Apple Govt. mandate

[Robert Engel]

They are trying to break into a known terrorist's phone, guys. Not yours, not mine. Who says they are coming after our phones?
Any other Iphone without the 10 time self destruct would be no issue.

The question is at what point is the national security of this country more important than an individual's privacy?

Seems the question has been answered by many of you and even Rush Limbaugh, etal.

In the course of a criminal investigation an individuals computer is routinely seized and examined. Do you all have a problem with that?

What Apple is doing is arrogant and is putting the national security of this country at risk.

If there is information on that phone that could save lives, it will be on Tim Cook's head.

[Mark Blatter]

They are trying to break into a known terrorist's phone, guys. Not yours, not mine. Who says they are coming after our phones?
Any other Iphone without the 10 time self destruct would be no issue.

The question is at what point is the national security of this country more important than an individual's privacy?

Seems the question has been answered by many of you and even Rush Limbaugh, etal.

In the course of a criminal investigation an individuals computer is routinely seized and examined. Do you all have a problem with that?

What Apple is doing is arrogant and is putting the national security of this country at risk.

If there is information on that phone that could save lives, it will be on Tim Cook's head.

I am going to step onto my soapbox for a minute. Much of what I say below is tempered by the fact that the phone in question was not the property of the gunman who used it. That single fact muddies the waters a great deal. The owner of the phone should have set a password that could not be changed, though I don't know if that is possible.

Who decides when national security trumps privacy? According to the Constitution, nobody can decide that unless 3/4th of all the states agree to change the Constitution. However, the real answer is the FISA court. Is there any oversight of the court? If so, who oversees them? If we all agree with parameters for throwing out, or setting aside what may be the most important of our rights, what about the rest? Who will decide when it is time to set aside the rest of them? Who will decide that you cannot buy a fire arm? Who will decide that you must accept soldiers into you home to be quartered? Who will decide when your right to a speedy and fair trial can be abridged? Who gets to decide that the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution are set aside?

My point is that the 'who' is always the most important aspect of this equation. If the decision was always made by honest, thoughtful and highly intelligent people, it would be one thing. If it is made by the opposite, in the dark of night, well that has been tried a few times around the world. The most notable instances that come to mind are the USSR (Stalin and friends) and the little German guy with the funny mustache. I am not suggesting in any way that the current situation is equal to Hitler or Stalin. I am asking where does it stop and who makes those decisions?

There is a reason why we have the Bill of Rights, though there were many who were afraid if you enumerated them, some would say that none other exist. As we give up our freedoms for security, we become less secure and less free. As power is given by the citizens to those in charge of the daily running of the government, we, as citizens lose that power forever.

The question was asked 'how would you feel if someone you loved died because you would not let the FBI (read any three letter agency here) get the information contained in the phone?' I would hope I would feel the same way I feel now. In some ways, this is the same question, moral dilemma of the early 1940's. Do we round up all Japanese decedents and put them in camps or not? The US forced these people, many of which were citizens, into camps for 'national security' reasons. Their rights were violated as promised by the Constitution. Same as privacy rights being violated for national security. Fear cannot trump freedom or no one is safe or free.

Will step down off my soap box now and hope that I have not offended anyone. That is and was not my intention.

[Chuck Wintle]

Here is my 2 cents for what it is worth...Apple should go ahead and hack the phone for the information contained within it. The shooter may or may not have been talking to others who mean to do harm. Should we wait for another shooter to strike and take more lives? Would we be secure in the knowledge senseless killing could have been prevented? Personal privacy is one thing but is there not a right to live and work in a country that provides safety for its citizens?

[roger wiegand]

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.-- Ben Franklin

(and yes, I know this application is not what he meant when he said it, however I think the principle applies) The FBI should just ask the NSA to get them the information.

It seems this is yet another realm where we're being asked to give up privacy and freedom in such a way that only the honest people will have lost something-- the bad guys will increasingly develop and use strong encryption whether or not the government gets its back door into all of our consumer electronics.

[Bert Kemp]

Where can you legally buy a gun without a background check?? Not at any gun store or any gun show that I've been to.
Question: Where the guns these terrorist used obtained legally??

This has turned into a pretty good and civilized discussion. Now I will pose another question. If we so staunchly protect our second amendment rights, i.e., we allow terrorists to buy guns through our refusal to allow background checks how do we align that position with this one? Granted, they are dissimilar but what the government is asking is unlimited power over security of mobile devices that not only would affect U.S. citizens but everybody around the world. In this case I believe background checks would have prevented the terrorists from acquiring guns--at least it would have been more difficult than buying a Big mac and fries.

[Jerome Stanek]

This has turned into a pretty good and civilized discussion. Now I will pose another question. If we so staunchly protect our second amendment rights, i.e., we allow terrorists to buy guns through our refusal to allow background checks how do we align that position with this one? Granted, they are dissimilar but what the government is asking is unlimited power over security of mobile devices that not only would affect U.S. citizens but everybody around the world. In this case I believe background checks would have prevented the terrorists from acquiring guns--at least it would have been more difficult than buying a Big mac and fries.

The government is asking to unlock a phone that has always been owned by them not a private citizens phone.

[Scott Shepherd]

I'll ask a stupid question here....why do they need to get into the phone? They "said" they are trying to find out who he was in contact with. Last time I checked, you didn't need the phone to do that, you went to the carrier and got the transaction logs, with a court order (they don't even need a warrant). That solves the "who was he calling" part of it. Now what? Emails? Again, go to the service provider with a court order, then you know who he was emailing. Same thing for texts.

