Reply to post: Re: No - it's binary

Re: No - it's binary

"Hmmm... What if - yes - it is a binary decision...

...but both sides are simultaneously absolutely correct?"

Then the tie goes to the runner, or in this case, Apple and personal privacy rather than the government.

I'm not out doing crimes and don't have criminal "secrets", but I do have lots of thing that I would like to keep private. In the US, we've already seen instances of police officers insisting people stopped for traffic violations hand over their phones and some evidence that the data on the phones was captured. That was a few generations of hardware ago and that sort of data gathering would be so much easier if the mobile OS vendors were required to supply "law enforcement" with the tools to lay their devices bare.

It's common near the US borders for the Border Patrol to REQUIRE access to laptops and other devices. That suspension of the US constitution is valid up to 150 miles from the border. The legal loophole is not commonly used outside of border crossing points, but it could be legal in cities like San Diego to confiscate mobile devices for examination without a warrant. The justification is to prevent terrorism, drug trafficking and child pornography, but in reality, the agents aren't computer experts and it would take somebody leaving blatant files on the desktop for the "check" to be worth anything. There have been cases where laptops have been kept up to 6 months before being returned. I haven't seen any reports of unknown criminals being caught. A couple of known criminals were caught after being recognized (human or facial detection) and their kit taken away.

If the only evidence to convict somebody of a crime is on their locked phone, how did the police suspect them in the first place? Ok, obvious in the case of the San Berdo shooters, but they don't need anything for a case against them, they're dead. They want to root around to see if they can find some extra stuff. This makes the warrant to compel Apple to hack their own security a little iffy. There is no case that will go before a judge regarding the affair. The metadata is already know, locations are already known. What do they expect to find? A Text that reads: "We're going in, see you in paradise."?