After guilty plea, judge confused why prosecutors still want iPhone unlocked

This arstechnica comment has it spot on and is tagged as Readers Fav:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/feds-apple-must-s...

""" That's because unlocking the iPhone was never about this case. It was about putting Apple in the position of unlocking every iPhone that the government will ever want unlocked now and into the future because if you do one you have no argument against doing the next one. And to make sure that all iPhones now and into the future can be unlocked. There, does that make more sense? """

That's really all this is about.... setting precedent and pushing legal events down a logical path that'll eventually lead to a judge ruling Apple must make backdoors into all future iOS versions. They have to push hard to get a favorable ruling quickly before everyone updates to the new iOS that Apple can't unlock at all. Because by then they'd have a much more difficult legal argument to make.

> To the extent the response requires the disclosure of information occurring before a grand jury, the government may file its response under seal, along with a redacted version suitable for public access.

Goodness the irony: Nobody is allowed secrets save the government.

"one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine."

Should add "without a license", because pharma companies sell millions of dollars of methamphetamine tablets a year.

The rationalization, should one have trouble inventing imaginative justifications out of thin air, is that they've captured a notorious kingpin, and they want to roll up this super villain's covert network of criminal masterminds, who are also coincidentally despicable child pornographers.

The thing that annoys me the most about the government's moronic handling of this whole phone, data, encryption, privacy, etc. issue is that if they had not been fucking around and abused their powers, not allowed the devil Bush and Cheney to drag America into the depths of authoritarian purgatory, is that companies would surely not be resisting legal court orders for decryption and they would not be looking at fully encrypting data at rest and in transit. It is the grotesque abuse, gluttony, and pathetically degenerate greed of the government and the retards at all the various itel and policing agencies that are to blame for the very state they are in where they feel they need to double down on their authoritarian tactics.

So thinking ahead -

It seems like USG will be unsuccessful at compelling Apple to unlock the phone. If there are no security vulnerabilities in the trusted hardware, then there is literally nothing special Apple can do to help unlock it. Although we can hope for a stay (in the sense of not advancing the inevitable big picture) whereby USG successfully attacks the chip with acid.

There may then be a detour where USG attempts to compel Apple to push an update to a new (and unknowing) suspect that renders their security moot. This entire process would be under a gag order (since it's an ongoing investigation), so perhaps it's even already happening. Once again, I guess I hope this is successful to avoid the otherwise inevitable showdown.

The next move directly pertaining to this situation will be for USG to push for some law banning the sale of encryption that cannot be opened with a court order. Yes, this battle has been fought before. But this time we're dealing with a purpose-built device, distributed turnkey by a commercial company. USG may not be able to compel Apple to act, but it can certainly constrain their actions when they do.

Also, technology is now acceptable to put on the "news" so the entire populace can be browbeaten with the four horsemen to make them compliant and dilute techies' informed voice. The percentage of civil disobedience will be insignificant - LUKS will likely not be setting precedent.

Plus the major technology companies having become part of the establishment and vice-versa, so cooperating with the government is in their direct business interest (as long as the PR is managed). In this larger situation, Apple will cry uncle long before USG does - I doubt they want an import ban.

So all of this points to such a law being passed, I'd guess 2-3 years out. If Free solutions aren't outright criminalized by the same legislation (ala RIPA), then something supplemental after that. It's a lot easier to "address" questions of constitutionality and basic human rights against a single unsympathetic defendant.

Will we successfully retreat to steganographic filesystems, and can we encourage enough drug dealers et al to adopt them such that the leviathan encounters effective technological pushback? Or do we have to wait for all of this to become widely accepted, then for norms to adapt and persecution to finally end? Interesting times indeed.