Apple's Tim Cook defends encryption. When will other tech CEOs do so? (opens in new tab)

Google's also had a positive impact on TLS usage in email: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/saferemail/

TLS for email is still in pretty bad shape but it's getting better. (Funny, I just noticed that Google's page says "Safe Browsing" while only "Safer Email".) I know you're not a fan of DNSSEC, but something like Secure SMTP via DANE is probably needed for meaningful improvement: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dane-smtp-01 (though it won't help with the chicken-and-egg problem of domain ownership validation by email)

Agreed, but the article is focused on why these companies that have done significant things to protect users with encryption technologies haven’t been a lot more vocal like Tim Cook has. This issue is so important to them and to everyone that they could spare a little time to speak their minds. Otherwise it just looks like that "kooky Apple" going against the grain. Who cares, they are going out of business soon, right?

> You mean like how Google got ECC forward-secure TLS deployed across the whole Internet?

Did you finish reading the article?

> Facebook’s WhatsApp has brought end-to-end encryption to more people – over 800 million – than any other service; and Google’s engineering team has been a leader in securing much of the web in the post-Snowden era.

And then they go on saying:

> But this is much more than an engineering fight – it’s a political one where public opinion is crucial.

Do you think the average voter knows what ECC forward-secure TLS is? Heck, I'd like to think I kind of know a little about the subject but I know _nothing_ compared to you and a bunch of other HNers.

But unfortunately, we live in a society where people who can vote are really scared of terrorism and lack an understanding of how technology works. If a politician tells them we need to decrypt "all the things" for their safety they'll happily vote for them[0].

We need the celebrities of the tech world to reach out and explain why we need crypto in a way they can understand.

[0]: No link really, just watch any of Donald Trump's rallies and tell me if you think those people care about encryption.

The article is really about CEOs publicly arguing that security back doors are a bad idea. It's unfortunate that mainstream press seems to be conflating "encryption" and "security back doors", but here we are.

As to the argument in the article, are there other examples of non-Tim Cook CEOs of big tech companies saying anything like this?

"But the reality is if you put a back door in, that back door's for everybody, for good guys and bad guys"

The closest I've found was a letter from many companies [1] which says "introducing intentional vulnerabilities into secure products for the government’s use will make those products less secure against other attackers." Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and many others were signatories to that letter. So it certainly sounds like the companies might feel that way.

[1] https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/3138--113/Encrypti...

Eric Schmidt needs to be explaining this & why it's important to his politician friends and sphere of influence. Perhaps he already is, but it would be meaningful politically if he (and others) said something publicly. Cook is kind of the lone ranger on the matter as far as public discourse is concerned, post Paris & San Bernardino.

This has nothing to do with being vocal about security. Yea, they're helping the technical cause, but if you don't want backdoors in everything, the CEO's need to talk to the public so they're aware, and sending letters and phone calls.

I'm sure what Google did helps curtail mass surveillance, but they still hold all the data unencrypted, no?

You just described what google has done in slightly more technical detail than the article. I don't know why. It is definitely not what was meant. Supporting encrypted communications is a prerequisite to publicly advocating for it, but it is not publicly advocating for it.

And Martin Fowler has one of the best posts I've ever read on why privacy is important for a democracy: http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html

I use a lot of web apps on my iphone. They don't have access to all the phone's apis, but they do everything I need, without any hindrance from apple oversight.

This is probably the most native looking one of the bunch: https://forecast.io/

That scenario becomes a lot more dire when the CEO says

  CEO, to me: Yes, because we are compelled by law 
              backed by jail time or hefty fines.

What you think is a problem - is broken cryptography to experts.

There is no shortage of minds working on to create backdoors, or develop cryptographic methods that have backdoors, just look at Dual_EC_DRBG. It was a backdoor for the "good guys", but now its backdoor for everyone - eventually people will study the code and see the backdoor exists.

The crux of the issue is mathematics has no concept of good guys or bad guys, so as far as mathematics is concerned a back door for anyone is a backdoor for everyone.

I don't think people are any more pessimistic about back doors as they are about perpetual motion machines.

Let's pause to consider this. Math works, that's why even the NSA can't break encryption. I wouldn't want to tell you wrong and say that it's impossible, it's not, but it would take something like ten billion years to crack. Needless to say, there's a reason why they need a backdoor, and that's because math works.

However, if a backdoor were put into all electronic products, the strength of the encryption is now meaningless as any would-be attacker (government or otherwise) would just target the backdoor instead of trying to break the encryption. Why wait ten billion years for a computer to brute force the message when you could just find a flaw in something designed by the government?

I suggest reading this piece on the recent Jupiter vulnerability: http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/12/on-juniper-b...

"The problem with cryptographic backdoors isn't that they're the only way that an attacker can break into our cryptographic systems. It's merely that they're one of the best. They take care of the hard work, the laying of plumbing and electrical wiring, so attackers can simply walk in and change the drapes."

That's not correct.

It's perfectly possible and trivial to put in a backdoor that only works for people who have access to a specific private key.

Obviously if that private key gets stolen anyone can then access the backdoor, but that's true for anything, and you can mitigate it by storing the key in self-destructing immovable hardware with access limitations, as well as periodically changing the keypair (with signed updates).

The real problem is that there is no single "good guy" to entrust with that private key: in particular humans are inherently not fully trustable or good and both individual consumers and other governments have no interest in using or allowing backdoored products.

That's not what that document says. iMessage has a design flaw (which is pretty obvious if you think about how it works) that allows it to theoretically be backdoored. In other words, they made a trade-off between usability and security, and (in my opinion, and clearly yours) fucked up. That's very different from saying that they deliberately built a backdoor into the system, and I think that some of the things they've done (like explicitly noting when someone else has been added to your iCloud account, and will be able to decrypt upcoming iMessage messages) goes to some length to mitigate those issues, and make clear that the existing design is more incompetence than malice.

That said, all Apple would have to do to fix this is to allow advanced users to see all keys listed as authorized for their account. I'm getting increasingly annoyed Apple hasn't done that.

Nowhere in the article does it say that Apple actually compromised the end to end nature of an iMessage conversation. All I see is this:

> Apple could collaborate with law enforcement to provide a false key, thereby intercepting a specific user’s messages, and the user would be none the wiser.

Key word is "could". Apple "could" also use its signing keys to install any kind of software on your phone to do whatever it wants. For example, to read your keychain and pull your private keys.

I doubt security minded folks would be choosing Android, because of the lack of updates.

Weak Service Portfolio?

Off the top of my head:

SSO ID Service / Cloud Photo Storage / Cloud Document Sync / Cloud Backup / Email / Instant Messaging / Music Store / Music Streaming Service / Cloud Music Service / Movie/TV Store / App Store / Push Notifications / Payments / Video Conferencing / Game Centre / eBook Store / Shared Calendaring / Notes / Large File Sharing / Personal Assistant / Maps

Weak?

It’s in the financial interest of much of the technology industry to vociferious campaign for encryption, but they don’t. If Google stopped using any encryption, don't you think their business would suffer?

It may be in their Apple’s financial interests to do so, but it’s also the right thing to do. As you (partially) say, they care about the user experience. That experience includes taking steps to protect user information and they’ve had a long track record of doing just that. They did this long before it probably had any noticeable effect on the bottom line.