Senator drafting bill to criminalize Apple’s refusal to aid decryption

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/senator-drafting-bill-to-criminalize-apples-refusal-to-aid-decryption/

by BerislavLopac • 10 years ago

81 46 10 years ago

arstechnica.com

beedogs2• 10 years ago

Ah, the GOP.

Keep this in mind when they carry on about being the party of personal liberty.

rhino3697• 10 years ago

Taken narrowly, there is no personal liberty at stake in this situation. Searching this phone is clearly permissible under the 4th amendment.

I guess making Apple--a huge corporation--assist is somewhat against liberty, but I wouldn't call it personal liberty. They get compensated for it.

The slippery slope argument everyone seems to be pushing doesn't quite make sense to me. How is forcing Apple to help get past security after a valid court order going to hurt third parties privacy? Nobody is asking for Apple to introduce a backdoor into their products for sale. Only to exploit a backdoor into one specific phone.

skywhopper• 10 years ago

The backdoor does not currently exist. Creating it leads to a slippery slope because the FBI will not only ask Apple to unlock phones from known dead terrorists who killed multiple people, but it will cascade to suspected terrorists, and then families of suspected terrorists, and then drug dealers and drug users and then speeders and loiterers and people of the wrong color, just like every other police abuse of power.

And then if Apple gives into the FBI, it'll have to give into the UK and France and Germany and China and Russia and anywhere else they want to sell their phones. And once the capability is created and exists, it can leak, and then no one's phone is safe anymore.

That's the slippery slope.

danjoc• 10 years ago

I like to think it's about the 3rd amendment. The backdoor is a digital soldier.

Frankly though, I hope Apple loses this one. I'd like to see it spur them into developing a device that they do not have the ability to compromise, because it gives the end user the freedom to modify all the way down to the firmware. Like how you can theoretically flash your own signed coreboot into a chromebook.

stvswn2• 10 years ago

Please, Dianne Feinstein is equally supportive. This doesn't align well with the parties -- hawks in both parties are bad about it, while each party has factions that are pro-liberty on this issue. Ted Cruz, for example, took a lot of heat from Rubio and Christie over his pro-encryption stance. Hillary is pretty weak on the issue.

beedogs2• 10 years ago

Please, Dianne Feinstein is equally supportive.

She's an anomaly among Democrats. She may as well caucus with the Republicans, given her abysmal record in this area.

coldcode• 10 years ago

So all of Apple will go to jail? Or just the shareholders?

EvanPlaice• 10 years ago

Legally, corporations are people so I'd assume they have some sort of secret squirrel digital prison for imaginary people. /s

stvswn2• 10 years ago

No, they're not "legally people," they're "legal persons," and that was true before Citizens United.

They are capable of suing and being sued, and capable of committing crimes. Under the doctrine of respondeat superior, a corporation may be held criminally liable for the illegal acts of its directors, officers, employees, and agents.

sirmiller• 10 years ago

They will just move all business and all assets out of the country.

Having quite a big impact on US economy.

Or: Govt will seize control of Apple ... and destroy it within six month. Throwing technology back by 10-15 years.

bsder• 10 years ago

What the real problem is is that the TLA agencies don't have anything to lose with this.

Is there no way to go: "All right. We'll do that. HOWEVER, if we don't find anything on this phone, we want this held up as a prime example of government overreach and we want all further attempts on this judicially banned."

If the TLA agencies had a downside to losing the case, they'd drop it in a flash.

jacquesm• 10 years ago

Results based reasoning for things like this is a deadend.

Whether or not anything is found on the phone should not factor into deciding whether or not this is a prime example of government overreach.

sbose78• 10 years ago

They'll probably never agree that they didnt get anything. They'll claim they got evidence related to "suspicion to X " which could be entirely based on a conversation where someone was expressing opinions. And yes, they might also say that the information is classified!

runamok• 10 years ago

Yeap. "Parallel construction".

shawn-butler• 10 years ago

I think it's funny it would be illegal for Apple to comply with the order under federal law and now they want to make it illegal not to comply with it.

Kafka would be proud.

snowwrestler2• 10 years ago

This is a positive development.

The central question in Apple's case is "what are the limits of the All Writs Act authority?" Can a court use the All Writs Act to compel any behavior that the FBI says would be helpful to an investigation?

If so, it would seem to obviate the need for legislation. No need to bother Congress--just get a warrant for any encryption back doors you want.

At least a bill submitted to Congress will follow a public, democratic process.

mc322• 10 years ago

We'll likely see more developments like this from other large iPhone markets. It's a noble but ultimately untenable position for a manufacturer to take.

If the courts, the owner and let's suppose the majority of the people of a jurisdiction (in this case US law) legally make this request I don't see how a company can get from out of complying by saying "we made it impossible". The courts will say, fine, in the future make it possible and not complying will forfeit the right to sell such a device.

Either the US, the EU or China will make their case economically and Apple will capitulate or exit a market --and I don't see them exiting large markets.

There is also no historical precedent where the notion of privacy has meant "secret forever" so this is new territory and where it ends up will probably depend on how society values new notions of privacy versus providing legal access to information for the purposes of crime investigation. In the US, and China, people have typically sided with the state, so I don't see this changing.

snowwrestler2• 10 years ago

There is also no historical precedent where the notion of privacy has meant "secret forever"

Sure there is: a private verbal conversation.

There are plenty of ways for the government to record such a conversation if they know in advance that they want to do so. But if they don't know that in advance--as they did not with the San Bernadino shooters--then the only people who will ever know what was said in that conversation are the people who held it.

Historically, privacy meaning secret forever was the norm! It is only in the last few years, with text-based electronic communications, that law enforcement has come to expect retroactive access to all conversations.

It's a very dangerous concept that should require careful consideration and votes to create. Instead it got created by default because no one knew how to do info security well 10 years ago.

droithomme• 10 years ago

This concept of retroactive back doors seems a new awareness.

Actual, non-retroactive, backdoors are built into a design.

The idea you can take an existing design and insert a backdoor that works retroactively really is not a backdoor but is a complete security failure and a bug in the original design.

"My design is completely secure as long as no one issues a retroactive backdoor." means the design is not secure at all.

jhanschoo• 10 years ago

For certain notions of secure.

Let's use the analogy of a house to describe the OS.

Most organizations may trust Apple to provide the service of updating their OS when new bugs (some security) are discovered, that is, they are comfortable giving Apple "maintenance door" access to the non-sensitive parts of their iOS device, to perform janitorial and construction services, and plugging holes in the house; and only Apple has the keys through the maintenance door.

dang• 10 years ago

In the hierarchy of unsubstantiveness, "announcement of an announcement" definitely comes first, but "drafting a bill" could well be second. Most proposed bills go nowhere, let alone bills that haven't been written yet.

If anything comes of this, we can discuss it then.

wantreprenr007• 10 years ago

Just goes to show you can't legislate morality, but a crooked politician can try to make scruples illegal.

(I so hope Bernie wins and has the DoJ investigate folks for corruption and racketeering, starting with Cheney.)

Senator drafting bill to criminalize Apple’s refusal to aid decryption

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