back to article Apple, Google should give FBI every last drop of user information, says ex-HP CEO and wannabe US prez Carly Fiorina

Former HP CEO and current presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina says Apple and Google should just hand user information over to government investigators. Speaking Thursday at the Republican party's presidential debates, Fiorina said companies should be more willing to cooperate with requests from federal investigators to produce …

  1. Andy Tunnah

    That old chestnut

    "What we know now, if we had known it then, we could have prevented this" is such a dangerous statement. So they get what they want. Then another attack happens, where if they had been watching every single person intrusively, it wouldn't have. So there's another barrier. And so on.

    There are some things you just have to accept as being a risk if you wanna keep a certain level of freedom

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That old chestnut

      Carly Fiorina says Apple and Google should just hand user information over to government investigators.

      ...just like Obama wants them to.

      1. unwarranted triumphalism

        Re: That old chestnut

        It's wrong if Obama does it.

      2. jinx3y

        Re: That old chestnut

        to be fair...she isn't quoted as saying "hand user information over"...the quotes say "collaborate and cooperate", which isn't the same. However, what she actually meant could by saying that could well mean the same...just being objective...

    2. James 51

      Re: That old chestnut

      The problem is gathering the data and understanding what you have. There was a lot of info that could have help stop the world trade centre attacks but it was untranslated and in different databases. They don't need more power, the need to use what they have in a more focused and intelligent manner.

      1. ratfox
        Megaphone

        Re: That old chestnut

        There are some things you just have to accept as being a risk if you wanna keep a certain level of freedom

        <Insert Benjamin Franklin quote>

        1. Irony Deficient

          insert Benjamin Franklin quote on freedom

          ratfox, if you insist:

          In that Case the Sharpness of the Urine gives me great Pain when I make Water, which I have frequent Urgencies to do, and with little Effect. The Blackberry Jelly taken at Night about the Bigness of a Pigeon’s Egg, which I sometimes eat with a Bit of Bread, and sometimes dissolve in a Tumbler of Water and drink it, mixing sometimes two or three Tea Spoonfuls of Brandy, has constantly given me Ease and Freedom by the Morning, with long Intervals between the Calls during the following Day.
          letter to Walter Dulany, 1787-11-29

          1. David Dawson

            Re: insert Benjamin Franklin quote on freedom

            @Irony Deficient

            Took me a moment, but well done!

            Your name is proven inappropriate.

      2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: That old chestnut

        >Carly Fiorina says Apple and Google should just hand user information over to government investigators.

        And to the European government investigators, and to the Chinese, and to the Russians, and to every other country they want to do business in ?

        1. Richard Wharram

          @YAAC

          Therein lies the problem that even the most conservative fascists can't confront. What's good for the goose is good for the gander and it would kill those businesses overnight if attempted.

    3. Preston Munchensonton
      Mushroom

      Re: That old chestnut

      I, for one, am grateful that Carly Fiorina has removed all doubt as to her intentions, so that all of us may recognize her for the same sort of crony capitalist scum that have used politicians in the past to get their cut of the governmental largesse. I guess it should come as no surprise that I didn't have any doubt about her, based on her performance at HP, but it certainly makes it easier to ignore any and all future utterances from her piehole.

      Sincerely,

      An individual that savors his freedom and hates that government doesn't protect it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: That old chestnut

        And Carly was a shit CEO at HP as well. Even with some smart people supporting her.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: That old chestnut

          > And Carly was a shit CEO at HP as well.

          I'm sorry, but I find that extremely disrespectful towards the shit CEOs that I know.

          She played in an altogether different league, as you do if you manage to single-handedly destroy one of the best companies at the time (and the careers of many a brilliant engineer).

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "I absolutely would call on them to collaborate and cooperate, yes."

      If one is to be a 'Collaborator', then it's best that one carefully selects the winning side.

      Former ink-monger and present apparent Stasi-fan Fiorina isn't that side.

      1. Roj Blake Silver badge

        Re: "I absolutely would call on them to collaborate and cooperate, yes."

        Perhaps Fiorina should be reminded about what happened to collaborators after WW2.

    5. johnaaronrose

      Re: That old chestnut

      Anybody care to place a wager on how long till CF's email etc is hacked?

  2. phil dude
    FAIL

    trust the maths...

    Since Apple and Google(?) have made the end-to-end messages unhackable, I guess we should trust the maths not the govt.

    A backdoor is just a front door when you're not looking that way...

    P.

    1. asdf

      Re: trust the maths...

