If the FBI really wants access, they could get an NSL issued, forcing apple to comply by compromising their own system..and they couldn't tell their customers about it.
Maybe they did and the issue is begin litigated. Because of the secrecy of a NSL, we will not know until the case is decided and maybe not even then.
A warrant is different in that you cannot contest it; instead you contest the admissibility of evidence which has nothing to do with Apple. The warrant has already been reviewed by a judge without opposition.
The government can change the rules (laws), has unlimited funds, and extended litigation provides employment. How much would Apple have to gain or lose to compromise their system? How much more than the 10 million dollars RSA accepted?
Or the government could give the same treatment to Apple that they gave to Quest. Maybe Tim Cook could have the same cell Joseph Nacchio had.
1. Law enforcement agencies use civil assets forfeiture to fund their operations. 2. Prosecutors withhold exculpatory evidence by either indifference or by reviewing evidence to see if it is exculpatory first in their opinion. 3. Law enforcement beating confessions out of suspects or intelligence agencies using extraordinary rendition to do the same thing without interference from the courts. 4. Law enforcement using unreliable confidential informants to generate probable cause for warrants. 5. Law enforcement using drug sniffing dogs to generate probable cause for searches. 6. Intelligence agencies passing along information gained without a warrant to law enforcement who then use parallel construction to keep the court from reviewing the initial search. Law enforcement does the same thing with cellular interception devices.
If intelligence agencies and law enforcement think end to end user encryption is such a problem, then get a law passed making it unlawful and requiring features for law enforcement access. Bring it out into the open for debate instead of violating the constitution with the result of diminishing other rights. Their cause is virtuous and they can be trusted, right?
It does not take someone finding the backdoor. When communications that take place over Apple's message system start showing up in court as evidence, then it will be known that it is not secure.
The key is to strike some sort of balance. If the FBI has a court-issued warrant saying they can eavesdrop in real-time on a text conversation between two people's phones, then there's really not much room for one to argue that their privacy rights should override the warrant. Being able to eavesdrop in on conversations over a communications network after a warrant has been granted has been a well-established legal process for close to a century.
What is not established is that a warrant is sufficient to compel Apple to do anything other than turn over what they have access to which is the ciphertext. For that, the FBI needs a law or maybe an order based on the All Writs Act.
As far as balance, there is no balance when law enforcement including the NSA and FBI systematically lie to Congress and the court about surveillance.
Since the United States Supreme Court has ruled that "limited times" includes any duration which can be specified, any brute force attack may be conducted within a "limited time".
The government should get to it and stop complaining. It will only take a "limited time" to decrypt the ciphertext.
So how would this work if Forward Secrecy is used? Then there is no recorded encryption key to reveal. Contempt of court cannot be used to order the impossible.
Because the Fourth Amendment doesn't guarantee you absolute privacy, it grants "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures", meaning until a court has issued an order to grant such access "upon probable cause". In this case the court issues such an order. The question is, given the circumstances, what Apple is legally required to do. Hint: they are not required to change their software to create the ability for the government to get access, only to give the government what they already have access to.
They are not required to change their software because of a warrant but there are other procedures. The legislature could pass a law or there is another type of court order (I forget what it is called) which could be used to compel Apple to do the same thing.
If more people voted third party we could crash the US electoral system and force change. Our electoral system is built around a 2 party system, if a third or forth party takes major shares the system would collapse and have to be revised to a system that accepted more than 2 parties and in the process we would gut the oligarch system that's based on two political parties. The result would be an electoral system where minority parties and less popular views have a voice and actual power.
When I worked election security in Southern California, I discovered that they did not even *count* the third party votes never mind any write in candidates. I have no idea where the numbers reported to the news came from but it was not from counting.
If a non-corrupt politician could be selected in the primaries, then they would be carefully selected ahead of time. It is turtles, err, general elections all the way down.
Because Apple has a team of lawyers that will inform that stupid stunts like that will get an obstruction charge. A polite response may get them a new request for the encrypted data, or not.
Why wouldn't it result in an obstruction charge anyway? Apple implemented and is selling a system which is suborning the authority of the court.
And if the NSA or another government agency could break it, they sure would not want to advertise that fact to the world. They face the same problem that the allies did in World War 2 where they had intelligence sources which could not be revealed by using the intelligence in an obvious way or the enemy would learn of it and change their methods.
I wonder though if they gave up on the Clipper Chip for another reason. After all, they got what they basically wanted from the telecommunication companies for 20 years and now are only threatened by Google and Apple because the DEA, NSA, and FBI got caught conducting wholesale domestic surveillance with no indication this will change.
I did not keep a link to it but there was a position paper which came out of the NSA or FBI pointing out that getting caught doing what they are doing could create a demand for ubiquitous and opportunistic encryption which would destroy both their their ability to conduct wholesale surveillance and execute lawful warrants. I think one of the objectives of the NSA interference with internet encryption standards was to prevent this very thing and who knows what the FBI has been doing other than harassing cryptographers.
I think your faith in a human's ability to logically think past their biases is overblown. They will just claim it is a PR stunt to fool people into believing Apple can't read the messages while they secretly handing over all the data. Never try to argue with a conspiracist since, no matter how sound your evidence, you will never win them over. As the saying goes, never argue with a fool, lest you are brought down to his level.
Apple has all of the means to prove themselves trustworthy yet they have not done it. They must be above reproach and release enough documentation to prove their systems are secure versus the government.
Very few people were paranoid enough about the NSA and FBI conducting mass surveillance. Very few people were paranoid enough about the FBI and CIA using torture in interrogations.
