Posted on 02/22/2016 2:04:17 PM PST by Tracker47
I have been keeping tabs on this whole “Feds order Apple to compromise their security features†thing. I don’t think it’s a security problem, a crime problem, or a privacy problem. It’s Government problem. They say that it’s fighting “terrorismâ€, an entirely different class of crime. It seems to me that it has little or nothing to do with terrorism, just setting precedent allowing the Government (yours and mine) to force people to do things. In this case it’s about making Apple write new software that can assist them in breaking into a darn near perfectly secure device. The claim that the phone belongs to the bad guys employer and they have the owners permission, is bogus. The fact is that the employer bought a high security device and gave it to the bad guys. That they may have used it for illicit purposes doesn’t alter the fact that the device is still secure, and the maker of the device does not currently have the ability to open it up, nor does it want that ability. If they want to sue somebody, or order someone to do something, sue the owner or the user, not the manufacturer. Oh, the user is dead. Sounds like the case is closed, but we need to know about their dental appointments, fuel purchases and maybe their Candy Crush level. Hmm, maybe the phones owner, a municipal government, should be jailed for providing such a device to someone that used it improperly… Like when someone uses your car in a crime…..That’s another argument waiting for another day…(No, not really, the crime is always on the criminal) They claim it’s a “one time deal†just for this phone, but we all know if they if can do it once, they can do it again, and once the ability has been developed, it’s over for everyone. It all goes back to the old saying,â€Two people can keep a secret, but only if one of them is deadâ€. I have no doubt that a modern Julius Rosenberg is working at Apple, or in the Government, and that folks’ ApplePay accounts would soon be getting charged for lots of things. It’s a lot easier to let a cat out of a bag than it is to put it back in…..so in reality, once the software with the ability to crack this device has been developed, it is only a matter of time before it is available as a download to anyone with a few dollars. “There’s an App for thatâ€. Maybe some people don’t care about Govt agencies and the rest of the world having unfettered access to their information. Lots of people have the attitude that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about. Let’s be honest, we all have things we want to hide….Yes, even the purest of us have aspects of our lives we wouldn’t want shown on the evening news. Imagine all the dirt that exists on the folks that value their appearances and reputation above their actual souls…. I don’t bank online, I don’t do anything online that I would be ashamed of others seeing. I will admit I like jokes, any jokes, clean, dirty, vile, disgusting, religious, racist, ethnic,… it don’t matter, I like to laugh… I don’t repeat them to most folks, but I have no shame in reading them…..If you have a couple to share….. I suppose they will soon be threatening “suspects†to hand over the evidence against themselves,.. but wait, they already do that… Maybe this is part of a much larger issue: total access and control of every aspect of your life, even the way you think, by the “powers that beâ€. Think about it. You run all your finances through electronic media, charge cards, debit cards, online banking, checks are actually run electronically at the register when you write them. None of this is really secure. You can be easily tracked by the movements of your cell phone, the use of your financial instruments and the cameras that cover our highways. You read things online, news, commentary, recipes, and even religious stuff. The data leaks and the fact that we hear about it on the news on the rare occasion when the police catch someone are proof of that. Good thing me and you aren’t bad guys, huh? Now let us take this to the next step, control of said transactions. Who can buy or sell what, communicate with whom, go where and when. That’s easy, and not just for “the authority having jurisdiction, after applying for and receiving a proper order from a court of competent jurisdiction via due process of lawâ€, but for anyone who “has the Appâ€. Maybe your business competitor wants to mess you up, he cancels your line of credit with your supplier and fixes it so your debit or credit cards can’t be used to buy gasoline… Maybe your ecclesiastical leader doesn’t want you buying coffee at Starbucks, Maybe your older brother thinks your religion is cult, he blocks your checks from running. Maybe your local Police chief thinks you are a dirtbag/right wing nutjob/freedom fighter/outspoken critic/or someone who he just plain doesn’t like….you’re going nowhere and doing nothing while you’re there, as he has blocked all financial transactions, electronic communications and disabled your OnStar equipped vehicle. All these people can do this with impunity, as you will need to prove they are the ones who did it….and you know that the “powers that be†won’t let you look in their records, if they still exist. Maybe this is why they refuse to act against “cyber criminalsâ€, so they can claim inability to track all this stuff when they are the ones doing it. It really is hard to get the United States Postal Service to look at your mail, but not as hard as it used to be. There is a reason for this, the Founders (reasonably wealthy, educated, white male, christian, subversive, liberty minded trash) knew that people needed a secure means of conducting business free of possible interference and what we will call “observationâ€. They didn’t even trust themselves. The system was set up independently of any other government agency. Severe penalties were set for interference, theft or even looking in the box without a court order, and then it was the USPS that did it. This was done so that there would be no undue influence by anyone. The USPS stood up to everyone for as long