      >trust the maths...

      Ok bear with me as I am far from an expert but I thought that integer factorization (which encryption is based on) hasn't been proven to be as hard to solve as we assume today for sure (talking number theory not technology speed up for brute forcing). Practically we can trust it based on current knowledge but its not possible to say for sure it will be secure in the future (even if we stayed at our technology levels today).

      1. DavCrav

        Re: trust the maths...

        "Ok bear with me as I am far from an expert but I thought that integer factorization (which encryption is based on) hasn't been proven to be as hard to solve as we assume today for sure (talking number theory not technology speed up for brute forcing)."

        Correct. It is NP, clearly, but I do not believe it is known to be NP-hard. Although it almost certainly is. But then the same was sometimes said about primality testing, which is known to be in P now.

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: trust the maths...

        Ok bear with me as I am far from an expert but I thought that integer factorization (which encryption is based on)

        Your premise "which encryption is based on" is incorrect, so your conclusion is irrelevant.

        RSA asymmetric encryption relies on the asymmetric difficulty of encryption. That's one cipher out of many. Even if we're just talking about asymmetric ciphers, you have the discrete logarithm family (Diffie-Hellman, ElGamal, Cramer-Shoup, etc) and the elliptic-curve variants of both the factoring and discrete-log algorithms. Then there are some historical schemes which are either too weak or broken, like Merkle and knapsack, but which might be avenues for further research.

        There are other functions which may be asymmetrically much easier than their inverses, which is one of the key properties for asymmetric encryption, and so it may be possible to construct asymmetric ciphers around them. The quadratic residue problem (and those of higher-order residues as well) is one such. (It's already known in crypto circles as the basis of the BBS cryptographic pseudorandom number generator, which asymptotically approaches unpredictability.) The given-sum problem is another. It might also be possible to construct asymmetric ciphers out of other sorts of difficult-to-invert problems, such as those used for zero-knowledge proofs.

        What is true is that no one knows (or has published, anyway) for sure that any functions are asymmetric in this fashion. Proving that would be equivalent to proving P != NP, and conversely proving there are no such functions would prove P=NP.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: trust the maths...

      "Unhackable" is a bold claim. Somewhat optimistic, if you ask me.

      1. phil dude
        Facepalm

        Re: trust the maths...

        @moiety: Yes, I should have put that in quotes...

        P.

  3. Thomas Wolf

    What a load of nonsense....

    ....how does she know whether the cyber attack on CIA records would have been prevented if the FBI had unfettered access to company records? She's just a private citizen (and incompetent CEO judging by her record while at HP).

    That CIA hack made it plenty clear that we can't trust the FBI or government in general with our data. If they can't even keep highly confidential records safe, what chance is there that they'd do better with our more "mundane" private data? I mean - given that there's no consequence for obvious ineptitude (who got fired over the fact that these government employees divulged 20 million records??) - would these federal yahoos even learn from their mistakes?

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    FAIL

    Just like her namesake

    You are so vain Carly.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Just like her namesake

      Sorry to be a pedantic - Carly Simon wrote "Your're So Vain", and the subject was not herself.

      I do agree with you on the point made about CF.

      1. BongoJoe
        Headmaster

        Re: Just like her namesake

        Pedantically speaking it ought to be "Sorry to be a pedant". Sorry.

  5. Rick Giles
    Black Helicopters

    At the risk of souunding like a nut...

    I'm still not convinced that the Government didn't a) know well in advance what was about to go down and/or b) actually make it happen so that they could further advance us to a surveillance state for the NWO.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: At the risk of souunding like a nut...

      Yes, you sound like a nutcase.

      Its not that I don't think countries can't do this sort of internal stuff but that the chances of all those people who would have to be involved to do it AND not talk about it.... Hundreds of people party to mass murder and nobody says a word at all? Nope, can't believe that.

      1. Rick Giles

        Re: At the risk of souunding like a nut...

        " Hundreds of people party to mass murder and nobody says a word at all?"

        Did you forget the "Vietnam Conflict"? That was all a ruse for the MIC.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: At the risk of souunding like a nut...

        How many people would actually need to be involved? Maybe "they" didn't exactly know what was going down, they knew something was brewing and "they" let it slip between the cracks to create a scenario that would allow the MIC to expand into civilian life, not the Soviets were no longer bringing home so much Pork.

        We *are* talking about the kind of people who thinks torture is OK "for the greater good" after all. Do people like that really have limits or boundaries they will not cross - or is it all a matter of personal risk versus reward?

