Doesn't this law further offend their delicate sensibilities? Now they are forced to be uncomfortable taking a piss next to a man dressed like a woman, who has a bigger dick than them, and thinks their redneck look is kinda cute. Oh the ironing is delicious.
I've always figured the public bathroom gender designations were more of a cultural suggestion. If you're obviously a man entering a woman's bathroom you're going to get in trouble, culturally. Probably in the form of a black eye. I didn't think it was ever a matter of law.
So what's wrong with that system? The reason for different bathrooms is women are uncomfortable undressing around men. If you were born a man and identify as a woman you can use their bathrooms if you manage to not make them uncomfortable being around you. If you do, no law is going to save you. If a woman wants to use a men's room, I couldn't imagine anyone complaining.
There's many more differences than this. While doing my linux systems administrator certification some time back I remember continuously running into disclaimers: if you're certifying with Ubuntu the process is a bit different. They have their own display manager, they manage config files for many popular applications differently, and they've shown a general culture of trying to lead the pack into whatever their vision for personal computing happens to be at that time. Virtually all software companies do this today so it might not seem that strange to you, I just don't believe that's how an operating system should behave.
Ubuntu lost me a long time ago when they started doing everything their own way despite the cries of the community. If anything both Ubuntu and Android has taught us it's that an operating system simply being open source is not enough to guarantee user freedom. The Arch Linux philosophy is to provide the core services of a Linux distribution and then get the fuck out of the way. Other projects can then build their idea of an OS on top of the Arch core. If one flavor of Arch gets out of control we can move on. This seems to be a much healthier approach to OS design. Anyone currently using Ubuntu, I would recommend check out Antergos. It will start impressing you right away by letting you choose from 8 or so DM's from the same installer. I say this as nothing more than a happy Antergos user for almost 2 years.
So drones are probably kind of a bad idea in a situation that requires stealth, so they are always bad? How about putting a grenade on one and getting it to fly over a fortified position? The army does this today with much larger, more expensive drones and missiles. These could be used for the same thing all drones are currently used for, except they're quicker to deploy and operate in a much tighter area.
I would like to thank you for your sacrifice to the west. Now, how can you not see the benefit of a drone? Perhaps not in the jungle, but in urban guerrilla warfare a drone could reveal enemy positions, deliver concussion grenades or other explosives. It could simply just deliver vital information or supplies between units. There's so many imaginable uses for these.
When ordered by an independent court, a person or company should be required to comply with a reasonable amount of work, and perhaps be reasonably compensated for such. This is not an unusual request and happens all the time. Of course it is your right to refuse, but penalties may ensue if you're refusing a lawful court order (as with Childs). A deadbeat Dad probably doesn't want to pay child support, but it is his obligation. We all have obligations as citizens.
The motives are very important in this case. If this is just a public relations stunt by Apple (which at this point seems highly likely) then it erases their entire civil rights defensive argument. The law does not operate on absolutes, but rather on reason and careful consideration. If Apple could have assisted an investigation, with little harm to their company or the security and privacy of law-abiding citizens, then there's no reasons left they couldn't have assisted, besides utterly selfish ones.
It's an estimate based on having seen only one guy in tech favor the FBI, and he *worked with law enforcement regularly*.
This is called anecdotal data, and it is completely useless. Due to the high likelihood of the rest of your rant relying on this, I didn't even read it.
Laws are what created this problem. The government needs to stop pretending they know what's best for people, and probably so do you, and so does Apple. This might be semantically different from a classic search warrant, but when applied to digital media with a kill switch it fits perfectly. I could envision a similar warrant with a physical device that nobody would have a problem with. Ie. Security company makes device that self destructs the contents, device is used in a crime, law enforcement petitions company that made device to help them get access. The vast amount of anger around this issue is due to an organised misinformation campaign by Apple and their internet lackies. The FBI isn't asking for anything extraordinary. Apple is behaving very oddly. You should ask yourself what their motives are. If you conclude they have your best interests in mind, at all, start over.
