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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

And my answer would be: but it's not the government of China, or Russia, or Syria? It's our elected government of the United States asking for help with the investigation of terrorists.

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You shouldn't be down voted because you're wrong :) and what you say is in no way detrimental to this discussion.

That being said, you are wrong because if the ability to backdoor these devices is required by us law, that backdoor will be exploited by anyone with the cash for the exploit, which means Syria, China, Russia, or republicans.

It'd be better to remove the encryption entirely from these devices, so at least you're guaranteed of the safety of your data. (I.e., no security)

There is nothing about this device that hasn't already been swept up by mass surveilence programs, which I guess is fine because it's done by our elected government and its for catching terrorists, and not say, abortion providers or clinic bombers.

We're not talking about backdooring everyone's device. We're talking about Apple helping the FBI exploit a weakness already on the device, to access data on a specific device pursuant to a warrant.

Once enough people have access to the software, it could be eventually leak. Then everyone's device will essentially be backdoored.

Right now we assume no one has developed the capability to exploit this weakness. By forcing Apple to develop this capability, the security of everyone's device is compromised. This assumes that Apple is uniquely positioned to develop the exploit, or at least they are the only ones who can do it quickly/cheaply enough to make it worth it.

At the very least, forcing apple to do it publicly demonstrates the feasibility of the exploit to third parties.

By that same logic, Apple's source code and software update key could eventually leak, too, which would have even worse effect. The FBI is handing the phone over to Apple to apply the modification, not asking Apple to them the means to do it themselves. If Apple was really worried about this leaking, they could just delete it when they're done (though it would be more work for them to recreate it next time the FBI comes with a warrant to search another iPhone).

I think the important part is the "unreasonable burden." Apple's position is that it's an unreasonable burden to be required to dedicate finite technical resources to a problem that directly and very publicly counterfeits one of their marketing stances. They can pretty easily draw parallels to US-based cloud companies that have lost European revenue post-Snowden. Maybe it's reasonable to request $50k in engineering time from one of the largest companies in the world, but what about $10 million in lost future sales? $100 million? more?

Apple is a very rich company. This is a federal investigation of a mass murderer, with potential national security implications.

Where is there sense of civic responsibility?

There is no way in hell they'd lose $100 in sales for aiding in this investigation. Being melodramatic doesn't help anybody.

"Apple is a very rich company"

I'm sorry, but this strikes me as wrong, if they were not rich, would they not be compelled todo this, or would they not be able to argue against it as visibly? (I personally think the second would be more likely).

Civic responsibility? What is next? Agreeing to some idiots religious views and blocking anyone from seeing nudity?

I am sorry, but they are a company, not an elected group. If they are not breaking a law, well you can take those arguments of civic responsibilities and shout them at a tree for all that it matters.

I am trying to resist the urge to bring up some hyperbolic argument against this, purely as i am so shocked someone on hn would try an argument this rediculous.

Its akin so 'someone think of the children', in my mind, and as baseless as that sort of argument.

That particular logic is not wrong; relative hardship is something courts routinely take into consideration.

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