Apple, I think you lost

[CitizenBBN]

FBI has now withdrawn their case b/c they claim they hacked the phone without Apple's help.

so, did Apple win or lose? The FBI probably won outright, they got the data and moreover now apparently have a technique to hack any such phone as they desire.

But Apple?

Well they took a stand that about 45-50% of the population supported. So that's OK, but not a win b/c the other half think they were wrong.

But IMO they lost big time on this: a lot of their positive was that they were standing up for the privacy AND SECURITY of their customers, and now apparently that security has been breached. so their fear that they'd write code to disable the auto-destruct would somehow get loose seems minor to the fact that someone smarter than their engineers found a way to break their security outright.

And that's no surprise. No such thing yet as a system that can't be hacked. That's in part why I never bought Apple's fear that their code would get into the wild, the wild is already filled with possibilities to hack their phones and the most obvious way, to get the Apple ID codes, is always as much an option as stealing any other Apple code, and that opens up every iphone on Earth.

[PedroDaGr8]

FBI has now withdrawn their case b/c they claim they hacked the phone without Apple's help.

so, did Apple win or lose? The FBI probably won outright, they got the data and moreover now apparently have a technique to hack any such phone as they desire.

But Apple?

Well they took a stand that about 45-50% of the population supported. So that's OK, but not a win b/c the other half think they were wrong.

But IMO they lost big time on this: a lot of their positive was that they were standing up for the privacy AND SECURITY of their customers, and now apparently that security has been breached. so their fear that they'd write code to disable the auto-destruct would somehow get loose seems minor to the fact that someone smarter than their engineers found a way to break their security outright.

And that's no surprise. No such thing yet as a system that can't be hacked. That's in part why I never bought Apple's fear that their code would get into the wild, the wild is already filled with possibilities to hack their phones and the most obvious way, to get the Apple ID codes, is always as much an option as stealing any other Apple code, and that opens up every iphone on Earth.

The FBI ALWAYS had this method, even Snowden (plus several others) said so about a month ago. This whole trial was a farce to force Apple's hand anytime in the future (should their hack stop working). Plus it allowed them to keep using their "backdoor" in secret. There is no way they came up with an entire working hack ab initio, in a few months time. They didn't expect the blowback that this trial got and expected to easily get what they wanted. From start to finish, the government behaved ineptly.

[CitizenBBN]

The FBI ALWAYS had this method, even Snowden said so about a month ago. This whole trial was a farce to legitimize what they had the ability to do already. They didn't expect the blowback that it got.

i don't doubt it, but the question remains as to who lost and who won.

I find it hard to believe NSA can't break a lot of the encryption out there, and for all we know through the FISA court they already have the ID codes to spoof the OS on any phone and upload whatever they want.

[PedroDaGr8]

i don't doubt it, but the question remains as to who lost and who won.

I find it hard to believe NSA can't break a lot of the encryption out there, and for all we know through the FISA court they already have the ID codes to spoof the OS on any phone and upload whatever they want.

I think Apple came out a wash. They stood up to the government and won (great PR) but the fact they are hackable still came to light (which is a loss).

As for the NSA, I have no DOUBT that they are capable. Have you read the book Crypto by Steve Levin? It is a damn good read. It details how the origins of non-military cryptography came about and almost wasn't. Something interesting is that the NSA "helped" get some approved specs and in the process make them "stronger". I think the ones they made "stronger" were actually weakened by specific backdoors which have now been discovered. The truth is, if you didn't know the backdoors, they DID actually make the cryptos MUCH stronger with their improvements. The ideal situation, harder to crack for anyone but the NSA. At the time, nobody could find the backdoors, I guess public knowledge of cryptography was not there yet. It shows how much farther ahead of the game the NSA is than anyone else. It doesn't help that any highly capable cryptographers in college get scooped up by the NSA for very attractive salaries. A friend of mine considered working with them for a while but ended doing programming at MS instead. He is obscenely intelligent (and one of those people that you would never guess it when talking to him, in that he is very personable).

[Doc]

I never consider standing up for what you believe is a loss. Their position wasn't that the government would not be able to hack the phone. Their position was they didn't want the government telling them they needed to hack the phone. I think most Americans believe we have or can develop the technology to do pretty much anything whether it's eavesdropping on a foreign country or going to the moon or hacking into an iphone, which relatively speaking isn't that tough. So the issue was less that the phone couldn't be hacked without Apples help, it was the forcing them to do it and put in backdoors in future softwares

[CitizenBBN]

Except the government never asked for any backdoors in any phones, current or future. so what was Apple standing up against exactly?