Apple could have offered to set up a sanitised lab in Cupertino, or they could have offered to run the brute force themselves. It doesn't follow that the FBI was demanding a permanent backdoor. This is a lie Apple, and their frothing supporters, set up to fortify their position.
Because, as I pointed out above, allowing an authority to define the scope of something made by a private company, or ubiquitously used by private citizens, is very subjective. While you might be ok with laws requiring you to wear a seatbelt while driving, you probably wouldn't be with laws requiring you to wear a padded suit, or mount a flashing red light on your hood if you've been in a recent accident. Once you start down that road, there's no checks and balances outside the whims of current legislators. That is why Apple's willingness to follow one forced piece of legislation requiring them to write software that results in the need for independent courts to serve them warrants to get around it, and their subsequent trepidation to do so, is highly ironic. Especially when they start moaning how writing software is free speech. Their concern with their freedom seems to be as whimsical as their desire you follow laws.
Except pictures of you loading the gun used in the crime, or building the bomb, or scheduling the crime with a known accomplist would be critical evidence. To suggest that a mobile phone, owned by a suspect, wouldn't contain critical evidence in any criminal case takes an amount of naivety I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with.
The two scenarios are not even comparable. In one the government is saying products of a certain type must meet these conditions to be sold. In the other they are saying since you created and sold something and we want you to, you have to do something you don't want to do.
So if the government "creates conditions" that require the Apple kill switch to have a backdoor you'll be OK with it? And apple should be too right? I happen to find greater objection with the notion that the government can "create conditions that must be met" in the design of software, over the idea of a government petitioning the maker of software to assist law enforcement in solving a crime. Defining what functionality your software must have is far more Orwellian than asking a company to assist law enforcement. The FBI is simply asking for their help. They don't need it, clearly, but Apple could certainly make their job easier - and has a warrant requiring them to do so.
Apple could very well have thought that anti-theft code was a good idea, and implemented it anyway
Then we should have, at the very least, been flooded in the media with the same "slippery slope" hyperbole we're seeing now. If they cared as much as they are pretending to at least. Or is it OK to inhibit free speech when the cause is agreed upon? Stange ethics this generation has.
I'm not. I'm in the energy sector and I'm not even from the United States. I have no dog in this fight. More accurately, I shouldn't bring objective reasoning to a highly emotional debate with people that already have their minds made up.
The kill switch in all Apple phones is mandated by the California government. It seems Apple has a bit of a split personality when enforcing it's right to free speech. Either that or they're a bunch of scumbags playing politics with phone software. I'll let you decide.
More importantly, search the article for "All Writs", as that was your claim. A judges order is a warrant. He writes the order on a peice of paper and thats what you call that thing. Call me a coward, pretend like the government is all over your lawn, do what you want. The facts speak louder than your hyperbole. That's why no one ever takes you seriously when you talk.
If you're going to understand what this argument is about it's important you understand what it is. Lines like this:
"making things the government can not access has been a long and healthy tradition and is a right for a reason"
prove you have an understanding gleaned from popular mechanics headlines, not one from actual critical thought given to the case specifics.
The facts:
Apple phones are encrypted by default. The encryption is not directly reversible by Apple, nor anyone without access to the encryption keys. Encryption is acheived through one way mathematical formulas. The only way to reverse good encryption is through brute force. Apple phones run a program on the device that operate a "kill switch" for access to the encrypted data after a series of failed attempts.
The dilemma:
The FBI, through the order of a federal judge, asked Apple to help them remove the kill switch so they could access the data in its native form. Apple refused, erroneously citing global privacy conerns.