as they could. We lost most of that privacy as a consequence of “The War on Drugsâ€. (we won that war, right?) We also lost the freedom to move around or do business with cash. “It’s a lot of money, it must be illicit proceeds or payment. We’re taking it until you get a judge to order it’s return, in about 30 years and a million in feesâ€. Now we have people in power trying to get rid of large denomination currency. You won’t be able to buy anything but bread milk, eggs and maybe small quantities of sugar (it can be used to make whiskey). Hell, I can’t even buy cold medicine without handing over ID and getting put in a database as a possible Meth lab. Remember iodine? Now the new battle cry is “The War On Terrorismâ€. The last of our rights are about gone. You can’t travel without being subject to strip search, “proper ID†and having your belongings searched by strangers behind the wall….. You must have a passport to leave or re-enter the US, even as a citizen (I ain’t in a database? Sure.. ) It’s OK to pull a person out of line at the airport, long after a full body scan and document verification. Why bother? Didn’t we scan this guy? If so, why further harass folks? Why a “No-Fly†list containing US citizens that have never been convicted of anything, while holding inviolate the free movement of people that we know nothing about (other than based on the info in their passports they hold beliefs that include the subjugation of women, the murder and/or enslavement of people of other beliefs and tossing homosexuals off roofs?) If you’ve been scanned and searched, who cares what you think? Your only weapons left are your body and mind. I say we keep engineers, veterans, athletes and people over 100 pounds off all modes of transportation. It’s just too big a risk. If it saves just one life, it’s worth it… This nations southern border is as porous as sand, loose sand. We don’t search 1% of the shipping containers coming into our ports and the drug cartels are in defacto control of entire areas of Mexico. We do nothing about any of this. We tolerate that our leaders exempt themselves from the laws that the rest of us have to obey. We tolerate that they claim their actions are above scrutiny in an open courtroom (FISA courts are secret) and then they do whatever they want, in secret, in the name of “Security†. “KGB†stood for Committee for Security of the State. “Homeland Security Agency†means what? All levels of government claim the right to deliberately lie to you. Law enforcement, the IRS and others have gotten the courts to back them up in this. You, on the other hand will be prosecuted and jailed for any miss-statement. That is why they will question you 20 times, knowing some aspect of your memory will change. Now, they can charge you with lying to them, a felony. You have no recourse and they will not be held responsible for anything bad that occurs because of their actions. Hell, this kind of crap is what I want to be secure from! Some maniac acting with malice is rarely going to write out “J train, 4:19AM on 2/19/2016†and then broadcast it. But maybe I don’t want anyone knowing I laugh at “sheep jokesâ€, as they might just use that against me later when they determine that my NRA membership brands me a violent extremist, because now I am also sick in the head. Maybe they will say that my associating with some fellow malcontents (Hey guys! I’m on NSA-TV!) makes me a terrorist… But should an individual screaming “Allahu Akbar†shoot up a dining room in a military base, these same people will not call it Islamic terrorism. They call it “workplace violenceâ€. So OK, call it what you want to. Murder is murder, be it for whatever reason. Punish it all the same. There is no question of guilt, just motives. But no, we have to examine this creatures action and consider his motives… Huh? Shoot this mad dog quickly and get it over with. “But he is acting in accordance with his beliefs that you don’t understandâ€. Ya, so was Timmy McVeigh in Oklahoma City. I had a progressive tell me once that it’s OK that certain ethnic groups act the way they do,â€It’s their cultureâ€. Ha! Either we are a nation of laws or we are not. There is an entire line of thought that can fill your mind. What does the term,â€Equal protection under the law†actually mean? I think (and this is just me) I think it means no “protected classesâ€, no “exemptionsâ€, no preferences, set asides, and certainly no groups that that are held to any different standards. I think it means that any crime against anyone is prosecuted the same, regardless of the race, religion, political beliefs, socioeconomic group, or position of power/authority held by the victim or the perpetrator. Assuming that a crime against anyone in a special class is more heinous or deserving of investigation, prosecution or punishment than a crime against anyone not of that class, is horrendous. “We beat, killed, raped, tortured, set them afire, stole from, cheated them etc.. because we hated them because we (or they) are gay, black, brown, Chinese, Catholic, Baptist, Communist, Klan member, transgender, transpecies (I’m a walrus in a human body), a peace officer, legally blind, incompetent, a president, senator, FBI agent, or any other difference in “who a person isâ€. Who cares why? It is no different than if we did these things because we loved them. A crime is a crime, no matter who does it or why they did or who they did it to. Are we not all equal under the law? Do we all deserve the same level of protection? Is it more of a crime to harm or kill one person than another? Is your child, sister, brother, wife, husband, mother, father, or friend any less valuable than anyone else? Lady Justice is supposed to wear a blindfold, and for good reason. It’s funny how she rarely, if ever, swings that sword at the ones that control the contents of her purse. Some folks, who claim to be progressive, claim that some others should be silenced because they are not members of any of the “protected classesâ€, and that the government should monitor these people in case they might act up…. Precedent is