Apple challenges 'chilling' demand to decrypt San Bernardino shooter's iPhone

chrysostom

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
I wonder if there's been a big spike in search engine inquiries for "All Writs Act 1789."

Having had to aside the technical part which rex and AMR have been discussing (thanks both of you, it's been interesting but beyond my capacity to follow the programming info), after reading Apple's letter I looked up the All Writs Act.

It's a very small amount of words, but the implications for today's digital world seem rather staggering.

The All Writs Act:

(a) The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.
(b) An alternative writ or rule nisi may be issued by a justice or judge of a court which has jurisdiction.


There's a pdf from the NYU Law Review linked from the wiki page for the AWA, and here's one of the passages in it which caught my eye:

The second unresolved issue is whether the AWA should be applied where nonstatutory, constitutional remedies may be available. The AWA is a remedy of last resort; a court must first consider whether any other remedy is available. However, such an inquiry runs up against the canon of construction that a court should avoid a constitutional basis for decision if there is a nonconstitutional alternative.​

PDF link below for anyone who's interested. Looking at this as just an average Jane Citizen, I have to agree with Apple's statement that the FBI request is an "unprecedented use of the All Writs Act to justify an expansion of its authority."

All Writs Act

Portnoi, D. D. (2009-03-19). "Resorting to Extraordinary Writs: How the All Writs Act Rises to Fill the Gaps in the Rights of Enemy Combatants" (PDF). New York University Law Review
 
MarcATL

MarcATL

New member
chrysostom said:
most people are not aware of apple's position

what they have already done for the fbi
and
what specifically will not do
and
it is more than reasonable

did you read the apple letter?
Click to expand...
Nope, didn't read it. Don't plan to either. I just find it interesting how conservatives are normally so pro authority...UNTIL and/or UNLESS it's a Democratic Administration in charge, particularly one they like to hate.

Seems however that self-proclaimed conservatives let their unwarranted fear of terrorism trump their God-given freedom. And that alone is why so many of them are currently siding with authority, aka the guvment.
 
chrysostom

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
MarcATL said:
Nope, didn't read it. Don't plan to either. I just find it interesting how conservatives are normally so pro authority...UNTIL and/or UNLESS it's a Democratic Administration in charge, particularly one they like to hate.

Seems however that self-proclaimed conservatives let their unwarranted fear of terrorism trump their God-given freedom. And that alone is why so many of them are currently siding with authority, aka the guvment.
Click to expand...

it's not easy being mean
 
Town Heretic

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
rexlunae said:
It also has to be developed by Apple, and tested, which probably involves loading it onto several devices. And then they would have to retain it for some indefinite length of time while the FBI uses it.
Click to expand...
Control the environment. Take appropriate security measures. I'm sure Apple does something like that anyway, did something like that when it came out with its latest phone. Tighten the process and restrict access. Difficult? Sure. And the government should foot the bill. Impossible? No reason for it to be.

And then next month, when the FBI has some other phone that they can't get into in a money laundering case, they have a precedent set in this case, and if you can do it in one criminal case, you can surely do it in another, and they go back to court
Click to expand...
I don't think the FBI would win the argument given the nature of the problems associated, absent a compelling link to a state interest that can't be met by a lesser means. So terrorism is a win, but what you're speaking to and most criminal enterprise is about money and money leaves other trails and creates other means to access it.

(or Apple doesn't even resist it), and before you know it this one-time, exceptional case has become so routine that they do it hundreds of times a month and no one bothers trying to keep the FBI from having as many copies of it as they want, and sending clandestine copies of it to the NSA and the CIA.
Click to expand...
I've never been a big fan of domino theory. It seems reasonable but rarely pans out that way. And the precedent here would be necessity tied to national security. An exceptional circumstance impinging on something the court takes seriously, in part because it impacts commerce, potentially, and that's not actually underrepresented within the corridors of power, as interests go.

If I were Apple, I would fight this with the understanding that if the order stands, this type of request is going to quickly become routine.
Click to expand...
I think you'd fight it mostly because it's an intrusion and an expense that goes to brand. Banks routinely resist requests for records relating to transactions from people involved in criminal enterprises. And so subpoenas.

I've spent a significant portion of my professional career ensuring that access to digital things is appropriately restricted, and it's always more dangerous to have something that you need to protect than it is not to have it at all if you can avoid it.
Click to expand...
I don't doubt you at all on the point.

That's the bottom line. You don't store stuff you don't need if it's at all sensitive, or you create an unwarranted risk.
Click to expand...
But that's really the question, isn't it. And I think the court has answered it. It's not unwarranted. Is it a risk? It has to be to some extent, but set against a more compelling need with no lesser means to meet it. Pretty exceptional.
 
MarcATL

MarcATL

New member
For the record, I'm pro freedom aka privacy. I don't want the government, nor some seedy corporation in my business. They are BOTH corrupt.

So WHOEVER is uplifting that end, at any given time or instance, that's who I'm for.
 