The result:
The FBI has now simply given up on the idea of going through "the front door" and has mounted the data in another way they can brute force it outside of this "kill switch". Apple has continuosly manipulated the story pretending like they would have to compromise every iPhone in existence, or give the FBI the keys to the castle for this to be possible. The truth is, they could have easily cooperated with virtually no reprecussions. The FBI simply wanted the designer of the booby trapped front door to help them disable it. Instead, they opted to carve their own door into the side of the structure. The result is nearly the same.
Now that you should have a more informed understanding of the case you can hopefully look less foolish when you try to talk about it.
The entire problem is that these devices are already designed so that you have no privacy or control. Precisely why this is being debated is because Apple has so much control over what you can and can't do with your phone, and they operate as the central hub for everything. If they didn't, they'd be absolved of the obligation to help.
So you're right, if one institution can access all your data, then so can everyone else. However that process starts with the manufacturer of the hardware and software. As long as they remain obsessed with controlling your entire "experience", other agencies are going to try to tap into that power.
No one wants to make the government unrestricted. This case is about a centuries old tool of law enforcement: authorised search and seizure of private property. Authorised by an independent judge when presented with evidence of probable criminal activity. If you can build a lock people can't get into, great. We can already thank a plethora of encryption technologies for this. If you build a lock with a kill switch on it that destroys all the contents it's protecting and then refuse to help law enforcement circumvent it when it's made clear you can easily do so, but you'd rather use the opportunity for a public relations campaign, then you're in the wrong. And honestly, should probably at least be heavily fined or even serve jail time. So again, I'm not sure you know what this argument is even about. It's not your fault though, the Apple machine has been successfully trying to confuse the issue for some time.
Sorry, but your paranoia is unjustified. A search warrant is a simple device that is heavily used by law enforcement to solve a very wide assortment of crimes. It's one of their most important tools. As we move more and more towards a digital way of life, there will be a need for digital search warrants. Encrypting data and storing the password in your head is a surefire way to make sure nobody ever gets access to it (until they take a hammer to your knees). But, allowing a company like Apple to have their little software kill switch exist outside the legal scope of digital search warrants is another thing entirely. I'm not sure this argument is what you think it is.
Well that is the argument entirely. Is the warrant lawful? Apple is trying to argue that the warrant infringes on their right to free speech. A notion almost as ridiculous as a warrant to force someone into slave labor. Not all warrants are lawful simply by being warrants, sure, but this one probably is/was. The FBI was asking Apple to help them get access to a device protected by their software kill switch. There is precedence for this. As a simple example: a warrant can be issued to a car company to activate a kill switch in a car to stop a high speed pursuit. The fact of the matter lost on most people taking ideological exception with this case is that Apple is making a lot of noise over nothing. They could have helped the FBI gain access to this phone without compromising security for all their users. Instead they chose to cease the opportunity for a PR campaign. An unfortunate, and down right twisted, decision if you ask me.
I will submit to the notion that I missed a possible third option in my argument. What I wouldn't agree with, is that there is much room for debate on whether this third option should be considered.
If we're going to really try to undestand this argument we probably need to first be clear on what is happening here. The problem isn't specifically the lock. Any lock, digital or otherwise, can be brute forced. A more accurate analogy would be a lock with a self destruct mechanism that destroys the data inside when a brute force attempt is detected. This is what is happening on every iPhone with theft-protection measures enabled.
Now extending the analogy to this self destruct mechanism we could ask: If Acme Inc had the ability to disable the self descruct mechanism on a locker believed to contain evidence of a crime, then should they? If they were served with a warrant to do so, is that valid?
I don't think you'd have to look very hard to find precendence of this being done. Especially when (this has just been made known to me) Apple retains ownership of all IOS software as a function of their EULA:
Apple and its licensors retain ownership of the iOS Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you [...] Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to use the iOS Software on a single Apple-branded iOS Device
The only thing to stop you from breaking any law is the enforcement of it. So what they can do, is put you in jail for making such a lock. This is clearly something we don't want to encourage. Hence my desire to work with a balanced and checked law enforcement to restrict crime while protecting individual rights and freedoms.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't this law further offend their delicate sensibilities? Now they are forced to be uncomfortable taking a piss next to a man dressed like a woman, who has a bigger dick than them, and thinks their redneck look is kinda cute. Oh the ironing is delicious.
