Read Apple's statement to Congress on the FBI warrant fight

The Verge ^ | February 29, 2016 | By Russell Brandom

[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:

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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.

[Swordmaker]

I apologize for the ‘stupid’. Provocation is no excuse.

Apology accepted. I am far from stupid. . . nor am I lying. . . if you want me to not insult you, stop repeatedly posting the link to that idiot's lying article on "golden keys". It has no value at all when it comes to operating systems that do not do what he claims is being done. . . and never have.

[Ray76]

In this case the attempt counter was not timely stored, allowing sufficient time for a user to restart the system before the counter was stored. The was modified via the ordinary system update process.

The system update process could be used to deliver a new version of the os which might not ever store the counter thereby eliminating the need for a restart.

The point is that the behavior of the failed passcode attempt limit can be modified via the ordinary system update process.

[Swordmaker]

An os update can modify the passcode retry limitation. This is one of the functions the court has ordered Apple to accomplish. Accomplishing the second function, electronic submission of passcodes, will allow access to the data.

YOU do not even know how that worked. It did NOT modify the passcode retry limitations at all. SHEESH! Boy, do you jump to conclusions about things you do not have a clue about. All that did was interrupt the process before it set the countdown by forcing a COLD RESTART which erases all ephemeral data. You then start over. You have to do it every single passcode try. . . and you have to time it just right, before the countdown timer is written to the EPROM in either the Encryption Engine or the Secure Element. That doesn't get erased in a reset.

The passcode retry limitation did not get changed. Apple just fixed the Forced shutdown to wait until the countdown was set before continuing the shutdown. Problem solved. The countdown now continues from what ever try it was on when a forced shutdown is initiated. NOTHING was modified about the count, because nothing COULD be modified about the count. YOU just assumed the count was modified, not something else.

What this does demonstrate is that changing one thing you and DiogenesLamp may think are "just one line of code", effects other subsystems that may not be foreseen.

[Swordmaker]

An os update can modify the passcode retry limitation. This is one of the functions the court has ordered Apple to accomplish. Accomplishing the second function, electronic submission of passcodes, will allow access to the data.

You are one closed minded asshat. I posted a detailed description of how the system worked on both the Encryption Engine and Secure Element processor worked and you though up a totally non-responsive BS answer. You are don't want answers. You are a a waste of bandwidth and air.

[Ray76]

> Apple just fixed the Forced shutdown to wait until the countdown was set before continuing the shutdown.

On what source do you base this claim?

[Swordmaker]

The system update process could be used to deliver a new version of the os which might not ever store the counter thereby eliminating the need for a restart.

Again, you fail to grasp that the system that stores the count is NOT under the control of what can be updated, for the umpteenth time, Ray76, it's INSIDE THE HARDWARE, deliberately designed to be there so that it can't BE modified! SHEESH! You are grasping at straw men.

[Swordmaker]

On what source do you base this claim?

On what do YOU base any of YOUR claims? You've proved nothing. Waste of bandwidth with all your speculation based on nothing your opinions and no evidence, despite tons of evidence the other way. I'm done trying to prove anything to you! YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN FACTS OR PROOF. YOU IGNORE ANY PROOFS WE POST. You just throw brickbats and feces.

[Ray76]

> You just throw brickbats and feces.

Ha!

[Cyberman]

Tell it to the grieving families

Sarah Brady's ghost just materialized in front of me. She wanted me to relay some harsh words about how you're plagiarizing her rhetoric. Unfortunately for her, I'm too polite and refined to use that sort of language.

[mrsmith]

I never claimed that it could be done by a low-level drone, nor anyone else, without Apple’s help.
You knew that- I’m not claiming you’re stupid- you’re lying.

Tell these people they’re stupid and lying:
They claim they can do it with UP TO a ten man team in a month.
Assuming a reasonable mix of skill sets from a part time $150 grand/year project manager to full time $60 grand/year secretaries that’s $100 to $150 grand total.
Including overhead.

Tell us how stupid these liars are for making such a low MAXIMUM estimate
According to you it’s practically impossible to do LOL!

[DiogenesLamp]

I am not concerned about what is popular. I am concerned about principles. I am not in favor of fascism.

And you are unfamiliar with Apple's support of fascism? Do you not remember what they did to Indiana?

Also, enforcing the existing rule of law is not Fascist. Modifying the existing rule of law to benefit influential corporations is Fascist. Look up the unholy alliances between large Corporations and Governments during the Heyday of Fascism under Mussolini and Hitler.

It was collaboration of big business and big government against everyone else.

[DiogenesLamp]

All that the next wave of computer-illiterate, corruptible magistrate judges would interpret this to be that Apple was compelled to help the FBI crack their iphones. Regardless of how much or how little this particular request works, it would seem to set a legal precedent and open the legal precedent floodgates to compelling Apple, Samsung and anyone else to write OSs with convenient backdoor keys.

That is a non sequitur. Apple already manufactures phones for which the suggested methods will not work. Unless you are going to argue that the courts will make the manufacture of unbreakable phones illegal, your argument does not have merit.