(don't get me wrong, I'm betting the NSA already has them in lots of devices, as Pedro discussed re encryption, but that's not what they were asking for in this lawsuit)

They weren't standing up to not being forced b/c that question follows the first one, why they didn't want to do it voluntarily to help investigate a potential terror network.

Once they refused to help, that's when the second question arises, but they lost in the area of the first question.

See I think Apple did this by and large to puff out their chest about their secure phones. Why Do I think that? B/c Apple has been quite willing to compromise on FAR more serious questions of security in places like China, and has in at least 70 known cases been willing to voluntarily hack phones for US law enforcement in far less significant cases.

So what's the change? They claim the difference is this time they'd have to write code. Well as someone who has written about a million or so lines of code in his life, what's the big deal about that versus already having a way to hack a phone? The phone is just as hacked, and someone wrote the code to hack all the older phones with all the same issues of it "getting into the wild", and Apple never batted an eye.

But with this new phone suddenly having that same capability, even having the power by having the code handy, was a serious threat to customer security. So they were find for tens of millions of customers to be exposed to that risk for y years but NOW they have to take a stand?

Nah. That's not it. Apple could easily have written this code, uploaded it, hacked the phone and destroyed the code without word of it ever getting out.

Whereas Pedro thinks the FBI did this for their reasons, I think Apple did it for theirs too, mostly marketing their phone as being so secure.

In the end I'm sure both had good intentions and ulterior motives, but I think at the end of the day many people saw this iphone as being so secure even the FBI couldn't invade it, and now it looks like some 3rd party guy has just come up with a hack. I think in the end that hurts them more than the stuff that helped them.

[Doc]

The govt did demand that Apple build a backdoor into the phone (link http://recode.net/2016/03/28/fbi-drops-iphone-case-against-apple-after-outside-hack-succeeds/ ) which was one of their contentions.

You ask "What's changed?". Nothing, which is why I don't believe its a loss for Apple. Did I or anybody else ever believe any phone or computer was 100% hack proof? Hardly! If that was the case Hillary would have just done all her government business by cell phone rather then her secure private servers. I'm guessing the iPhone with the Apple software is much more secure. Well, WAS MORE SECURE. [/sarcasm]

The govt attempted to force Apple to do something they didn't want to do. Apple responded. They (Apple) isn't doing what the govt demanded. IMO that's a win for Apple and a win for the citizens of this country who believe the govt should not be able to tell business what they must do, as long as the business is not doing anything illegal.

[Catonahottinroof]

The government's case was a charade. They've had the capability for quite some time to break the iPhone security. Part of me wonders if that show was put on to intimidate the public not just Apple.

[Doc]

The government's case was a charade. They've had the capability for quite some time to break the iPhone security. Part of me wonders if that show was put on to intimidate the public not just Apple.


I would agree, and I think a thinly disguised one.

[CitizenBBN]

The govt did demand that Apple build a backdoor into the phone (link http://recode.net/2016/03/28/fbi-drops-iphone-case-against-apple-after-outside-hack-succeeds/ ) which was one of their contentions.


No, they didn't. Apple has called it that, but it's simply not true from a technical perspective.

A "backdoor" is a specific way to access an otherwise secure system and get around all that security, one that is coded into the system itself, and in this case would then have to reside in the phones themselves. Then the party that knows the backdoor could gain access whenever they choose.

That's not what the FBI asked for, despite Apple's characterizations. They asked for Apple to write an update to IOS that would disable the self-destruct if you typed the wrong password 10 times, and then upload that update using their secure ID codes so the phone would see it as an Apple update and accept it.

That is NOT a backdoor. That is a hack, and it's only even borderline a hack. It's really just a version of iOS that is less secure that could be selectively put on that phone.

So no, they never asked for a backdoor in this lawsuit. For all I know the NSA already has them in every phone, but this wasn't a request for one.

[CitizenBBN]

The govt attempted to force Apple to do something they didn't want to do. Apple responded. They (Apple) isn't doing what the govt demanded. IMO that's a win for Apple and a win for the citizens of this country who believe the govt should not be able to tell business what they must do, as long as the business is not doing anything illegal.

I'm a died in the wool Libertarian, but the government has always, and must always, have the power to compel cooperation in the pursuit of law enforcement. To what degree can be long debated, but there must be such a power otherwise there is no ability of law enforcement to function and thus we descend into anarcho-libertarianism where there is no government law enforcement.

[ShoesSwayedBlue]

The government's case was a charade. They've had the capability for quite some time to break the iPhone security. Part of me wonders if that show was put on to intimidate the public not just Apple.

Absolutely it was. The government wanted Apple to take the hit and for everyone to see them doing so.

[Catonahottinroof]

This is Apple's black eye in this situation.....


https://www.rt.com/usa/337789-apple-security-pressure-fbi/