Should I feel sorry for Apple?

Wow, @Not_what_you_want_to_hear, you really don’t understand what’s going on here, do you.

@Not_what_you_want_to_hear it is hard to know if you are being sarcastic or honest here.

There’s a high level principle here that has nothing to do with bank balances or photographs. It doesn’t make a difference if I am storing recipes for chocolate chip cookies or making cluster bombs. The underlying principle is that I, as a citizen, have a right to be secure in my private things, no matter what they are.

What the FBI wants is the ability to search anyone’s iPhone any time for any reason. (Sure, they say it is one phone now, but do you trust them on that? Do you really think that they’ll only use it once? Puhleez.)

It doesn’t really matter if the government wants my secrets or not. They are my secrets and I choose not to share them

@elbanditoroso: @Not_what_you_want_to_hear‘s last two questions would indicate that they have little to no understanding of the issue, rather than they are being “clever”.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

- See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment4.html#sthash.LwAYmyRc.dpuf

I work for the government. I have no secrets. They can come for them if they want, and they can listen to them and read my emails if they want. If they want to spend their time on me, they can knock themselves out.

You edited this so heavily that it’s an entirely different question, the first 5 posts are in response to the other Q.

No. Apple is fighting our war against our prying government. See @Seek.

There isn’t any urgency to getting into the phone. The attack happened over two months ago!

This is just DHS fishing.

Nope. @Seek said everything that needs to be said.

The truth is that the US government has no clue about how this whole computer thing works. And from the sounds of it, neither do you.

As @Seek points out, this is about the Fourth Amendment. If you feel that prosecuting terrorists is important enough to get rid of that and ban encryption that lacks back doors, then put your money where your mouth is by proving that you have nothing to hide. Post all of your passwords and account information for everything you have; banking, e-mail, medical records, etcetera. And give us all copies of every key you have too so I can get into your home and borrow your car.

If you are not willing to give out that level of access to everyone reading this thread then you are under the delusion that the only ones who use things like backdoors or lockpicks are authorized law enforcement officials acting with just cause. If government can get into that phone, then anyone can do the same thing to anyone else.

@Not_what_you_want_to_hear

Amazing that you still don’t get it even after it was explained in the other thread.

unreasonable searches and seizures

Why is it unreasonable to search the phone of a dead person who murdered 14 people?

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

Highly relevant.

@jaytkay In theory, nothing. There’s nothing wrong with splitting atoms to release energy either, though I think a few residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima may have a few things to say about atom-splitting.

THAT is the problem. Now, would you swear to me on your life that, if Apple caved, that those means would never be abused, and that ONLY government agents with proper authority (not mere “probable cause”, but actual warrants) would use this? If not, then you already know why it would be unreasonable, even if you didn’t know you know.

@jca

Then why not go ahead and post all your personal info here?

I have no sympathy for any mega corporation. But I expect Apple to vigorously resist the government’s insisitence that Apple devise back door methods to retrieve data from their phones. The fact that compliance with government wishes will cost the company sales is just a lucky coincidence for those of us with icrap.

@Darth_Algar: You first.

@jca

You’ve got nothing to hide, right?

@stanleybmanly It goes far beyond that. So far that it’s funny how unfunny it is.

Unlike OP, most of us know that encryption with backdoors will have ne’er-do-wells and black-hats using those backdoors. It won’t just be the government using those things to get at the stuff of criminals; it’ll be criminals using them to victimize innocent people.

Do you have a bank account, credit card, ID card, or Social Security number? Would you be okay if those records were tampered with and left you a penniless victim of identity theft with outstanding warrants for terrorism and pedophila?

Do you know of anyone that deals with classified information? As a machinist who has done a fair bit of aerospace work and had employers that had DoD contracts, I most definitely have. Anyone who has any sort of trade secrets or anything covered by an NDA or “Need to know” would too. But if you’re okay with our Top Secret stuff being accessible by the same people that you claim you want to stop, I can’t stop you from being shortsighted to the point of being dangerously delusional.

Kiss everything good-bye ‘cuz some tech-illiterate people wanna wipe their ass with the Constitution and string up some Muslims!

I really don’t think people understand how this stuff works. If Apple makes a “back door” then it’s there for everybody. It’s mathematically impossible to make it only available for “the good guys.” So maybe we could glean some little nugget of terrorism related info that could help stop some terroist thing, maybe, in a best case scenario. But by doing so you could potentially expose the entire iPhone using population (and let’s be real, Android would have the same obligations very quickly) of the US to a major cyber attack by the Chinese, Russians, or even ISIS/Iran/“Scary Brown People” using the backdoor that Apple was legally obligated to create.

The potential risk is so much greater if we open Pandora’s box. Furthermore, it’s not going to stop terrorists in the future if we pass laws preventing encryption. The techniques for writing secure, encryption are widely available and open source. Ultimately it’s just a well-known mathematical procedure, so it would be like trying to erase 2 + 2 = 4, or “how to reduce a fraction” from the internet. It’s just not possible. The bad guys already have and always will have access to strong encryption.

We want strong encryption for our government’s messages, for our online banking transactions, for our healthcare records, for our communications about proprietary stuff our companies are making/doing to keep competitors from stealing our ideas, etc.

@jca You’ve got nothing to hide? Post your Social Security number, bank account info, vin numbers on your vehicles, mother’s maiden name, name of your first pet, etc. (Don’t ACTUALLY do this, you would probably see your entire life savings transferred to Russia/China).

I’m just making the case from a purely pragmatic standpoint that this would make us much LESS secure as a country, not safer at all.

In addition to that point, I also agree that it’s a betrayal of our values/principles as Americans. Our country was founded on the principle of respecting the privacy of it’s citizens. That is a valuable right. Even if we could magically guarantee that this would only be used by the US government and would never fall into the wrong hands, or be reverse-engineered by our enemies (which is ridiculous and impossible), we would still have the major problem of abuses within government having the ability to spy on the citizens.

You could have elections rigged, people framed for crimes they didn’t commit, etc. all by unknown people who would have nearly unlimited secret access to our information. Do you really have that much faith in Agent 45343 at the NSA that he won’t abuse his authority? There’s already been many examples of this happening.

@jca You may have “nothing to hide,” but how would you feel if someone you loved was being cyber-stalked by an NSA agent and having her life ruined? How would you fight back?

@Darth_Algar and @gorillapaws: I said I work for the government, I have no secrets, meaning the government (boss) knows my info, salary, etc. I also said “they can read my emails” which refers to reading my emails. They can read my texts too. I said that in my posts.

@jca It won’t be just the government that has access to your info though. That’s the whole point I’m making. It will be all of the hackers too if we start mandating “back doors” in our security.

@jerv Both you & @gorillapaws make a powerful case for Apple’s arguments before the bench. Perhaps the FBI won’t get its way after all.

I read this earlier today. I’m not going to second guess but I hope Cook stays strong on this.

http://blogs.findlaw.com/technologist/2016/02/tim-cook-opposes-federal-order-to-unlock-iphones.html#more

@stanleybmanly The EFF is already on it. One of their first cases was Steve Jackson Games v. United States Secret Service, and they won.

@jca How much of that info would you post publicly? If I don’t see your SSN and bank account number in this thread, then you actually do have secrets. You merely trust the US government with some of them.
Look how many people have got in trouble for posting incriminating stuff online and forgot that the audience was far larger than just the people they wanted to share that information with. Whether a boss seeing an employee at a ballgame when they called in sick, or a parole officer seeing a pic of someone violating smoking a joint on Facebook, information can spread far beyond it’s intended audience. Too many people don’t get that until it bites them in the ass.