I've always figured the public bathroom gender designations were more of a cultural suggestion. If you're obviously a man entering a woman's bathroom you're going to get in trouble, culturally. Probably in the form of a black eye. I didn't think it was ever a matter of law.
So what's wrong with that system? The reason for different bathrooms is women are uncomfortable undressing around men. If you were born a man and identify as a woman you can use their bathrooms if you manage to not make them uncomfortable being around you. If you do, no law is going to save you. If a woman wants to use a men's room, I couldn't imagine anyone complaining.
There's many more differences than this. While doing my linux systems administrator certification some time back I remember continuously running into disclaimers: if you're certifying with Ubuntu the process is a bit different. They have their own display manager, they manage config files for many popular applications differently, and they've shown a general culture of trying to lead the pack into whatever their vision for personal computing happens to be at that time. Virtually all software companies do this today so it might not seem that strange to you, I just don't believe that's how an operating system should behave.
Ubuntu lost me a long time ago when they started doing everything their own way despite the cries of the community. If anything both Ubuntu and Android has taught us it's that an operating system simply being open source is not enough to guarantee user freedom. The Arch Linux philosophy is to provide the core services of a Linux distribution and then get the fuck out of the way. Other projects can then build their idea of an OS on top of the Arch core. If one flavor of Arch gets out of control we can move on. This seems to be a much healthier approach to OS design. Anyone currently using Ubuntu, I would recommend check out Antergos. It will start impressing you right away by letting you choose from 8 or so DM's from the same installer. I say this as nothing more than a happy Antergos user for almost 2 years.
So drones are probably kind of a bad idea in a situation that requires stealth, so they are always bad? How about putting a grenade on one and getting it to fly over a fortified position? The army does this today with much larger, more expensive drones and missiles. These could be used for the same thing all drones are currently used for, except they're quicker to deploy and operate in a much tighter area.
I would like to thank you for your sacrifice to the west. Now, how can you not see the benefit of a drone? Perhaps not in the jungle, but in urban guerrilla warfare a drone could reveal enemy positions, deliver concussion grenades or other explosives. It could simply just deliver vital information or supplies between units. There's so many imaginable uses for these.
If Independence Day was mediocre, what do you call the trash they make now? At least it made sense.
When ordered by an independent court, a person or company should be required to comply with a reasonable amount of work, and perhaps be reasonably compensated for such. This is not an unusual request and happens all the time. Of course it is your right to refuse, but penalties may ensue if you're refusing a lawful court order (as with Childs). A deadbeat Dad probably doesn't want to pay child support, but it is his obligation. We all have obligations as citizens.
The motives are very important in this case. If this is just a public relations stunt by Apple (which at this point seems highly likely) then it erases their entire civil rights defensive argument. The law does not operate on absolutes, but rather on reason and careful consideration. If Apple could have assisted an investigation, with little harm to their company or the security and privacy of law-abiding citizens, then there's no reasons left they couldn't have assisted, besides utterly selfish ones.
It's an estimate based on having seen only one guy in tech favor the FBI, and he *worked with law enforcement regularly*.
This is called anecdotal data, and it is completely useless. Due to the high likelihood of the rest of your rant relying on this, I didn't even read it.
Laws are what created this problem. The government needs to stop pretending they know what's best for people, and probably so do you, and so does Apple. This might be semantically different from a classic search warrant, but when applied to digital media with a kill switch it fits perfectly. I could envision a similar warrant with a physical device that nobody would have a problem with. Ie. Security company makes device that self destructs the contents, device is used in a crime, law enforcement petitions company that made device to help them get access. The vast amount of anger around this issue is due to an organised misinformation campaign by Apple and their internet lackies. The FBI isn't asking for anything extraordinary. Apple is behaving very oddly. You should ask yourself what their motives are. If you conclude they have your best interests in mind, at all, start over.
