Posted on 02/29/2016 12:16:29 PM PST by Swordmaker
Tomorrow, Apple will make its case before Congress, as General Counsel Bruce Sewell gives testimony to the House Judiciary Committee at 1PM ET. It's Apple's first appearance before Congress since the company received an order to break security measures on a phone linked to the San Bernardino attacks, and Sewell may be facing a skeptical crowd. He'll be joined by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who has been an outspoken critic of the company's encryption policies, as well as a number of House representatives who have been vocal supporters of the FBI's position in the past. FBI Director James Comey will also appear before the committee, although he will appear on a separate panel.
Sewell submitted his prepared opening statement to the panel earlier today, and it is reproduced in full below:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's my pleasure to appear before you and the Committee today on behalf of Apple. We appreciate your invitation and the opportunity to be part of the discussion on this important issue which centers on the civil liberties at the foundation of our country.
I want to repeat something we have said since the beginning — that the victims and families of the San Bernardino attacks have our deepest sympathies and we strongly agree that justice should be served. Apple has no sympathy for terrorists.
We have the utmost respect for law enforcement and share their goal of creating a safer world. We have a team of dedicated professionals that are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to assist law enforcement. When the FBI came to us in the immediate aftermath of the San Bernardino attacks, we gave all the information we had related to their investigation. And we went beyond that by making Apple engineers available to advise them on a number of additional investigative options.
But we now find ourselves at the center of an extraordinary circumstance. The FBI has asked a Court to order us to give them something we don’t have. To create an operating system that does not exist — because it would be too dangerous. They are asking for a backdoor into the iPhone — specifically to build a software tool that can break the encryption system which protects personal information on every iPhone.
As we have told them — and as we have told the American public — building that software tool would not affect just one iPhone. It would weaken the security for all of them. In fact, just last week Director Comey agreed that the FBI would likely use this precedent in other cases involving other phones. District Attorney Vance has also said he would absolutely plan to use this on over 175 phones. We can all agree this is not about access to just one iPhone.
The FBI is asking Apple to weaken the security of our products. Hackers and cyber criminals could use this to wreak havoc on our privacy and personal safety. It would set a dangerous precedent for government intrusion on the privacy and safety of its citizens.
Hundreds of millions of law-abiding people trust Apple’s products with the most intimate details of their daily lives – photos, private conversations, health data, financial accounts, and information about the user's location as well as the location of their friends and families. Some of you might have an iPhone in your pocket right now, and if you think about it, there's probably more information stored on that iPhone than a thief could steal by breaking into your house. The only way we know to protect that data is through strong encryption.
Every day, over a trillion transactions occur safely over the Internet as a result of encrypted communications. These range from online banking and credit card transactions to the exchange of healthcare records, ideas that will change the world for the better, and communications between loved ones. The US government has spent tens of millions of dollars through the Open Technology Fund and other US government programs to fund strong encryption. The Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, convened by President Obama, urged the US government to fully support and not in any way subvert, undermine, weaken, or make vulnerable generally available commercial software.
Encryption is a good thing, a necessary thing. We have been using it in our products for over a decade. As attacks on our customers’ data become increasingly sophisticated, the tools we use to defend against them must get stronger too. Weakening encryption will only hurt consumers and other well-meaning users who rely on companies like Apple to protect their personal information.
Today’s hearing is titled Balancing Americans’ Security and Privacy. We believe we can, and we must, have both. Protecting our data with encryption and other methods preserves our privacy and it keeps people safe.
The American people deserve an honest conversation around the important questions stemming from the FBI’s current demand:
Do we want to put a limit on the technology that protects our data, and therefore our privacy and our safety, in the face of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks? Should the FBI be allowed to stop Apple, or any company, from offering the American people the safest and most secure product it can make?
Should the FBI have the right to compel a company to produce a product it doesn't already make, to the FBI’s exact specifications and for the FBI’s use?
We believe that each of these questions deserves a healthy discussion, and any decision should be made after a thoughtful and honest consideration of the facts.
Most importantly, the decisions should be made by you and your colleagues as representatives of the people, rather than through a warrant request based on a 220 year- old-statute.