        Like, when we had that Anthrax scare conveniently right in the middle of building a case for Iraq War II, with all those WMD's everywhere (Saddam had Antrax - we know, because we sold it to the bastard).

        So, *All* the conspiracy needed is for someone to just draw down on inter-agency-cooperation - one of the plots, of which there must be 10's of "brewing" any day of the week, could then "mature" and the cry for protection would spring the Pork from Public Coffers. It's not like anyone *planned* or *arranged* to have 4000+ people murdered, it just happened that way - the terrorists got, perhaps, a break and they got really lucky with it!

        Fraud and Incompetence can appear very similar when seen from a distance.

        PS:

        Back 'ere we have the Danish Tax Office handing out tax refunds to fraudsters for at least 600 million EUR with no verification of the claims at all - which is not strange given that 5(!) the staff has to handle 2-300 claims each per week!

        Is this a happy co-in-cidink - or - has some higher up's, who knows the business internals deliberately set up a structure that will enable fraud and planning for retirement in sunnier circumstances? *Control Frauds" are common enough in private business and guvmint want public service to be more "business-like". Which it certainly *is*, now.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing changes

    She had no idea when she was CEO of a company and still has no idea when trying to be CEO of a country.

    [Yes, I worked for HP when she was there]

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

      Re: Nothing changes

      With the size of the US budget, what's USD 8 billion in chicken feed

    2. Tom 35

      Re: Nothing changes

      Well we can buy Mexico, then fire everyone...

  7. nsld

    Oh dear

    Along with Taco Tuesday we now have Fuckwitt Friday.

    Why would anyone vote for this loon?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh dear

      >Why would anyone vote for this loon?

      Don't worry the GOP won't either as she is not an old white male.

    2. nijam Silver badge

      Re: Oh dear

      > Why would anyone vote for this loon?

      Same reason they vote for any of the others.

  8. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    I'm voting Libertarian

    Boy is she incompetent. How do people take the likes of Fiorna and Trump at all seriously?

    And second, is anybody going to call her out on the contradicition?

    "I do not believe that we need to wholesale destroy every American citizen's privacy in order to go after those that we know are suspect or are – are already a problem," then like a minute later calling for wholesale destruction of every American citizen's privacy (well, not every one, I'm sure a few use no online services.)

    I'm the one voting libertarian -- the Republicans and Democrats are both anti-privacy, anti-freedom, favoring large, intrusive and unaffordable government, and just quibble over minor details (while both falsely claming they are the polar opposite of the "other" party.) Both falsely claim they want to cut spending then falsely blame the "other" party for increased spending. In reality, both main parties want to cut SOMETHING, but then it comes out they want to cut that spending to spend EVEN MORE on something else.

    Don't get me wrong, the libertarian call for something like cutting 8 or 9 departments entirely within 4 years is too far too fast, I would rely on checks and balances to slow them down to a more reasonable pace. But they seem to be the only party calling for spending cuts at all. And, the main 2 parties have shown their anti-privacy record.. they'll either speak out FOR anti-privacy measures, or speak out against them but then vote for the very bill they just spoke out against. The few libertarians in congress or senate have regularly actually consistently voted AGAINST anti-privacy and anti-freedom laws.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm voting Libertarian

      In order to explain the nature of the USA political parties - someone once compared them to the two main British political parties.

      "The Republicans are like the British Conservative (Tory) Party - while the Democrats are like the British Conservative (Tory) Party".

      Of course - these days some would say that the British Labour Party is also like the British Conservative (Tory) Party.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I'm voting Libertarian

        Also said is Democrats are the party of incompetence and Republicans are the party of evil.

        1. O RLY

          Re: I'm voting Libertarian

          "The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." - P.J O'Rourke.

      2. Scubaman66

        Re: I'm voting Libertarian

        I think it would be more accurate to say that the Democrats are similar to the right wing of the Conservative party, the Republicans are somewhat to the right of the far right of British politics.

        I always find it somewhat bemusing that, whilst being considered somewhat right of centre here in the UK , I find much of what those apparently communist/marxist Democrats espouse to be to the right of my position.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: I'm voting Libertarian

          I think it would be more accurate to say that the Democrats are similar to the right wing of the Conservative party, the Republicans are somewhat to the right of the far right of British politics.

          To be fair,1 the US is a big place, with a lot of people, many of whom belong to one or the other of those parties, and many more of whom generally vote for candidates of one or the other. Neither party is much like any one given political position. They're too big to be at all homogenous, and the de facto two-party system in the US makes for many realpolitik strange bedfellows.