BTW, this really should shut up all the slashtards that say that Apple secretly colludes with the Gummint; but it won't.
Since the government in the past has setup test cases where they controlled both sides (or even all three sides if you include the judge) to get the court to set the precedent they want, this still would not shut me up. What better way to influence people into trusting Apple or the compromised system of the government's choice then to setup a false drama where the FBI loses and Apple wins?
Apples defense against this is to be above reproach and release enough documentation to prove they are trustworthy.
If the keys were properly made, then Apple actually do not have *everything* needed to make the keys. The user had and made the entropy although they used Apple's tools to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they did and the issue is begin litigated. Because of the secrecy of a NSL, we will not know until the case is decided and maybe not even then.
A warrant is different in that you cannot contest it; instead you contest the admissibility of evidence which has nothing to do with Apple. The warrant has already been reviewed by a judge without opposition.
The government can change the rules (laws), has unlimited funds, and extended litigation provides employment. How much would Apple have to gain or lose to compromise their system? How much more than the 10 million dollars RSA accepted?
Or the government could give the same treatment to Apple that they gave to Quest. Maybe Tim Cook could have the same cell Joseph Nacchio had.
Sure, just like:
1. Law enforcement agencies use civil assets forfeiture to fund their operations.
2. Prosecutors withhold exculpatory evidence by either indifference or by reviewing evidence to see if it is exculpatory first in their opinion.
3. Law enforcement beating confessions out of suspects or intelligence agencies using extraordinary rendition to do the same thing without interference from the courts.
4. Law enforcement using unreliable confidential informants to generate probable cause for warrants.
5. Law enforcement using drug sniffing dogs to generate probable cause for searches.
6. Intelligence agencies passing along information gained without a warrant to law enforcement who then use parallel construction to keep the court from reviewing the initial search. Law enforcement does the same thing with cellular interception devices.
If intelligence agencies and law enforcement think end to end user encryption is such a problem, then get a law passed making it unlawful and requiring features for law enforcement access. Bring it out into the open for debate instead of violating the constitution with the result of diminishing other rights. Their cause is virtuous and they can be trusted, right?
It does not take someone finding the backdoor. When communications that take place over Apple's message system start showing up in court as evidence, then it will be known that it is not secure.
All they have to do is serve the warrant on the users controlling the end points. If that defeats the secrecy of their investigation, then too bad.
What is not established is that a warrant is sufficient to compel Apple to do anything other than turn over what they have access to which is the ciphertext. For that, the FBI needs a law or maybe an order based on the All Writs Act.
As far as balance, there is no balance when law enforcement including the NSA and FBI systematically lie to Congress and the court about surveillance.
But there do not have to be on iOS. Apple can prevent competing services by no including them in their application store.
This just implements what the Clipper Chip did where the session key was encrypted with the government's public key and sent as part of the message.
Since the United States Supreme Court has ruled that "limited times" includes any duration which can be specified, any brute force attack may be conducted within a "limited time".
The government should get to it and stop complaining. It will only take a "limited time" to decrypt the ciphertext.
So how would this work if Forward Secrecy is used? Then there is no recorded encryption key to reveal. Contempt of court cannot be used to order the impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I was thinking of the All Writs Act:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
They are not required to change their software because of a warrant but there are other procedures. The legislature could pass a law or there is another type of court order (I forget what it is called) which could be used to compel Apple to do the same thing.
When I worked election security in Southern California, I discovered that they did not even *count* the third party votes never mind any write in candidates. I have no idea where the numbers reported to the news came from but it was not from counting.
While I would like to think otherwise, The Matrix only included this theme by accident.
If a non-corrupt politician could be selected in the primaries, then they would be carefully selected ahead of time. It is turtles, err, general elections all the way down.
Why wouldn't it result in an obstruction charge anyway? Apple implemented and is selling a system which is suborning the authority of the court.
And if the NSA or another government agency could break it, they sure would not want to advertise that fact to the world. They face the same problem that the allies did in World War 2 where they had intelligence sources which could not be revealed by using the intelligence in an obvious way or the enemy would learn of it and change their methods.
I wonder though if they gave up on the Clipper Chip for another reason. After all, they got what they basically wanted from the telecommunication companies for 20 years and now are only threatened by Google and Apple because the DEA, NSA, and FBI got caught conducting wholesale domestic surveillance with no indication this will change.
I did not keep a link to it but there was a position paper which came out of the NSA or FBI pointing out that getting caught doing what they are doing could create a demand for ubiquitous and opportunistic encryption which would destroy both their their ability to conduct wholesale surveillance and execute lawful warrants. I think one of the objectives of the NSA interference with internet encryption standards was to prevent this very thing and who knows what the FBI has been doing other than harassing cryptographers.
Apple has all of the means to prove themselves trustworthy yet they have not done it. They must be above reproach and release enough documentation to prove their systems are secure versus the government.
Very few people were paranoid enough about the NSA and FBI conducting mass surveillance. Very few people were paranoid enough about the FBI and CIA using torture in interrogations.
I still believe both are going on.
Since the government in the past has setup test cases where they controlled both sides (or even all three sides if you include the judge) to get the court to set the precedent they want, this still would not shut me up. What better way to influence people into trusting Apple or the compromised system of the government's choice then to setup a false drama where the FBI loses and Apple wins?
Apples defense against this is to be above reproach and release enough documentation to prove they are trustworthy.
Further if Apple did it right, the users lack the keys for past messages.
If the keys were properly made, then Apple actually do not have *everything* needed to make the keys. The user had and made the entropy although they used Apple's tools to do it.
I was hot, and I was hungry.