At Apple, we are ready to have this conversation. The feedback and support we're hearing indicate to us that the American people are ready, too.
We feel strongly that our customers, their families, their friends and their neighbors will be better protected from thieves and terrorists if we can offer the very best protections for their data. And at the same time, the freedoms and liberties we all cherish will be more secure.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to answering your questions.
Sure, it's called "wiretapping." They even made the phone companies invent tools to do it back when they first started tapping people's phones.
Well Diogenes, looks as though my idea that the government was going to loose is on it’s way!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3403498/posts
There are other possibilities I won't go into as they are not on the table.
It was interesting that they are looking for conversations between Malik and Rasheed prior to the last backup. If they aren't on that, I don't know why they would still be on the phone, but there could be other data that could be useful.
Apple better watch the lying. I wasn't buying some of it.
Now I don't have a phone, do have a computer. The only reason I wouldn't want my data to get in the hands of authorities is that they could make something of anything; it would be their word against mine. And they would not take my word for it nor give me the benefit of any doubt. Worst case, they could plant stuff on my device.
But that's not something I worry about too much. Here I am sticking up for Apple when I find out that most of the stuff people are giving for examples are naked photos, dirty texting, things like that. What kind of personal information is worth my fighting for for others? Tax info? Divorce papers?Things of any sort that are deeply personal but whose primary intent was not prurient?
Maybe everybody has stuff that shouldn't be there.
I was right about the back door. I know I didn't mention it, but I was thinking about it. Technically bypassing the PIN is not the kind of back door usually referred to. And some commentary under your second link contradicts something else but I'm on overload at this point.
I'll keep following this case as a matter of interest but think the public and Apple are destined to lose eventually. I think Apple knows people don't understand much of anything about how this all works and doesn't want to lose buyer confidence, market share.
So Microsoft sets up shop in China and hands their government the OS code to Windows. Apple has to comply with some Chinese demands, too, can't remember what I read about that.
The next version, Apple is designing so that it can't be tampered with, even by them. That I can't envision how it would work. Tim Cook can evidently, or his programmers understand.
Sorta Kinda. The government warranted the phone, they have the phone.
This is where we part company.
The user is dead and the owner cannot access the data. Both the County and FBI screwed up.. It means the FBI is out of luck. Sucks to be them.
Instead of taking Apple to Court on this the FBI needs to fire the person responsible for having the password changed and SB County needs to hire new IT people who know how to control the phones the county owns.
>>First, they came for the jews. But i was not jew, ...
Sent from my iphone 5s :-)<<
First they came for the iPhones...
I have a Windows Phone.
They are never coming for me.
(LOL)
This would be a lot easier to figure out if we could see Apple's designs and software, but that ain't gonna happen
No, but here's one diagram suggesting you were correct above:
If the diagram is correct the SE is part of a SoC (system on a chip). IOW it has its own processor and it's own firmware loaded from its own flash or EPROM.
I have a Blackberry. All three of them are hosted on NSA servers.
As for the operating systems I designed, all custom built microprocessor projects. Most of what I have done is in machine code and assembly. I built and still build control systems for industrial processes and such. SCADA stuff.
This should be good — I have lots of popcorn to see how your 1 book you read on how to program in BASIC gets et up.
Don't do basic. Hadn't even looked at it for several decades. Several varieties of Assembly and C++ do everything I need. Too lazy to adapt to Python, Java, and other such stuff. I'll adapt when I need to adapt.
You have NEVER EVER worked with computers in the real world. Complex systems are interrelated — a change in a “subroutine (how quaint!)” can have drastic effects way down and upstream.
They can only if they are built that way. I generally follow the KISS design method. If something does not need to be interrelated with something else, then it is foolish to make it interrelated with something else. Pray tell, just how many parts of the code might need to keep up with "number of tries"?
You have no idea what an SOW is do you?
I have mostly worked by myself. I worked with a start up a long time ago, but it was all informal, and the lead programmer told us what he wanted us to do and when. We didn't do formal.
I can see why you don’t understand why it would be needed in an OS with a mutli-million install bas.
I will admit that I don't do anything on that scale and never have, but I fail to see why the number of units produced have anything to do with it. What does that have to do with how difficult it is for a piece of software to count to 10?