Apple could have offered to set up a sanitised lab in Cupertino, or they could have offered to run the brute force themselves. It doesn't follow that the FBI was demanding a permanent backdoor. This is a lie Apple, and their frothing supporters, set up to fortify their position.
Because, as I pointed out above, allowing an authority to define the scope of something made by a private company, or ubiquitously used by private citizens, is very subjective. While you might be ok with laws requiring you to wear a seatbelt while driving, you probably wouldn't be with laws requiring you to wear a padded suit, or mount a flashing red light on your hood if you've been in a recent accident. Once you start down that road, there's no checks and balances outside the whims of current legislators. That is why Apple's willingness to follow one forced piece of legislation requiring them to write software that results in the need for independent courts to serve them warrants to get around it, and their subsequent trepidation to do so, is highly ironic. Especially when they start moaning how writing software is free speech. Their concern with their freedom seems to be as whimsical as their desire you follow laws.
Except pictures of you loading the gun used in the crime, or building the bomb, or scheduling the crime with a known accomplist would be critical evidence. To suggest that a mobile phone, owned by a suspect, wouldn't contain critical evidence in any criminal case takes an amount of naivety I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with.
The two scenarios are not even comparable. In one the government is saying products of a certain type must meet these conditions to be sold. In the other they are saying since you created and sold something and we want you to, you have to do something you don't want to do.
So if the government "creates conditions" that require the Apple kill switch to have a backdoor you'll be OK with it? And apple should be too right? I happen to find greater objection with the notion that the government can "create conditions that must be met" in the design of software, over the idea of a government petitioning the maker of software to assist law enforcement in solving a crime. Defining what functionality your software must have is far more Orwellian than asking a company to assist law enforcement. The FBI is simply asking for their help. They don't need it, clearly, but Apple could certainly make their job easier - and has a warrant requiring them to do so.
Apple could very well have thought that anti-theft code was a good idea, and implemented it anyway
Then we should have, at the very least, been flooded in the media with the same "slippery slope" hyperbole we're seeing now. If they cared as much as they are pretending to at least. Or is it OK to inhibit free speech when the cause is agreed upon? Stange ethics this generation has.
I'm not. I'm in the energy sector and I'm not even from the United States. I have no dog in this fight. More accurately, I shouldn't bring objective reasoning to a highly emotional debate with people that already have their minds made up.
The kill switch in all Apple phones is mandated by the California government. It seems Apple has a bit of a split personality when enforcing it's right to free speech. Either that or they're a bunch of scumbags playing politics with phone software. I'll let you decide.
More importantly, search the article for "All Writs", as that was your claim. A judges order is a warrant. He writes the order on a peice of paper and thats what you call that thing. Call me a coward, pretend like the government is all over your lawn, do what you want. The facts speak louder than your hyperbole. That's why no one ever takes you seriously when you talk.
The order from the judge was first. The All Writs act was second.
If you're going to understand what this argument is about it's important you understand what it is. Lines like this:
"making things the government can not access has been a long and healthy tradition and is a right for a reason"
prove you have an understanding gleaned from popular mechanics headlines, not one from actual critical thought given to the case specifics.
The facts:
Apple phones are encrypted by default. The encryption is not directly reversible by Apple, nor anyone without access to the encryption keys. Encryption is acheived through one way mathematical formulas. The only way to reverse good encryption is through brute force. Apple phones run a program on the device that operate a "kill switch" for access to the encrypted data after a series of failed attempts.
The dilemma:
The FBI, through the order of a federal judge, asked Apple to help them remove the kill switch so they could access the data in its native form. Apple refused, erroneously citing global privacy conerns.
