"Some advocates of the government’s order want us to roll back data protections to iOS 7, which we released in September 2013. Starting with iOS 8, we began encrypting data in a way that not even the iPhone itself can read without the user’s passcode, so if it is lost or stolen, our personal data, conversations, financial and health information are far more secure. We all know that turning back the clock on that progress would be a terrible idea."
The last released non-beta iOS is 9.2.
Bill Gates still owns some 13 billions in Microsoft stocks.
> Bill Gates still owns some 13 billions in Microsoft stocks.
Do you really think Gates would dissemble, throw privacy under a bus, and draw the ire of his peers... just for a potential bump in net worth? I think it's far more likely that he believes what he says he believes.
As much as the HN crowd likes to side with Apple on this matter, reasonable people can disagree about what's best. I hope Gates's position causes people to reflect on why they have the opinion they do. Gates doesn't have some shady ulterior motive. He's simply stating his opinion on the matter, and using some hastily-conceived analogies to explain it to the general public. That's all.
> Do you really think Gates would dissemble, throw privacy under a bus, and draw the ire of his peers... just for a potential bump in net worth?
Check which companies sided with Apple this time and which didn't, then compare with some other older cases, for example after Snowden's revelations, then you tell me how you see the current state this time.
Almost certainly the phone doesn't contain anything relevant: it was just a business phone of the killer who actually took care to destroy his private phone and computer, the backup data out of the phone is already owned by the FBI and they just clumsily locked themselves out.
Even if I can imagine Gates believes what he says the context matters and shouldn't be left unmentioned. Interests and affiliations of somebody influential making the public statement are certainly important to mention. Also to compare, Cook was almost presented guilty for trying to preserve the products of his company.
Seriously? It's absolutely different (not to mention his ribbon analogy makes no sense at all). I see all of this more a question of "can Americans actually have anything remain private on a commercial device?". I don't want anyone but me to have unfettered access to my data, regardless of if it's phone records, bank info, or my phone's contents.
Here's hoping that the iPhone 7 has a secure enclave that either 1.) deletes keys on firmware flash, or 2.) doesn't allow it to be upgraded ever.
As far as I understand the secure enclave has been updated a couple times since it's introduction, so I legitimately hope this was a v1, with secure enclave v2 (without update functionality) waiting to be released in Sept.
As a side-note - one of the things I struggle with is I'm not convinced that Apple really had a tangible reason to make it as secure as it is, especially when their main competition was android, which is fairly laughable with security thanks to the OEMs.
Thing is, this entire system is based off of trust. If people lose trust in Apple, then they lose trust product. While even Apple can't decrypt the data, existence of malicious signed code means you can't trust signed code.
FBI would have done better to ask Apple in secret. Apple really made the only possible choice when faced with a public request.
You phrased all that just to get to the conclusion that Apple is an over-controlling company imposing rules on otherwise super tech savvy users. Well sorry to break the news for you, but people decide on their own which smartphone to buy.
Globally, most of the time, it's an Android phone. Globally, most of the time, it's an OLD and cheap Android phone, with firmwares so old and so full of holes that calling it insecure would be an euphemism.
But hey, I suppose they're much better off, since they can DECIDE what phone to buy, right? It's certainly not their income deciding for them... Better, they can even root it! Make it even more insecure! Install pirated software that hides malware and will steal their ids or their money! Now THAT's choice and power to the user!
No! Since iOS8 Apple intentionally encrypts the user's data on the phone in a way that even they don't have access to them.
They have access to the hardware, to be able to reconfigure it, but not the encrypted data on the phone. Because the data is encrypted, intentionally so.
And they have access to the iCloud backup data and they gave that data to the FBI. Then FBI actually locked their access to the phone by changing the iCloud password.
If you hope for that, consider the legal base on which FBI made the current request: All Writs Act, which is, in full:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Writs_Act
"(a) The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.
(b) An alternative writ or rule nisi may be issued by a justice or judge of a court which has jurisdiction."
Note it's not any kind of law that regulates any form of encryption or communication security, a lot of laws with such topics were fought through the years! It's just "we can demand anything we want."
Then consider how long such Secure Enclave will last if this precedent on such use of this Act is now to be made.
As an aside it bugs me to a fairly large degree that we still attempt to apply very old laws to something they were never designed to address the things we put in front of it. It feels very akin to trying to jam a square peg in a round hole.
Ever play with a wifi pineapple? Ever build one yourself? Congrats! You broke a federal wiretapping statute!
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2511 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2512
It's Americans now, but if Apple gives in, investigators from other big markets might pressure Apple to do the same for them. I think that's what's meant with cutting the ribbon many times.
What I have found even more confusing is why the FBI hasn't asked the NSA for help. The NSA's thousands of skilled hackers simply can't break into an old iPhone?
Hand that feeds you and all that.
The FBI already have the info they need, don't need nsa's help, this is purely about setting a precedent.
Actually, my best hypothesis is that, remembering that the Gates Foundation, which is the organization Gates is actually involved with now, works a lot in government/policy circles, Bill himself might have views that are more common within that circle that within the tech community. Whether that means that he is taking this point because he has more information, less information or just different priorities, I do not know. I don't even remember if Gates took any position on the original crypto wars.
I personally find that the balance of arguments weights much heavier on the side of security and privacy, versus surveillance, and that creating this tool and setting this particular precedent would do more harm than good. I can still imagine a world in which Gates disagrees with that without being knowingly evil, though.