How about you pop out an honest opinion then? How many places in the code do you think they need to keep up with the "number of tries"?
If you want to lie, be convincing and don’t lie to people in the field you are lying about.
Hey, F*** you. Don't piss on my shoulder and tell me it's raining. The salient point remains. For people familiar with the Apple code, it is a nothing deal to find that section or sections that increment the count, and disable them.
You want to talk about lying, misrepresenting how difficult of a task this is, is about as lying as you can get. I'm not buying the "It's a freaking MANHATTAN PROJECT level of Complexity!" Sell it to someone else.
It is obvious that we have a fundamentally different view of government and our ability to trust it. I have absolutely zero faith that the government can be trusted to do anything but enlarge it's own power and scope. It has burst the chains of the Constitution many, many years ago. They can't even perform the fundamental tasks delegated to them such as policing our border, yet, with every single failure, they demand just a little more of our rights, just a little more of our privacy, just a little more control over our lives.
We are already there, friend, but I am not ready to engage in Civil War II just yet.
I simply do not understand how you can admit that they are already out of control, yet you're perfectly willing to just blindly hand them even more power to be even more intrusive than they already are. It boggle the mind.
Abuse of the system is a chronic problem, with or without iPhones. I don't think that John Doe prosecutor is out of the woods either.
If the prosecutor spends a day in prison for his abuse of power I'll eat my hat. Hell I'll do it if they just strip him of his pension. It's simply not going to happen, because there is no longer any accountability left in our government.
Lord Acton got it wrong when he said that power corrupts. It's power without accountability that is corrosive and dangerous to the citizen. I'm sure the fact that an appellate court was finally found what would call bullshit on his witch hunt is pretty surprising to me. I'm sure that's cold comfort to all the people who's lives were turned upside down and destroyed at his hands.
You can't store a count in ROM. Somewhere it has to be in ram, and then it is hackable.
I was thinking that that part of the bootloader would be in rom that wouldn't be able to be overridden through a software update. Of course, that would have to be code that had been debugged with in an extraordinary amount of thoroughness since it would essentially be unchangable post-manufacture. Since Apple has total control over the hardware they manufacture, I'm pretty confident they'll find a way. I certainly hope they do in any case.
If I am wrong, then it looks like we won't be worrying about the "rule of law" anymore.
Precedent set = every jurisdiction will demand iPhone cracking on a frequent basis.
As frequent as Criminal cases might require. But be of good cheer. I expect Apple to short circuit this methodology directly, if they have not already done so with their later hardware and software releases.
If they do it with court orders, we are screwed anyways. We are also fast approaching that time... anyways.
Sent from my iphone 5s :-)
Ah, the first A7 processor. :)
>>Not going to get into all your questions<<
IOW you have no idea what you are pretending to know.
If you don’t understand complex systems and write single-use toys (I will give you a maybe on that) then you should leave opinions on difficulty to change them to grown-ups.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3403498/posts
Did this Judge already have their reputation staked on the outcome? Because I think the one in California did.
Maybe it will go the same way in California, but consistency from different Federal districts is not a given.
Apple can put back the original operating system before the FBI gets custody back.
It was interesting that they are looking for conversations between Malik and Rasheed prior to the last backup. If they aren't on that, I don't know why they would still be on the phone, but there could be other data that could be useful.
This thing is entirely just a crap-shoot. The FBI doesn't know if there is anything on that phone worth looking at, and they may discover nothing useful if they crack it. But considering the possibility that other people's lives might be at stake, the FBI is probably not willing to take the chance. If it turns out golden, there might be Hero awards and promotions involved. :)
Now I don't have a phone, do have a computer. The only reason I wouldn't want my data to get in the hands of authorities is that they could make something of anything; it would be their word against mine. And they would not take my word for it nor give me the benefit of any doubt. Worst case, they could plant stuff on my device.
I'm with you there. I have stated numerous times that I do not want any such software to be in government hands. As long as it stays in Apple's hands, and can only be accessed with a court order, I am okay with it, but I am absolutely against any governmental agency from having the power of unwarranted snooping.
