> was not “scalable.”
This is the same James Comey that said they just were just asking Apple for access to just that one phone.
This is the same James Comey that said they just were just asking Apple for access to just that one phone.
Logically if the US electorate cared even half as much about [topic x] as they do about guns - candidates would care too and "democracy" would follow... no?
(I'm not bashing the US, just taking gun control as an example where a passionate popular view is reflected democratically)
Instead of a pithy but pointless HN comment, let me suggest a book for you that might expand your thinking on this topic:
http://www.thriftbooks.com/w/do-elections-matter/1470236/?gc...
> Do you think that this notion is new? Or that the rest of us haven't considered it?
> a pithy but pointless HN comment
> might expand your thinking on this topic
Just throwing it out there: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
It would be more helpful if you expanded on why it's a bad argument. Off the top of my head:
> They don't want it, as evidenced by their not voting for it, so they won't get it
Was there a vote on it? When exactly?
Here's a book about how election results can change people's opinions on topics. It applies here because X. I used to think Y, but it changed my thinking to Z. I'd highly recommend it.
Not that GP is any better, but hey... And to be fair, the guy is practically trolling, whether intentional or not.
This notion ("the people get exactly what they vote for") goes back to Ancient Greece; it's not like its a novel topic.
But he is responding to a one-line meme whose only purpose is to establish learned helplessness and end discussion that massively oversimplifies a very complex issue and is essentially copy pasted in any article here that even touches on politics. It gets quite exhausting engaging, having long in depth discussion about how this view is overly simplistic on every single thread only to have it appear again tomorrow, exactly the same as before.
I think downvotes and silence is the correct move here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ZpsxnmmbE
CGP Grey has a very good explanation of this situation.
“We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land,” Comey continued. “I hope thoughtful people will take the time to understand that. Maybe the phone holds the clue to finding more terrorists. Maybe it doesn’t. But we can’t look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don’t follow this lead. “
County governments are typically recognized incorporated organizations that have no real line of authority or connection with the federal government.
So no, the FBI or federal doesn't have some ownership claim that makes it ok to break into. As others point out they have basically seized the device from its owner in the course of investigation.
Regarding the Director's double speak I think it is relevant. The FBI or federal government is still not the owner. Regardless of whether the device was seized or surrendered the property is still owned by the county.
> What he's saying is "we want it both ways". We don't want to take away security for users, we just want to make it easier for someone who's not the owner of the phone to get into it.
Why didn't they go through proper channels? Why did they reset the iCloud passwords? What steps have they taken to prevent this from happening in the future?
The FBI is doing a lot of hand waving and there is no accountability. Where are all those fiscal conservatives when we need them?
The whole thing was a very poor allocation of resources. Of course, those whose promotions and maybe even jobs are on the line will fight back any claim of incompetence or malice.
The government ran its own tests of the scenarios and found that to be true: https://www.scribd.com/doc/303759192/Declaration-by-Stacey-P... (paragraphs 37-39)
Apple's engineer's response left that assertion unchallenged (while challenging other stuff wrong with paragraphs 37-39, see his paragraphs 32-33): https://www.scribd.com/doc/304898553/SUPPLEMENTAL-DECLARATIO...
Of course, you can choose not to believe the government that the phone was found powered off (http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Apple-govt-R...), but I think you'd have to pick and choose what you're willing to believe and not believe from what the government have said.
Finally, even though it wouldn't have helped, it's clear Pluhar's team did not consider the iCloud backup possibility when they were making their examination, so they very well could have screwed this up. It's just that they didn't in this case.
It's also possible the phone was actually found powered on and the battery was drained and it turned off by the time Pluhar's team examined it the same day. It wasn't mentioned if anyone checked it and tried to make sure it was kept charged (probably not). I imagine it might be difficult to train the officers on the ground about mobile device forensics best practices, since they change fairly frequently.
> and without it taking a decade to guess correctly.
even make sense when there isn't a force in the universe that can guess that password in 10 millennia.
If they demand that restrictions like gated attempts and automatic wipes be removed, they're just pushing the industry to move to restrictions that can't be removed.
Hell, if I was feeling really cheeky and worked for Apple, I would give the FBI their backdoor which allowed them access, but they have to provide the phone a proof of work worth at least $10 trillion.
No this probably couldn't be made secure.
Why did they risk it? Because they knew there was nothing of value on the phone. If this was the criminal's only phone we might hypothesize that it has valuable info on it. But when the criminal destroyed one phone and didn't bother to destroy the other it suggests there's nothing on it.
I'm sure it has more than zero data. The FBI merely has to claim that knowing if criminals play Candy Crush is helpful to justify it, in one sense. But enough to justify the trouble they put Apple through? Doubtful.
Enough to justify the decades of distrust they sowed in the security community? Not a chance.
http://www.people-press.org/2016/02/22/more-support-for-just...