Actually, when it comes to Gates in particular, I admit that when I was younger I spent a long time thinking of him as "knowingly evil" (or at least selfish to a extreme degree) for completely different reasons. Later I realized that he might have simply put priority on different ethical axioms than my high-school self did... and in the balance of things might end up having been a higher positive force in the world than a negative one, by far, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria#Eradication_efforts . This doesn't mean I agree with him on the issue at hand, though.
Regardless of the outcome of this case, the best thing that Apple, Google, and everyone else can do is to make sure that it's impossible for them to comply with future versions of the OS.
Most of the NSA hacking has nothing to do with cracking cryptographic keys anyway, it's exploiting weaknesses in systems so you don't even need the keys at all. In this case, it appears they would need the keys.
http://gizmodo.com/justice-department-forcing-apple-to-unloc... The Justice Department is pursuing court orders to force Apple Inc. to help investigators extract data from iPhones in about a dozen undisclosed cases around the country...
And what about when authorities in the UK also have cases where they "need" phones to be unlocked? And how about China? And every other government in the world that may want to have phones unlocked?
"I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero," Gates said. "If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience or something of that kind, or if he had been careful in terms of what he had released, then it would fit more of the model of 'OK, I'm really trying to improve things.' You won't find much admiration from me."
Gates said that there "has to be a debate" about government snooping, but indicated that some aspects of government surveillance are best left a secret.
Microsoft has seen quite a bit of controversy regarding its alleged cooperation with the NSA. Last July, the Guardian reported that Microsoft had aided both the NSA and FBI in accessing user data, including providing video and audio conversations from Skype, Microsoft's video chat service. A Der Spiegel report in December also found that the NSA would use fake Windows error messages to spy on people.
Ref: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-gates-snowden_n_496...
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-roll...
So how many people flagged this news? Which company IP address range were involved? Keep an eye on that. Thanks.
It's on 285. right now:
Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock the iPhone (techcrunch.com)
59 points by phesse14 5 hours ago 91 comments
On 212:
Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock San Bernardino Shooter's iPhone for FBI (macrumors.com)
13 points by samstokes 7 hours ago 8 comments
And on 1:
Bill Gates calls for terror data debate (bbc.com)
22 points by lentil_soup 52 minutes ago 4 comments
I disagree with Bill on phone security and agree with Apple's stance, but even so it's pretty clear to me that Microsoft has a stronger case and literally has no choice but to deny the US DOJ access to records held abroad.
not for a second do I suspect mr gates to be stupid or not comprehending situation in full detail, with all possible consequences. and here I thought that he went from most hated IT guy on this planet in '90s to somebody actually concerned about good of the mankind. can somebody shed some light what would be his true motivations for these statements?
...Well, that sums up his understanding of the the encryption technology. Then what are we to expect of the general public, when even Bill Gates sees a "ribbon around a disk drive"?
Unfortunately, there's no way Gates can win here. If he uses technical language, journalists and/or readers won't understand. Or worse: they'll misunderstand his views. If he uses simplistic analogies, he invites mockery from technical readers.
It's not about cutting a ribbon. It's about putting a hard drive in a box that self destructs when you try to open it. What your friends are asking is not to cut a ribbon, but to make the box open safely with a master key. Your government could not even stop wikileaks and your own employee to turn against you -- how do you expect the world to trust them with master key?
Overreaching beyond means and have it blow up in the face is quickly becoming an American virtue in the 21st century.
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/28/recently-bought-a-window...
Second, it's unclear how easy it would be to create firmware that only works on a specific device. What if there's a bug, or what if someone finds a way to spoof the device ID that would probably be checked? It could very well end up being a backdoor for all iPhones after all (or, at least, for all iPhones without a Secure Enclave).
This EFF article has a couple more points[1].
[1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/technical-perspective-...
Let's say that Apple crafted an update that does what the FBI wants. That in itself wouldn't put other iPhones at risk, as long as a signed copy of that malicious update didn't leave Apple's custody. The FBI hasn't even asked for that. They say that Apple could do all the work in house. Furthermore, it's unlikely that this malicious update would work on newer iPhones.
But the precedent would be established.
And once the software leaks, which will eventually happen, everyone will be able to do it in every situation.
Moreover, every other government will ask for it, and not all governments meet the same moral standards.
once this is created, apple would pressed HARD by all authorities to re-use it for all iphones captured. these days we know damn too well that people in CIA, aNSA etc don't hold any reasonable moral values when it comes to privacy of about anybody on this planet.
plus it could be taken from this specific phone and very probably copied anywhere, without any apple approval or court order.
if government was playing mr nice guy till now, there would be at least some hope and faith. currently, there is simply none.
Once that update exists, it can be installed on any device because it has been signed by Apple.
"There is no future in the Internet." - Bill Gates 1988
Call and message info, okay maybe, but full access? There is no way you can say thats fine.
I have said it in an earlier comment and ill say it again, i think they are inly doing this, on this case, to make a precedent, and only on this case, as few people will want it to be on record, that they are 'siding' with terrorists.
Imho, its bullshit, all the way through.
If our law enforcement cannot understand that terrorists will simply switch to use another encryption tool, then we have a much bigger problem than unlocking a single iPhone. Our security force does not know how to keep us safe. I'd rather they figure that out sooner than later.
He might be a brilliant man, but he clearly doesn't have the vision when it comes to security and privacy.