Ask Mr. Religion

Ask Mr. Religion

☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) &#9
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Ask Mr. Religion

Ask Mr. Religion

☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) &#9
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
annabenedetti said:
It's a very small amount of words, but the implications for today's digital world seem rather staggering.

The All Writs Act:

(a) The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.
(b) An alternative writ or rule nisi may be issued by a justice or judge of a court which has jurisdiction.


There's a pdf from the NYU Law Review linked from the wiki page for the AWA, and here's one of the passages in it which caught my eye:
Click to expand...

I also had to review the AWA. I agree with the following assessment that concludes Apple's argument against the AWA will not prevail:

http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2016/02/apple-fbi-and-all-writs-act.html

AMR
 
Ask Mr. Religion

Ask Mr. Religion

☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) &#9
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
The DOJ's latest filing today on the matter:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2715926/Motion-to-Compel-Apple-Compliance.pdf

Apple's hopes to outrun the AWA seem hopeless at this point given the mountain of case law on the use of the AWA.

Apple just pushed an iOS 8 update to all phones in the past few days. Over the Air updates (OTA) can create a partitioned section in RAM that duplicates the existing entire operating system firmware image when needed. The new update is then installed and after integrity checks are made, the duplicated old image is deleted. One wonders why they could not simply push an update to the terrorist's phone with the needed changes, too. Of course, conspiracy theorists are surmising that Apple may have already made changes to how their security functions in the new iOS update. ;)

AMR
 
Ask Mr. Religion

Ask Mr. Religion

☞☞☞☞Presbyterian (PCA) &#9
Gold Subscriber
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
R

rexlunae

New member
Ask Mr. Religion said:
More proceedings followed...

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1408&context=nlr

The O'Brien test does not universally cover all software code.

AMR
Click to expand...

Agreed, it doesn't. But it does require that the government's interest be "unrelated to the suppression of free expression". Given that cryptographic algorithms are fundamentally expressive, and the purpose of regulating them is to prevent their dissemination, especially outside the country, it's hard to see what kind of regulation could fit the requirement while also serving the purpose that law enforcement has in desiring them.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/391/367/case.html
 
rocketman

rocketman

Resident Rocket Surgeon
Hall of Fame
At first glance the Court order looked like an invasion of privacy but, given the order was to only crack the phone in question, that the phone did not belong to the terrorist but, to the county of San Bernardino who has authorized the unlocking of the phone, I believe that the request is reasonable. I think that Apple & the FBI could be able to work out a compromise to crack the phone, and turn it over to the investigators unlocked. It seems to be a problem that a county owned phone could be locked from it's ultimate owner (the county) to begin with, nobody should have any assumption of privacy on government owned electronic devices, be it a phone, a computer network, or any other government media. Hopefully Apple will be able to reach a compromise with the court so, privacy of their users can be maintained & the information on the phone is able to be scrutinized for the safety of the entire citizenry.
 
J

jeffblue101

New member
rocketman said:
At first glance the Court order looked like an invasion of privacy but, given the order was to only crack the phone in question, that the phone did not belong to the terrorist but, to the county of San Bernardino who has authorized the unlocking of the phone, I believe that the request is reasonable. I think that Apple & the FBI could be able to work out a compromise to crack the phone, and turn it over to the investigators unlocked. It seems to be a problem that a county owned phone could be locked from it's ultimate owner (the county) to begin with, nobody should have any assumption of privacy on government owned electronic devices, be it a phone, a computer network, or any other government media. Hopefully Apple will be able to reach a compromise with the court so, privacy of their users can be maintained & the information on the phone is able to be scrutinized for the safety of the entire citizenry.
Click to expand...

i felt the same way until i read this article on Federalist

Here, the court’s order is specifically tailored to both Apple’s and the government’s concerns. First, it requires Apple to use its access to temporarily remove only the three barriers to using a brute force attack discussed above. It does not require any adjustment to the iPhone’s encryption. Second, the order requires Apple to explicitly restrict its software update so that it can only run on Farook’s iPhone and be both temporary and reversible. It does not require altering any other software or access to any other iPhones. Third, the order allows Apple to comply with the order at its own facility, if it so chooses.

In other words, the FBI wants to bring Farook’s iPhone to Apple, let the manufacturer perform the temporary update, and then allow the FBI to remotely perform a brute force attack to discover Farook’s passcode. Once the FBI has discovered the passcode, Apple simply reverses the update and returns the iPhone with its original software and contents to the FBI.
Click to expand...
the FBI has already comprised with apple so they can crack the phone on their own terms in house but Apple absolutely refuses to help crack the phone.
 
chrysostom

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
chrysostom said:
thank you
I did not know that
so
do you agree with this statement by apple?

"Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand," Apple's lawyers wrote.
Click to expand...

why can't you believe this?

how is it not reasonable?
 
chrysostom

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
they can't beat isis
they can't track terrorists
they can't keep them out
they can't protect their secrets
so
what can they do?
go after apple
the real threat
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top