Why did Apple help police shutdown KAT, but not a terrorist? | Hacker News Reader

Why did Apple help police shutdown KAT, but not a terrorist?

6 pointssamfisher834 comments

Apparently Apple gave up information that helped to the capture of Artem Vaulin, the guy behind KAT. However apple put up big stink about helping decrypt a phone. Given KAT hurts iTunes it gave apple a much larger incentive to help the cops, but it seems quite hypocritical of Apple.

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Thought experiment: let's say that Apple doesn't know what the suspect in a law enforcement investigation is suspected of. If the request is between revealing the identity of a user from a particular IP address (which is probably easy for them to determine), or giving away (essentially) a master key to decrypt all iPhones, which would it comply with? I think it would have complied with revealing the identity of a user pretty much every time, even if the suspect was a terrorist, but not necessarily to give away the master key for all iPhones even if the suspect was an intellectual property pirate.

Because the two requests are fundamentally different. As far as I am aware, other than helping decrypt the phone, I believe Apple did handover any other information they had on the terrorist.[0]

I believe when it came to decrypting a phone, that is a line they decided they could not cross because of what it would require. I believe, had Artem had an encrypted phone and Apple were asked to decrypt it they would refuse again. It's about what is being asked of them, not about the severity of the crime or situation.

So it is only hypocritical if they help decrypt Artem's phone and not the terrorist's phone and only if Artem's phone requires the same level of work to decrypt. Additionally, the factor of iTunes being affected by the crime having any effect on their willingness to assist law enforcement is pure speculation

[0] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/apple-we-tried-to...

"After days of working with the FBI, Apple proposed one final attempt to recover roughly six weeks of data that was locked on the phone." / "With a legal court order, Apple can and does turn over iCloud data."

It probably is, but iTunes data is not encrypted by the user. So if it is encrypted at all, Apple can decrypt it, and it can and will give that data to the police, as it has in the past as well.

Its disappointing as it shows that their ethics and bottom-line are to some degree intertwined

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