglomerate move into the state freely (cause the state wants its taxes). You're somewhat forced to sell in the federal market place to stay competitive (unless you have an outstanding product--there are plenty of examples!) and we end up in this Commerce Clause scenario.

So while the feds can reinterpreted the Commerce Clause, guess what? Local business to conglomerate exploit it TOO.

Freedom hasn't changed much in the free market... of course, unless you think you're on the losing (less profitable) side.

Re:No shit

[sconeu]

Except that the courts have ruled that intrastate sales of marijuana fall under the commerce clause because they affect the interstate sales thereof.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:No shit

[kbonin]

Your example is actually incorrect. According to current interpretation of the Commerce Clause, there is no such thing as a local market exempt from federal control, as under the precedent of Wickard v. Filburn; SCOTUS: "[b]ut even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect". And that word "substantial", despite sounding so reasonable, was applied in its initial case to a single farmer who chose to feed his own cows his own grain instead of buying feed, so "substantial" under current precedent has already been scoped down to include things you do on your own land with your own property. I'll state again - the Constitution has been reinterpreted to mean nearly the opposite of what it actually says, in practice. You are free to be a consumer of approved goods you use in approved ways without asking permission, but you have few remaining unencumbered freedoms even on your own land. If you feel otherwise you aren't paying attention.

goofy priorities

[k6mfw]

Reading this along with the other article regarding FBI wants backdoor into Apple phones, I'm thinking law enforcement priorities getting skewed. Reminds me of back in the days when John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde were considered national threats when in reality they were just basic thugs that robbed banks. Larger criminals were the mob (which FBI did nothing about until Hoover died in 1970s) and a even more serious threat was the rise of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

They asked for the linux kernel

[GuB-42]

The US government repeatedly asked Linus Torvalds for the source code of Linux.
I heard they are pretty pissed off, something about being called "git" if I remember correctly.

Re:I thought we liked open source?

[TangoMargarine]

Except they're not handing it over to anybody except the government.

And then any modifications the government makes, nobody else sees either.

So no, not really like open source at all.

A solution: the government will never read my cod

[raymorris]

I have a solution to this. Most of my code can never be read by the government, or anyone else I don't want reading it.

I've made that impossible, by writing it in -Perl-, with page-long regular expressions. :) Just try reading my recursive descent parser for almost-html embedded in almost-xml written as a 8,000 character regex, Obama.

Re:I thought we liked open source?

[Alain Williams]

As the writer of proprietary code that is critical to the security of millions of products, I'm more than happy for the code to be seen by more people.

It is only really good if the viewers of your code tell you of any security/... problems that they find. This will not be happening when the FBI/... takes your code, they will just use that knowledge to the detriment of your customers - not all of who are bad guys.

Bad guys

[Jamlad]

Let me check: the American government is using using secret courts to steal IP from private firms, under the threat of detention, in order to facilitate spying on its own citizens. This is behavior I would expect to read of Soviet Russia, the GDR's Stasi, or some other corrupt, quasi-totalitarian state where the border security exists not to keep people out but to keep its populace in.

Re:I thought we liked open source?

[UnknownSoldier]

The ironic thing is that back in ~1992 that the Dept. of Commerce already warned about the the US's policy of encryption hindered the US more then it helped:

* https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/...

In our April 29, 1992, testimony before your Subcommittee,
we stated that economic espionage hurts U.S. industry. U.S.
vendors of products with encryption capabilities and
telecommunications-service providers also testified that U.S.
government policy hinders both the safekeeping of U.S. industry's
competitive secrets and international competitiveness. They further
testified that because products with commercial encryption technology
are available internationally, the U.S. government should relax
restrictions on the export of such products to improve their ability
to compete in the world marketplace.

A study was commissioned a few years later "A STUDY OF THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET FOR COMPUTER SOFTWARE WITH ENCRYPTION"

* https://epic.org/crypto/export...

In the security specific software market, however, U. S. manufacturers
face competition in several foreign markets from such encryption exporting
countries as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Israel. To a large extent,
markets for these products tend to be "national. " Not only do export
controls affect sales, but local vendors of security-specific products are
at a competitive advantage in that they are better situated to work
closely with end- users and develop encryption solutions tailored to meet
the conditions of the local environment. (U)

In 2000, the "Revised U.S. Encryption Export Control Regulations" had this note:

* https://epic.org/crypto/export...

Note: Encryption software is controlled because of its functional capacity, and not because of any informational value of such software; such software is not accorded the same treatment under the EAR as other "software"; and for export licensing purposes, encryption software is treated under the EAR in the same manner as a commodity included in ECCN 5A002.

good post, explains American Exceptionalism

[raymorris]

Good post. It also partially explains an observation that Obama and many others clearly are unfamiliar with, which is titled "American Exceptionalism".

The idea is that while most nations are ethnic groups who established geographical borders, the US is not. The US founding fathers, in the founding documents, declared that they were creating a new nation in order to have liberty and justice and ... . When the US government (including voters) fail to protect freedom and justice, they fail at precisely the goals that government was created to pursue. Not that we don't sometimes fail, we do, but we're -supposed- to do better, the US is founded, designed, as a nation of freedom, not a nation of German people or Japanese people or Czechs or Irish.

Obama mistakenly said "I'm sure Germans believe in German exceptionalism". No, Mr President, Germans know that Germany is the nation of Germanic people. They have not declared Germany to be the brightest beacon of freedom and democracy to the world, so they have no responsibility to do that. The German government's responsibility is to the German people. America is an exception to the common history because it wasn't created as an area for a specific ethnic group to live, it was created as a place for certain ideals to flourish. We therefore have a special responsibility to those ideals.