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Tim Cook Defends Apple's Approach To Security: 'Encryption is Inherently Great' (businessinsider.com)
Apple CEO Tim Cook has once again defended his company's hardline approach to security. At Utah Tech Tour event while taking questions from the audience, Cook said, (via BusinessInsider):"This is one of the biggest issues that we face. Encryption is what makes the public safe. As you know, there are people kept alive because the grid is up. If our grid goes down, if there was a grid attack, the public's safety is at risk" -- hence the need for encryption to protect it. "You can imagine defence systems need encryption, because there are a few bad actors in the world who might like to attack those. [...] Some people have tried to make it out to be bad," the chief executive told the audience at the Utah question-and-answer session. "Encryption is inherently great, and we would not be a safe society without it. So this is an area that is very, very important for us... as you can tell from our actions earlier this year, we throw all of ourselves into this." he added. "We're very much standing on principle here."
Encryption is insanely great.
FTFY, Tim.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Encryptions is for criminals. Ordinary people don't need military grade encryption to protect themselves. It's primarily used to hide illicit activities from the police and serves no legitimate purpose.
so true! illicit behavior like logging in to my toddler's Disney Junior account, or transferring money between my bank account and the electric company.
I'm no fan of Apple in general but on this point, no matter what their true motivations, the point is correct. Encryption *is* great, and required for today's society to operate securely. As Bruce Schneier said, we can either have security for everyone, or for none. The math just doesn't allow back doors that only work for "the good guys" (and there's no one definition of who those are, so it's a doubly-flawed premise.)
We've had Yahoo creditials stolen, NSA hacks stolen, Blackberry is near bankrupt over its backdoors. The argument FOR backdoors have crumbled, so is it really necessary at this point to defend encryption?
If everyone had backdoored as the NSA/CIA chiefs wanted, then Russian+Chinese hackers would own everything at this point, and not just NSA hacks. They'd demonstrated by their incompetence the need for strong encryption, everywhere for everything.
Is anyone suggesting for example, that voting machines should be backdoored? That to me is the big risk now, an election with electronic voting machines susceptible to domestic and foreign bad actors.
Encryption is merely a component of Security, which is best labeled as a double-edged sword. Always has been. Always will be.
Privacy is great too, but we are making a lot of money from yours so we will just ignore that one.
"In conclusion, machines are bad, and people who rely on them are completely fucking stupid!" said the guy, typing on his computer, from the air-conditioned serenity of his parents' basement.
When asked if he could grow or produce his own food, purify his own water, and provide basic security and comfort for himself if his power and other modern comforts were turned off, he scoffed, "of course I could. I've seen The Martian, I think I could figure out how to grow a damn Cheeto plant."
Oh irony, you are so ironic.
The entire point of the 5th Amendment is that the government cannot compel action from you needed to incriminate yourself. That right should, indeed, be absolute without exception always and forever.
A warrant means the 4th Amendment is satisfied. The government can do what they like with that piece of paper
xceptions must always be possible in any reasonable system
BS. A reasonable system protects me from the government absolutely, requiring the government to work around that as best they can. There's no "except" in the Bill of Rights, aside from the warrant exception in the 4th. We keep punching unconstitutional holes in it because we're scared, or, rather, because tyrants leverage the fear of the people to incrementally strip their rights. You're helping them do that. Right now. You should be ashamed.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.