The result:
The FBI has now simply given up on the idea of going through "the front door" and has mounted the data in another way they can brute force it outside of this "kill switch". Apple has continuosly manipulated the story pretending like they would have to compromise every iPhone in existence, or give the FBI the keys to the castle for this to be possible. The truth is, they could have easily cooperated with virtually no reprecussions. The FBI simply wanted the designer of the booby trapped front door to help them disable it. Instead, they opted to carve their own door into the side of the structure. The result is nearly the same.
Now that you should have a more informed understanding of the case you can hopefully look less foolish when you try to talk about it.
The entire problem is that these devices are already designed so that you have no privacy or control. Precisely why this is being debated is because Apple has so much control over what you can and can't do with your phone, and they operate as the central hub for everything. If they didn't, they'd be absolved of the obligation to help.
So you're right, if one institution can access all your data, then so can everyone else. However that process starts with the manufacturer of the hardware and software. As long as they remain obsessed with controlling your entire "experience", other agencies are going to try to tap into that power.
No one wants to make the government unrestricted. This case is about a centuries old tool of law enforcement: authorised search and seizure of private property. Authorised by an independent judge when presented with evidence of probable criminal activity. If you can build a lock people can't get into, great. We can already thank a plethora of encryption technologies for this. If you build a lock with a kill switch on it that destroys all the contents it's protecting and then refuse to help law enforcement circumvent it when it's made clear you can easily do so, but you'd rather use the opportunity for a public relations campaign, then you're in the wrong. And honestly, should probably at least be heavily fined or even serve jail time. So again, I'm not sure you know what this argument is even about. It's not your fault though, the Apple machine has been successfully trying to confuse the issue for some time.
Sorry, but your paranoia is unjustified. A search warrant is a simple device that is heavily used by law enforcement to solve a very wide assortment of crimes. It's one of their most important tools. As we move more and more towards a digital way of life, there will be a need for digital search warrants. Encrypting data and storing the password in your head is a surefire way to make sure nobody ever gets access to it (until they take a hammer to your knees). But, allowing a company like Apple to have their little software kill switch exist outside the legal scope of digital search warrants is another thing entirely. I'm not sure this argument is what you think it is.
Well that is the argument entirely. Is the warrant lawful? Apple is trying to argue that the warrant infringes on their right to free speech. A notion almost as ridiculous as a warrant to force someone into slave labor. Not all warrants are lawful simply by being warrants, sure, but this one probably is/was. The FBI was asking Apple to help them get access to a device protected by their software kill switch. There is precedence for this. As a simple example: a warrant can be issued to a car company to activate a kill switch in a car to stop a high speed pursuit. The fact of the matter lost on most people taking ideological exception with this case is that Apple is making a lot of noise over nothing. They could have helped the FBI gain access to this phone without compromising security for all their users. Instead they chose to cease the opportunity for a PR campaign. An unfortunate, and down right twisted, decision if you ask me.
If we're going to really try to undestand this argument we probably need to first be clear on what is happening here. The problem isn't specifically the lock. Any lock, digital or otherwise, can be brute forced. A more accurate analogy would be a lock with a self destruct mechanism that destroys the data inside when a brute force attempt is detected. This is what is happening on every iPhone with theft-protection measures enabled.
Now extending the analogy to this self destruct mechanism we could ask: If Acme Inc had the ability to disable the self descruct mechanism on a locker believed to contain evidence of a crime, then should they? If they were served with a warrant to do so, is that valid?
I don't think you'd have to look very hard to find precendence of this being done. Especially when (this has just been made known to me) Apple retains ownership of all IOS software as a function of their EULA:
Apple and its licensors retain ownership of the iOS Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you [...] Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to use the iOS Software on a single Apple-branded iOS Device
The only thing to stop you from breaking any law is the enforcement of it. So what they can do, is put you in jail for making such a lock. This is clearly something we don't want to encourage. Hence my desire to work with a balanced and checked law enforcement to restrict crime while protecting individual rights and freedoms.