Myself, from another country is amused that Apple has managed to manipulate 95% of tech community into thinking that they can't do what the FBI wants because that would create a backdoor.
To anyone whose mind is not clouded by ideology it should be clear that the backdoor already exists and that what Apple is resisting is creating an exploit for it.
For the billionth time, a backdoor exists in an outdated hardware infrastructure. It's not clear if this would even be possible on current generation iPhones, but one surefire way to get Apple to create one is by setting a precedent of law enforcement dictating the actions of phone manufacturers.
Stop muddying the issue; we need focus right now to keep this from happening.
The backdoor exists on new hardware, too; the firmware of the secure enclave can be updated in place by Apple without expunging key material.
Even if you close this one backdoor, others exist; the fact is you can only pick two of:
- Platform DRM.
- Implicit Trust of Vendor-Signed Software & Entitlements.
- Robust Security Ecosystem.
As long as Apple can push applications with arbitrary entitlements to devices, or encrypted OS updates unreadable by 3rd-parties, and no mechanisms exists to verify that it's only ever used responsibility, there are serious, dangerous backdoors.
On the other hand, law enforcement's "backdoor" requires judicial review in the light of day.
I'd take the DoJ's precedent in this case over Apple's any day of the week.
If the DoJ/FBI then tries to shove pre-emptive crypto backdoors from congress, that's a different battle, and one I'm happy to fight. However, siding with Apple now muddies the real issues at stake and may undermine our negotiating position when it comes to the general crypto debate.
The real issue is that I have a fucking right to have my device be secure against the government. It's funny how you can only make sense of your argument when you get down in the weeds and lose sight of the big picture.
I'm not OP, but the gist of his argument is you cannot be secure against the government if you cannot be secure against Apple first. If Apple continues to force people to trust it, the government will subvert this trust via legal means.
I find the argument quite congent. It's not getting lost in the weeeds, but generalizing the problem; instead of just fixing this bug, why not go ahead and fix the whole class of possible bugs?
> The backdoor exists on new hardware, too; the firmware of the secure enclave can be updated in place by Apple without expunging key material.
Can you point me to any material documentation of this fact? Because I've been following this whole thing very closely and there's not been one word of this being fact as far as I've seen.
"I have no clue where they got the idea that changing SPE firmware will destroy keys. SPE FW is just a signed blob on iOS System Part" - John Kelley (Embedded Security @ Apple)
The focus should be to prevent the government from denying phone manufacturers the right to build bulletproof encryption into their phones. We want bullet proof encryption because the internet is an open book and people are sick of their privacy being compromised.
Consider this future scenario:
FBI: "Dear Apple, can you help us unlock this iPhone like last time?"
Apple: "No can do. It uses our latest build which is bullet proof. No backdoors possible. We'll give you all the information we have related to the account holder though."
FBI: "Dang. Thanks for info."
And that's how it should be. That's what we should be fighting for. It seems to me by fighting this current issue for Apple's right not to bust open its exploit, we've jumped the gun. It's confusing matters, and now we have polls showing half of voters want Apple to "help fight terrorism rather than not help fight terrorism".
That's the media's influence/lack of understanding/lack of objectivity, and we don't have any control over that. You're right that we should be able to focus on the right of manufacturers to delivery encryption and privacy to customers and the right of customers to have that, but every time we make that point, Comey and his dregs repeat "it's only for one phone!" So we have to start from there.
This is not a decent way to behave for honest and competent technologist. You know that you are yourself muddying the issue. I understand why you do it.. but seriously.. doing it this way? What is wrong with you?
I am seriously concerned with the way people are treating this thing. The way I see it is a bit like "I really don't want the feds to be able decrypt data on phones - so I will falsify a bunch of arguments."