          There are leftist Democrats and statist Democrats and organized-labor Democrats and working-class Democrats. There are laissez-faire pro-business Republicans and religious-fundamentalist Republicans and Tea-Party Republicans. And many other factions in both parties.

          These days, the most common defining feature of a Democrat is disliking Republicans, and vice versa. We've essentially turned politics into a sporting match, with two nearly identical teams distinguished only by their decorations.2

          1You're right. Why start now?

          2As it nearly always has been, everywhere and forever.

      3. jonathanb Silver badge

        Re: I'm voting Libertarian

        Republicans are more like UKIP or the Democratic Unionist Party.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mussolini...

    "But yes, there is more collaboration required between private sector companies and the public sector."

    Il Duce actually raised that to a political philosophy and called it "fascism".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mussolini...

      "Il Duce actually raised that to a political philosophy [...]"

      Didn't he also call it "The Third Way"? History was never Tony Blair's strong subject.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Mussolini...

        "History was never Tony Blair's strong subject."

        Did he have a strong subject other than narcissistic Thatcher-worship?

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Mussolini...

          "narcissistic Thatcher-worship"

          Surely that should be narcissistic self-worship.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Mussolini...

            "Surely that should be narcissistic self-worship."

            What Blair learned from Thatcher:

            1. Apparent populism masking policies intended to enrich him and his mates.

            2. Dodgy Middle Eastern régimes are always good for a sub.

            3. If your popularity is waning, have a little war with distant foreigners.

            Unfortunately he didn't pay close attention to all the rules surrounding (3) and the rest is history.

      2. Tom 13

        Re: Mussolini...

        No, The Third Way is associated with Tito.

  10. jason 7

    "...already a problem"

    And quite how is that definition going to change over the next few years.

    Terrorist -> Political Activist -> Rights Campaigner -> Political Blogger -> Satire Writer -> Journalist -> Comedian -> Non-compliant Citizen -> Anyone else that doesn't like the way it is.

  11. Spaceman Spiff

    Ok. Carly. If you are so pure, then open up your (data) skirts and show us what you've got! I have to wonder what you have hidden away in the recesses of your computer systems and data files!

    1. Graham Marsden
      Paris Hilton

      @Spaceman Spiff

      Sorry, but that information is restricted as it may compromise National Security.

      And, sorry, no, we can't tell you anything about what there is in there that would compromise National Security because that would compromise National Security too!

  12. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    It looks as if she's trying to do to the rest of the US IT industry what she did to HP.

  13. Paul S. Gazo
    Megaphone

    Fair is fair...

    This might not be utterly, completely, ludicrously absurd if in turn Apple, Google, et al were to release any and all information regarding government officials TO THE PUBLIC when the public suspects them of wrong-doing. Incidentally, I suspect them all of wrong-doing.

    Our governments can know what we're doing when we know what they're doing.

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Fair is fair...

      No, not even that.

      We are the ones who pay the governments; they are in place for our benefit, and not us for theirs. We should know what they do, but there is neither reason nor logic in them knowing what we do.

  14. YARR
    Thumb Down

    Read between the lines...

    This is post-fact, in-group ass-covering / a vain attempt at shaping public opinion.

    They shared all the data long ago, no doubt Carly personally authorised a back door in every HP PC.

    1. Scubaman66

      Re: Read between the lines...

      Trouble was the key to the door was given to the US strategic directors in Likud. This isn't some paranoid conspiracy theory but specifically the VERY cosy relationship between HP and Netanyahu's party. Commercially no doubt very profitable, guaranteed to be supported by the fundamentalist Christian right lobby and no doubt putting HP at the top of the list for Govt projects if the Republicans get into the White House.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Read between the lines...

        I would like to see a reference to that.

        But after the way she shafted HP and then walked out with a golden SpaceX (well before Musk ;-) I don' think HP will be listening to her.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As if we need every law enforcment agency having full access to anyone's information

    "Fiorina sided with the feds, saying that the recent cyber attacks on government agencies from state-sponsored hackers could have been thwarted if private companies were more accommodating."

    First: Maybe they should quit moaning about being hacked and actually put the effort into preventing future attacks. Or... restrict user access to the outside world with sensitive information. Is there some reason where there isn't a gating system set up to restrict information on computers with access to the internet. I would think the major government agencies would have enough money to have one computer set up to a local network with no connection and a restricted computer that does.