Technically bypassing the PIN is not the kind of back door usually referred to.
Thank you. This is what I mean by Apple distorting the language. A "Back Door" usually refers to something built into a production run. Not something specifically designed to be loaded on to a specific device by the manufacturer.
If it's Official, it's a "front door." :)
I think Apple knows people don't understand much of anything about how this all works and doesn't want to lose buyer confidence, market share.
And THAT I think is their motivation.
So Microsoft sets up shop in China and hands their government the OS code to Windows. Apple has to comply with some Chinese demands, too, can't remember what I read about that.
The next version, Apple is designing so that it can't be tampered with, even by them. That I can't envision how it would work. Tim Cook can evidently, or his programmers understand.
As I mentioned earlier, I think when China demands access. Apple inc will give them access. Just like Microsoft, Just like Google.
A Judge didn't think so. Dan Abrahms (ABC News legal consultant) doesn't think so either. He stated on the air that he thought Apple would lose this.
We'll see. It will probably end up that we become the only nation in the world that doesn't have access to Apple's iPhones.
It also leaves alternate means available. Did you read the FBI filing? They don't care how it runs or the specific method Apple uses to accomplish it, they just want to get at the potential data on the phone.
If the diagram is correct the SE is part of a SoC (system on a chip). IOW it has its own processor and it's own firmware loaded from its own flash or EPROM.
The stuff is so cheap, why not? I do a lot of stuff with these little microprocessors that cost less than a buck. I seldom even build hardware circuits anymore. I generally just toss in a microprocessor and write some code, and voila! I have a custom device that replaces a lot of components with just one.
I sometimes think everything is hosted on NSA servers. Or if not, it eventually will be.
When we stop playing along, isn't that the cue to start fighting? Well I don't want to fight. I'm going to keep playing along and hope things change for the better until I am convinced that they cannot possibly change for the better.
I currently think the legal system more or less still respects the rule of law in criminal cases. That may change with the advent of ever more thought crimes, but we are not quite there yet.
If the prosecutor spends a day in prison for his abuse of power I'll eat my hat. Hell I'll do it if they just strip him of his pension. It's simply not going to happen, because there is no longer any accountability left in our government.
I hope you are wrong, but I fear you are not. I said those prosecutors in Texas should go to jail for filing those fake cases against Tom Delay and Rick Perry. We'll see what happens.
I was thinking that that part of the bootloader would be in rom that wouldn't be able to be overridden through a software update. Of course, that would have to be code that had been debugged with in an extraordinary amount of thoroughness since it would essentially be unchangable post-manufacture. Since Apple has total control over the hardware they manufacture, I'm pretty confident they'll find a way. I certainly hope they do in any case.
From what I have read, they've already done it in their later phones and operating systems. Just not this one in question.
It makes it all the more strange that Apple would pick this fight. They are basically fighting over a relatively obsolete piece of hardware and software. If their later stuff is truly unbreakable, how much of their subsequent equipment will this effect? It would seem none, yet Apple is throwing a conniption fit for some reason.
Let's put this shoe on your foot. Do you do assembly? I see a bunch of Higher level language jargon, but do you know how the bits work on the machine level?
If you don’t understand complex systems and write single-use toys
You mean like a phone? That sort of toy? I do RF linked distributed network "toys", (Sensors, Actuators, Motor Controls, PIDS, etc.) among other sorts of toys. Not so very different from a phone, in some respects, though i'll admit not nearly as complex as modern phones.
(I will give you a maybe on that) then you should leave opinions on difficulty to change them to grown-ups.
Because counting to the number 10 is rocket surgery.
:)
“Did this Judge already have their reputation staked on the outcome?”
Oh Wow! The effing law doesn’t matter! Let’s judge shop until we find some Commie in a black robe who will ignore the law. My friend, the law on this matter is crystal clear, just like the Second Amendment. The fact that we can “find a judge” who will find for our particular viewpoint is why this country is in the $hitter! And you should be ashamed to think that our personal security should be “trumped” by some a$$holes at the FBI who think that they ought to have the “inalienable right” to invade everyone’s personal privacy in the name of “safety!” I have no patience with this viewpoint.
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