The Annoyed Man wrote:Yes. What I am saying is that possibly Apple (rightly so IMHO) fears that it would be nigh onto impossible to develop such a hack without making themselves a massive and tempting target for black-hat hackers intent on obtain it for their own nefarious uses. Consequently, developing the hack is not only unsafe for reasons having to do with what happens to it after they give it to the FBI, but it is unsafe to Apple's own infrasctructure because it invites attacks on it.....which would threaten the safety of having Apple do the development on their own systems.WildBill wrote:What am I missing?The Annoyed Man wrote:
[*]There is only one SAFE way to write such a hack, and that is for the FBI to (of course, observing all the proper chain of custody standards) give the phone to Apple, have Apple write a ONE TIME USE hack, have Apple crack that ONE phone's security, and then when that ONE phone's data has been recovered, destroy the existing copy of the hack so that it cannot be used in the future. (* There is a problem with this which I will detail below.)
* Item #7 assumes that Apple's systems are 100% secure from intrusion. Once word has gotten out that Apple were cooperating in the manner described in item 7, how long would it take before hackers worldwide overwhelmed Apple's digital infrastructure in attempts to access and steal the "tool"?
If Apple systems are 100% secure from intrusion, then there is no SAFE or any other way to write a hack.
Do you mean 100% secure from non-Apple people?
It's a lose/lose situation. Effectively, it seems to me that there are only three possible outcomes:
One is to stick to their guns, and refuse to be involved.
The second is to try and write a one-time use hack, break into the phone, recover its data, and destroy the hack again (as if the FBI would allow that tool to escape them once it had been created).
The third is to write a back-door into the next update patch — which would be v. 9.2.2, as I believe 9.2.1 is the current iOS release....at least for the US market.....and allow it to be universally installed as all Apple users update their devices. Once it is out there, then all a hacker has to do is buy an iPhone with the latest OS and find the back door.
Apple will never willingly cooperate with #3, nor should they. My take on their response is that they would cooperate with #2 if they thought it was possible to do so without subjecting either their own systems, or all of their user base to a significant security risk; but they don't think that is possible, ergo they are sticking to their guns and refusing to cooperate under those terms.
There is a consequence for Apple to doing #3, and that is the breaking of faith with their customer base over the security of their devices - which would have a significant impact on their market share as former users abandon the brand in search of a more secure product. The FBI has no moral authority to ask for that.
I hope everyone understands that I am NOT advocating that Apple should not help IF IT CAN DO SO WITHOUT RISKING ALL OF ITS USERS' PRIVACY. I've said from my first post on this subject both here and in the other thread that I think they should help if it is possible under those conditions.
I am merely taking the position that, if forced to balance the privacy of ALL Apple users against the likelihood of obtaining a gold mine of actionable intelligence from that one phone, I'll take privacy. One phone is not going to win or lose the WOT.
What Solaris said.
One other thing TAM, if Apple did write the hack as you describe, it would be done by their personnel, so someone, somewhere would have the information, would they have to kill that employee to preserve the secrecy? I fully agree this is an area more far reaching than just trying to access information on a dead terrorist, and while he/they may have forfeited the right to privacy based on their actions, what the FBI, and I assume the Justice Department are wanting is a tool that they would have full control over, and I'm with you I don't trust them enough to give that to them.