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.
Well, no. Apple had not been called in at the time the incompetent FBI agents and the San Bernardino Public Health Department IT doofuses decided the thing to do was change the AppleID password. Had they bothered to call Apple or even thought about it, Apple could have told them that would be the worst possible thing to do, but they just went ahead and did it. Apple was not called in until some time in early January, after volunteering their help from day one.
And this is also a lie. If they wanted a healthy discussion, they would not start out with so many deceptive and false premises. They would start out with the truth.
They do not do this because the actual truth does not support their marketing strategy.
This would be the end of digital commerce as we know it. We'd all be back to driving to the local Wally Mart for our stuff.
>>Ah, but you gots to say it politely, like.<<
“Please attach yourself to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis, those who desire full control over others.”
Just like Home Depot, Target, eBay, the IRS, JP Morgan, Anthem Healthcare, and the OPM were able to “completely control” the usage of their data. You seem to be ignorant of the world in which we live.
I am not wrong. It will take them 10 minutes to "build" something that does not exist. They only need to change a single instruction in their code to remove the 10 try limitation.
Therefore, it's something Apple doesn't have.
While this is true on it's face, it is deliberately misleading. Apple could have a modified version of their operating system within 10-15 minutes after they decide to do it. It would require little effort and little time.
This "does not exist" assertion is a dodge. It's a con.
A form of forced slavery, demanding something to be built, to use against their own future well-being.
The legal standard is "undue burden." The 15 minutes it will require to modify their existing code to remove the 10 try limit will not be regarded by the courts as an "undue burden."
Comparing it to "slavery" just mocks the real horror of slavery.
Yes, DiogenesLamp, when that "number of tries" is an integral block to getting into the system. Removing it is indeed "creating a backdoor," especially when it is combined with opening a door to allowing a computer to input passcodes at the speed a computer can present them to the iPhone's operating system, then it really IS an intentional backdoor.
Removing code designed to prevent access is just as much of a backdoor as having code that allows access.
Quit trying to obfuscate the issue. Apple knows far better than your ignorant opinion what is required. Your accusations of lying and and innuendos about vile motives are reprehensible. You are delusional.
They have several versions of existing operating systems.
They built it to be unbreakable, so “we can’t break it and don’t have the tools to” is a valid reply.
They aren't "breaking" it. They have been asked to remove the limitations on number of tries to enter the password.
Just like a bank safe manufacturer saying “you can’t get in without the combination - just as we intended”. They’re in the business of ensuring security; admitting and facilitating cracking their security destroys their own business model and reputation.
There is no bank that would get away with protecting criminal evidence locked up in one of their safe deposit boxes.
And if they do crack it, every jurisdiction well be initiating them with orders to crack other phones.
So long as every order is from a Court, and constitutes a search writ or warrant, I have no problems with Apple inc obeying the same lays that the rest of us are compelled to obey.
I d@mned sure do. I write code all the time. If I had access to Apple's source code, I could remove that limitation myself. It would probably take me a day or so to get familiar with the code, find the relevant subroutine, and then 15 minutes to recompile it and some small amount of time to load it into a test phone.
You have zero evidence for your claims and you've been proved wrong multiple times, DiogenesLamp.
Haven't been proven wrong a single time. I know you keep CLAIMING this, but I quit reading most of the crap you write a long time ago.
Apple: We CAN’T OPEN THAT iPhone!
FED: Yes, you can.
Apple: OK, we can, we just don’t want to.
Such liberal liars.
Thank you for that. It is corroboration with another article I've read about Apple's update system. Yes, they can update a locked phone.
Of course that doesn’t address whether they should or not .
I'm kinda thinking that if a Federal court ORDERS them to do it with a search writ or search warrant, than they really ought to obey what the Federal court has ordered them to do.
This is something that Apple keeps refusing to acknowledge. It is a COURT that has ordered them to comply. It isn't the FBI that can make them do anything, but a Federal Judge can.
Other people's phones are not in danger from a court ordered search of a specific phone already in custody.
All too aware of it. Also aware of the fact that companies should comply with search warrants.
Apple is implying that modifying the software on this single phone will become a threat to all iphones everywhere.
Nope. Not true. Only iPhones involved in a crime, and for which a Judge has written out a search warrant.
But Apple would deceive the public into believing that all their phones will have a "back door."
It is nothing but outright lying. Deliberate lying.
That is false. The Chinese demanded proof in the form of a "Security Audit" that there were no "backdoors" in iOS or the iPhone or iPad that the NSA was using to spy on Chinese citizens or, more importantly, the Chinese government employees who were using Apple gear. They had put a sales ban on Apple until they proved there was no backdoor. It was on for four days. After Apple demonstrated there was no backdoor, the sales ban was lifted. The audit was done under supervision of Apple engineers. They did NOT get code.
My opinion’s like yours.
Been a while since I carried punched cards in a shoebox...
But basically Apple just has to reset and disable a registry and erase how they did it.
The FBI demands a new program to use bluetooth, wifi or usb to test passcodes. Currently passcodes are entered through the on-screen keyboard only, obviously for security reasons.
Such liberal liars.
Exactly. They are tying to win a bigger share of the market by advertising to people that their phones are so secure, that not even the US Federal government with a SEARCH WARRANT can get into them.
Basically going for the "criminally inclined" marketing Demographic.
Apple overlooked the fact that their phones can be updated while locked, and can thereafter be "brute-force" opened.
Now they are scrambling to prevent anyone from exploiting this oversight until they can find a work around.
I guess they will move the "number of tries" subroutine into the "secure enclave" or something. That way, updating the phone can't work around it.
That's 1 of 4 or 5 demands. They want the built-in delay removed. Hashes are designed to take time, proof-of-work is the proof of security. They want the alternative interface to enter passcodes. They want to bypass flash and run in RAM. The main problem is the new interface. Another problem is that the code in RAM is susceptible to reverse engineering.
“The FBI wants Apple to build something that doesn’t exist. Therefore, it’s something Apple doesn’t have.”
FWIW, Judge Napolitano said recently on FNC that the FBI will loose. The government cannot compel Apple to make something it does not already have. It’s called involuntary servitude and the Constitution forbids it. This is all total BS. If ISE had done it’s job (according to current law) the woman involved would not have even been able to enter this country. So our PC governemt sews the seeds of these murderous acts, then wants a private enterprise to create a way into millions of citizens private property. I don’t think so!
Only part of the answer. They will have to remove the ability to update much of the passcode checking software. But that will secure the phone to make the argument about back doors moot. At that point FBI will have to get a law passed to make the back door mandatory. FBI has admitted that is the correct approach, not using a "writ".
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