If calls, emails, and texts are all available from the providers with a court order, then what's left that's so vital? I'm just not seeing it.

[Jerome Stanek]

What would happen if the next Apple phone to come out the government says it is not fcc compliant as the security software on it. Apple could look to lose billions

[Jerome Stanek]

I'll ask a stupid question here....why do they need to get into the phone? They "said" they are trying to find out who he was in contact with. Last time I checked, you didn't need the phone to do that, you went to the carrier and got the transaction logs, with a court order (they don't even need a warrant). That solves the "who was he calling" part of it. Now what? Emails? Again, go to the service provider with a court order, then you know who he was emailing. Same thing for texts.

If calls, emails, and texts are all available from the providers with a court order, then what's left that's so vital? I'm just not seeing it.

If he was using a public wifi then it would not be that easy

[Bert Kemp]

On the question about Apple cracking the phone. WOW thats a tough one.
I'm anal about protecting my rights but I'm also anal about protecting our Country.
So is there a compromise in here someplace? I think once a person has committed acts of terrorism against the US of A and its know with out any doubt (such as this case ) any only if there is no doubt then these people have then givin up their Constitutional rights and are no longer protected.
Never shall it be as easy as a govt agency saying we suspect and need info from this phone, or a court order saying we think these people are terrorist.

[Scott Shepherd]

If he was using a public wifi then it would not be that easy

I'm not sure why that would be the case, but it's actually not the issue. The issue is that they can get to that data, the problem is that data is encrypted. That's the whole issue. They aren't asking apple to provide the 4 digit access code. They are asking them to break their encryption technology so they can see what was written before it was encrypted.

It's easy to say "Oh, they should do it", but you need to think about encryption, it's purpose, and it's global use before you give the green light to any of that. Right now, people, more or less, can't break encryption (with few exceptions). If they could, then the FBI geeks would have done it. Encryption keeps us ALL safe. Think about law enforcement, political leaders, military, etc. They all use encryption to keep their data secure. If encryption were broken, it would give the bad guys access to the good guys play book as well. So it's not as simple as one phone. It's essentially creating a hackable back door that breaks all the encryption. Once that hackable back door is created, do you honestly believe that the terrorists won't spend night and day figuring out the hack for the backdoor, or some punk kid figuring it out and posting it on file sharing sites? Once that's done, then it's over. Now there is no more secure data for our good guys.

Would you want to send the keys to your encrypted battle plans to the bad guys 2 months before you take action against them? Were we able to win battles and wars because we cracked codes? Yes. Would you willingly hand the decipher code to your enemy before going to battle? I wouldn't. You might say "this isn't the military system, so that's not accurate". True, it's not, however, there are many politicians and military leaders accessing their emails over iPhones. Once they can crack into that, they can read all they want.

I don't think it's even remotely as simple as it's being reported, as "It's just a passcode". No, no it's not. It's about encryption.

[Mike Henderson]

I'm not sure why that would be the case, but it's actually not the issue. The issue is that they can get to that data, the problem is that data is encrypted. That's the whole issue. They aren't asking apple to provide the 4 digit access code. They are asking them to break their encryption technology so they can see what was written before it was encrypted.

Assuming that Apple used a modern encryption technique like AES or even triple DES, it cannot be be "broken". Those encryption techniques are well known and have been vetted very well. You cannot easily "break" those if the key is long.

So if you can't "break" the encryption code, how do you get entry? You recover the key. And, the way I understand it, the key is stored in the phone and the software will access the key and then decrypt the data. So all you need to decrypt the data is to get access into the phone. And that's what the court is asking Apple to do - provide a means to get into the phone.

Encryption key management is the basic problem of encryption. The encryption is very good and cannot be easily broken. But how do you protect the key but still make it easy for the legitimate owner to access their data?

Mike

[Scott Shepherd]

So if you can't "break" the encryption code, how do you get entry? You recover the key. And, the way I understand it, the key is stored in the phone and the software will access the key and then decrypt the data. So all you need to decrypt the data is to get access into the phone. And that's what the court is asking Apple to do - provide a means to get into the phone.

Encryption key management is the basic problem of encryption. The encryption is very good and cannot be easily broken. But how do you protect the key but still make it easy for the legitimate owner to access their data?

Mike

And those exact same techniques WOULD be used against us. All you'd need to do is swipe some high ranking officials cell phone, run the hack, bypass their access code and you've now given the keys to the kingdom away. To get the data from one phone, that may not even have anything on it that they don't already know, you'd be throwing the entire system of protection away.

I think it's all nonsense. With all the data and phone monitoring going on, there's no way they don't have other actionable intelligence that leads then to the exact same places.

Maybe he kept nothing on the phone. So this is all for a phishing expedition if that's the case. I'm not willing to give that all up so they can phish on a device.

[Mike Null]

But Apple says the software doesn't exist. I lean toward believing them as opposed to our federal security agencies which have an indefensible history about telling the truth or at least, telling the whole truth.

[Mel Fulks]

How about the guy who is ,or was ,libertarian presidential candidate, he says he can do it in a couple of weeks at no charge. If Enigma could be figured out the phone can be. I like apple stuff just because it is simple to use ,but I really don't understand the fierce loyalty to a product that is made to become loaded up with "upgrades" get slower and be replaced. Glad they don't make washing machines.