FBI, Apple continue cat-and-mouse game over iPhones in New York

Morton's Fork

Let's see.

You told the court in California that you no longer need Apple's assistance because you've acquired this tool that allows you to break into iPhones.

You told the court in New York that you need Apple's assistance because you can't break into iPhones without it.

To which court were you telling the truth?

And BTW, all those folk who said the San Bernadino case was just a one-off - are you still sure about that?

Notice Android?

Notice the lack of fight over access to Android? Not from FBI, not from NSA, not from the Chinese, or the Russian, not from anyone. There's no angry spy agencies demanding access to Google's Android phones, no carefully chosen show trials from the FBI, or MET.

I bet in the UK, they don't even need a warrant, one of those 'RIPA' letters written by a policeman probably gets all your private data into Theresa May's snooperbase. All courtesy of Googles surveillance addiction*.

So Apple has won so far, and protects its customers even from foreign and domestic government reach-arounds. But Google? Well they'll quietly doing what they're doing now with no change.

* A quick search reveals the Police hide behind the data protection act to hide what they're doing with RIPA requests. Which means self regulation in secret, outside of the Judiciary and Parliament. I bet they're using it for live data feeds to private databases.

Pretty weak position for the FBI here

The only thing they have going for them is "we know Apple can help us out here on this iOS 7 device, because they have previously", since Apple made big changes in how they manage their encryption with iOS 8 that made their past cooperation with court orders no longer possible.

So this low level meth dealer has pled guilty, and the FBI wants to go on a fishing expedition hoping to find information about other dealers or customers on his phone, and is using that fishing expedition to try to set a precedent for the All Writs Act hoping to leverage that into eventually forcing Apple to hack their own devices like they wanted in the previous case.

This just fuels the fire even more for Apple to 1) make it so they can't hack their own phones even with a court order by shutting down DFU updates and 2) make it so every bit of iCloud data is encrypted with a user controlled key so they cannot turn anything over there even with a court order. I say good on them, the FBI can go fuck themselves.

The outcome of this case doesn't matter, Apple and the FBI will fight it to the Supreme Court, but the time a decision is reached Apple will have made it so they cannot access any data whether they want to or not. The FBI will go whining to congress, and congress will have to see what public opinion is about making a law that forces Apple to create a hole in the protection they have set up, so that the FBI can catch minor street dealers. While they're at it, they should make it illegal for old school dealers and numbers runners who carry a black book with customer information to use codes, because those codes are like encryption in that they force the poor slobs sitting on their fat asses at the FBI to actually do real police work for a change!

Given the public opinion was roughly divided in a case about terrorism I can't see the public supporting such a law, and every tech company will be against it, and business leaders and Wall Street will fret about what it would do to our tech economy. A few people in the pockets of the FBI/CIA/NSA like Feinstein and Burr might support it, but the rank and file never will.

New law

All passwords to become: 1234

- Court order

Moving off shore

If the Govt force a precedent or a law change through congress then all tech firms with interest in international trade and a security product will HAVE to close all their offices in the USA and move to a safe location. i suggest that the big tech firms get together and spend some petty cash buy an island just outside USA control. ( preferably a self governing island so they can make their own laws)

Looks like Scott McNealy was right...

A quick search will yield the proper quote.

The problem is that this time it will be government required.