*THIS* phone in question is breakable. Those using the A7 processor (with the hardware secure enclave) probably cannot be gimicked in this way, and even if they can, i'm sure Apple is working to patch this vulnerability in future iterations.

So even accepting at face value the worst of the propaganda that Apple has been cranking out, just how much value would there be in old keys to an increasingly obsolete system? (And *THAT* is assuming the "FBIOS" ever gets in government hands, which it won't unless Apple does something idiotic.)

[DiogenesLamp]

And of course i’m just going to skip over you.

[SteveH]

What is past is past. I am focusing on the present and the future, which seems only proper since the past cannot be changed, and given Apple’s present resistance to the FBI, has no obvious bearing on the current situation anyway. Is not bringing up the past is a “non-sequitur”?

You need to explain how compelling Apple to produce custom government security hacking operating system code is not in the direction of fascism

a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism

(Mirriam-Webster)

a “collaboration of big business and government against everyone else” sounds exactly like what the FBI is asking for.

The existing rule of law is CALEA, which the magistrate judge in NY somehow was able to find and take note of, and which the room-temp IQ california magistrate judge somehow missed.

Do you have a problem with the other magistrate judge?

N.Y. judge backs Apple in encryption fight with government
Reuters
February 29, 2016
BY JULIA HARTE, JULIA EDWARDS AND JULIA LOVE

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3403629/posts

Do you have a problem with this? Do you sense a contradiction? What is your resolution to the contradiction if you do?

[Swordmaker]

You need to explain how compelling Apple to produce custom government security hacking operating system code is not in the direction of fascism

Steve, you will NEVER get an explanation or a definition out of DiogenesLamp. He's not interested in having anything resembling a dialogue because he doesn't speak English. He Speaks Diogenese, a language that changes moment by moment, made of words that mean only what he wants them to mean:

DiogenesLamp, sitting on the wall, making up words,
daring us to try and figure out what he's talking about now.

DL has decided to ignore the NY Magistrate Judge's decision denying the motion ordering Apple to unlock an Apple iPhone 5S as a matter of LAW. He found that the DOJ and the DEA's reliance on the All Writs Act was legally flawed because it failed the third test for use of that law in that Congress had already addressed the issue, and not only did not elect to do nothing, which would have been sufficient by actually addressing the issue, but actually DID something in passing the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act which forbids law enforcement agencies, officers, and others of their ilk from requiring carriers or manufacturers of telecommunications equipment from being forces to install any feature, software, or hardware designed to decrypt any encryption of the data being carried on their systems or hardware. DL can't handle anything that doesn't fit his opinion that it's THE LAW as he sees it. Now a judge says it ISN'T THE LAW, so DiogenesLamp can't accept that so he must ignore it, completely.

I've given up on explaining anything to the blank wall known as DiogenesLamp. Nothing gets through it. Nothing factual fazes it. Nothing sticks to its teflon covering. It's a waste of FreeRepubic bandwidth and your time to even try. He REFUSES TO LISTEN.

[Swordmaker]

I never claimed that it could be done by a low-level drone, nor anyone else, without Apple’s help.
You knew that- I’m not claiming you’re stupid- you’re lying.

Tell these people they’re stupid and lying:
They claim they can do it with UP TO a ten man team in a month.
Assuming a reasonable mix of skill sets from a part time $150 grand/year project manager to full time $60 grand/year secretaries that’s $100 to $150 grand total. Including overhead.

Tell us how stupid these liars are for making such a low MAXIMUM estimate According to you it’s practically impossible to do LOL!

Why are you changing the subject? That was NOT what we were talking about. You are erecting a strawman to avoid the other subject. I am NOT a liar. . . but you are, when and if you continue to post that mis-representing article. At least you have not again posted it. But you are if you claim I am a liar.

To claim that Apple is lying when you have NO CLUE about what it costs makes you a liar again. And to claim I am have said it is impossible for Apple to do it, is again a lie. I have not. There is no such thing as "practically impossible." Impossible has no degrees of possibility. If, however, you are someone other than Apple, it is impossible to break into the iPhones with the means they are talking about. I've given cogent explanations of WHY that is the case. I've countered those who claim otherwise. . . and given reasons why their approaches won't work and given examples of why not. That is not a LIE. I've deconstructed your linked article. Again no lie. Yet you claim I am a liar.

[dayglored]

> ...It's a waste of FreeRepubic bandwidth...

400 posts. Unbelievable.

Swordmaker, this is not a criticism, just a request. Please spare the rapid-fire pings when one of these insane flamewars gets going. I don't read 'em. The original topic was interesting, but the flamewar is just... dumb. My wife is ill and I have no time for crawling through flamewar comments hoping for something of substance. Thanks.

Nice pic of Humpty, one of my favorites from when I was a kid.

Onward!

[Cyberman]

*THAT* is assuming the "FBIOS" ever gets in government hands, which it won't unless Apple does something idiotic.

That's the point -- they are avoiding the idiotic step of creating it in the first place.

[DiogenesLamp]

We are talking past each other. I’m moving on to more interesting topics, though I will opine that you were mostly reasonable in our discussion.

[mrsmith]

At least you didn’t call Apple a stupid liar.