    Second: You don't ask for the information. You should be good enough to just steal it and not get caught. If you expect all companies to hand over that information freely, then it should never be allowed in a court of law. Shouldn't ever be allowed to be handed over/used by local or state authorities either, since you're going to find most people violating some law or another AND this is only to stop the terrorists.

  16. Graham Marsden
    Holmes

    "We know that we could have detected and repelled some of these cyber attacks..."

    "...if that collaboration had been permitted," [This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.]

  17. SoaG

    On the other hand..

    ...maybe if Facebook, Apple and Google are very publicly sharing everything with the FBI that might finally be enough to wake the sheeple to demand those companies stop tracking everything.

    Nah!

    People like their amusements too much.

  18. OmgTheyLetMePostInTheUK

    Crossing off Carly from the possibles list

    So much for preserving our privacy. If she feels this way, I want no part of having her in the White House.

    I guess this would also explain why I cannot find a copy of the early debate to view what went on during that.

  19. Alan Denman

    Only Apple and Google?

    Does that mean she gives Microsoft 10?

  20. Chris G

    Dim Bint

    I think she just may have lined herself up for a Darwin Class political award there.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dim Bint

      Have you looked at the picture closely?

      Itanium-powered androids are immune from natural selection.

  21. DerekCurrie
    FAIL

    Big Sister

    This issue is NOT about companies that offer encryption. It is entirely about US citizens who chose in and of themselves to use privacy tools, such as encryption. It's all about US citizens applying their rights provided in the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.

    The end.

    Pestering third parties to spy on US citizens on US soil without an actual legal warrant as specified by the US Constitution is, simply, unconstitutional. And NO, blanket FISA court warrants are NOT constitutional no matter which way you contort the subject.

    Non-US citizens: They're entirely fair game. Communication of US citizens outside of the USA: That's entirely fair game.

    Question: Why is the world of humans in general desperately bent on playing out the '1984' scenario? Is it out of laziness on law enforcement's part. Obviously, that's a factor. It's harder to follow the law themselves. But there's also the constant question of whether citizens or their elected government actually runs any single country. The actual answer is that the CITIZENS run everything and the government is merely a representative servant. Nonetheless, there are obviously some people, who think somewhere within the psychopathic scale, who want flip it all upside down and make the government to rule the people. That can only be done in this day and age via massive citizen surveillance, aka TOTALITARIANISM. No to that! Sorry Big Sister.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Big Sister

      Question: Why is the world of humans in general desperately bent on playing out the '1984' scenario?

      The citizens/voters are the problem. They expect government to take care of them by providing more and more services, by stopping crime and terrorism, and not raising taxes. They expect, nay demand, cradle to grave everything because they are "special" and "deserve it". As long as the citizens/voters get their bread and circuses, they don't care what government does to them.

      1. BongoJoe

        Re: Big Sister

        As long as the citizens/voters get their bread and circuses, they don't care what government does to them.

        So, nothing has changed much since the days of the Roman Empire then?

        1. Richard Taylor 2

          Re: Big Sister

          Bread, circuses and iDevices (replace with any old shiny)

  22. nilfs2
    Flame

    The internet doesn't belong to the Yank politicians

    The internet doesn't belong to you Yanks, stop sticking your noses up everyone business in there! I'm not a US citizen, get off my life!

  23. JustNiz

    As a Brit now living in the US, I've repeatedly observed firsthand a very interesting phenomenon that apparently nearly all American women's (but not men's) solutions to almost any societal problem is to further dilute or even eliminate citizens constitutional rights/freedoms and give that power to the US government/police instead.

    It's truly amazing how consistent this is, and how they all seem to have a complete blindspot to the obvious downsides.

    I would truly love to know why this is.

  24. JaitcH
    Thumb Down

    "was booted from the job in 2005"

    'Nuff said.

  25. Lord_Butt
    FAIL

    Dang

    There's another one I have to scratch off my list.

  26. xyz123 Silver badge

    Terrible woman - no Business sense

    Carly Fiorina was such a TERRIBLE boss, that when she was sacked from HP, everyone was terrified of her screaming temper tantrums and no-one wanted to be the one to tell her.

    The Board of Directors waited until she went home for the weekend, deleted ALL her Outlook calendar appointments etc, and made her PA tell her she was fired.

    Horrible nasty woman who basically dove HP into the ground, cost them 10s of BILLIONS off their share price.

    Side story: she fell for an email scam and wasted $500,000 of her own money sending it to someone who promised her MILLIONS in return...which shows her level of business acumen.

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