a dangerous thing. Watch what you say today, because it will be thrown back at you. We have a major problem in this country. The Government that “We the People†established to preserve the rights of all of us, is choosing who is more deserving of these protections, and who is entitled to no protections at all. In fact, it claims the power to deprive any of us of any of these rights at will, and to invent special rights for some that the rest of us do not enjoy. Some claim we have access to redress through the courts/legal system. Not really. The courts can refuse to hear a case, or delay it until hell freezes over, so it’s goodbye, spend another fortune and another year getting heard someplace else, if you can. The Judges know where the money comes from, and more than once they have determined that they are not bound by the law. They determine what the law is, so, “ Kiss our rings and bow before us, you lowly supplicants…..†. Whenever I subject myself to air travel, domestic, I am treated like a criminal in this, the land of my birth, “The Land Of The Freeâ€. As a kid in school, I was told that the difference between life in the “Free World†and life behind the “Iron Curtain†was that no one, ever, would stand in my way and demand my “Papersâ€. Yup, travel in the USA is now no freer than travel in the old Soviet Union, or in some cases, Nazi occupied Europe. Remember when Rick gave up his travel document so that nice looking lady could get out of Casablanca with her husband….. sniff, sniff….Hell of guy, that Rick. Maybe one of these days one of you reading this will need to do something similar right here is the “Good Old USAâ€. Let’s hope not. We have slipped way down that slippery slope that we have long been warned about. Let’s hope we can get some solid foothold at some point soon. In a strange twist in all of this loss of basic rights, Police officers are prohibited from asking an individuals immigration status, but may confiscate all their property if they think it might be forfietable assets. You have likely violated several laws just accessing and reading this, but since your hard drive will not contain all the laws/regulations/prosecutorial discretions that you might be prosecuted under, you have no real way of knowing. A government agency can sell guns to a drug cartel and get off without anyone getting so much as a slap on the wrist, even after those weapons were used to murder Americans. Justice for all,…..ya….
Lord preserve and protect us, Heaven help me, I’m having whiskey for breakfast.
That didn’t carry the punctuation.
Did you pay the King’s Tax on this morning’s whiskey?
No, but I hunted his forest without his approval....
Paragraphs are your friend.
Now you tell me.
The Apple case is unique in that the owner of the phone is dead, and the encryption technology separates the data from Apple like a locked suitcase which only the phone owner has.
Warrants are really great things. Backdoors where potentially anyone can access without a check — not so hot.
People understand both concepts, and hopefully agree with them. The phone or warrant can go to Apple, and they take care of it. The “suitcase” never goes outside Apple, but the data inside the suitcase goes to HSA.
Apple can update its end user agreement to reflect this. However, I do understand everyone’s meta data collection, warrant flooding, etc. concerns.
Maybe a compromise would means law enforcement is limited to x number of requests at y level severity per pre-determined timeframe (and maybe geographic area for the HIGHEST level). And once the threat passes or process of elimination is complete, then a new “suitcase lock” is put back in place.
I’m no lawyer, but even I know wiretap laws on the books can cover quite a bit of this.
This looks like a job for Captain Carriage Return.
More like a safe maker being ordered to crack their own safe: their whole point in making the thing in the first place was that NOBODY could get inside without the code/key. Should the safe maker crack their own safe (under duress) customer confidence plummets; if done right, they simply can’t crack it.
Any precedent for compelling a safe maker being ordered to crack their own safe?
"As government expands, liberty contracts." - Ronald Reagan
A deal he has made with the ChiComs.
Limited use warrants vs. metadata mass storage — which do you prefer?
I agree with that. Where x=0. There are only two choices in computer security, back doors or no back doors. If we force Apple to create a back door it just means China will sell a phone with a PLA back door for the terrorists who want to avoid US snooping but are not afraid of the PLA.
The "suitcase" never goes outside Apple, but the data inside the suitcase goes to HSA.
DHS? No, they can gather data some other way. The inevitable solution, whether or not anyone likes it, is that the phone will not unlock or update without the passcode. Then Apple cannot be forced to provide an update that breaks the security. It will simply be impossible rather than difficult and counterproductive.
Didn't realize that was our choice. Seems like you left out banning Muslims, infiltrating Muslims where necessary, etc
One doesn’t have to be a Muslim to say “I spit on the Fourth Amendment! Stick your Fourth Amendment warrant where the sun don’t shine! I’ve got unbreakable encryption!”
I hope when injured parties seeking justice are denied access to information on Iphones and take the law into their own hands they are granted some clemency.
After all, without the Fourth Amendment what choice did they have?
I’m always for liberty and freedom.
1AX2A
4th Amendment.
Feds have the power to search and seize. They do NOT have the power to compel an unwilling third party to make sense of what was seized.
3rd Amendment.
Feds are expressly prohibited from positioning government agents, real or virtual, for arbitrary monitoring and intimidation of private activity.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2518
One of many. Please, I’m not talking about APPLE’S end. I’m talking about LIBERTY.
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