Comment by Tyrannosaurs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tyrannosaurs | Hacker News Reader

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Not really. He's pretty clear:

"If the government laid a subpoena to get iMessages, we can’t provide it. It’s encrypted and we don’t have a key."

There's no wiggle room there. He's not saying we don't have the users key, he's saying categorically they can't provide iMessage information. I don't understand why you think that can be read as they can't get the information through mechanism X but that they can through mechanism Y.

That's not to say the NSA can't read them - possibly with Apple's help, possibly without - but he's really not in a position to talk about what the NSA can and can't do.

From a corporate PR perspective, he really doesn't have to say anything about this. He doesn't do many interviews, he could have declined this, or declined to talk about certain topics as part of the conditions around doing the interview. If Apple can indeed read your messages then the easiest thing for him would be to shut up and say nothing so it would seem odd to go public with a lie when he has that option.

What is missing is that they can add another key for intercept. They really need to be able to do so to comply with the law.

It's well established that the police can intercept communications with a warrant. Many HN posters have an issue with that too, but that is just a hard truth with decades if legal precedence.

The issue, IMO, is the warrantless collection part. IMO, iMessages probably protects you against the latter, although 3-letter agencies may record the messages and use other means to decrypt them later.

They could add that but as things stand right now that second key doesn't exist - or at least it did then Cook would be out and out lying here. Obviously anything can change in the future but based on what Cook is saying either he is lying or Apple can't read your iMessages - I see no wiggle room which creates a middle ground or half truth.

In terms of what the police and other agencies can request, they have been able to ask for stuff in the past because it was information you had. If someone produces a court order they have to comply with that but there is no way of making you produce information you don't have.

As a result some companies are now setting stuff up so they don't have the sort of information which might be requested.

I may be wrong about this but I'm not aware of any law that says that a company can't do this. Certainly if there is then there are plenty of businesses aimed squarely at this sort of privacy and security which are going to have major issues given that it's basically their USP.

And if a company has to do it then the same law will apply to any individual producing open source software to do the same - any such law would be highly unlikely to be dependent on the product being created and distributed by an incorporated company.

Where there will be a problem (and this is the point Cook was making) is for companies where gathering that data is fundamental to their business. Apple can happily survive without being able to read or track iMessages. Facebook or Google have fewer options when it comes to not recording or storing stuff.

Or Cook could just reap some PR-points with a convincingly stated flat out lie. It's not like anyone will remember it in a couple of weeks anyway.

I disagree. If things go south (meaning they do what they claimed they couldn't, and then get caught) people will surely remember it, and in that case it would be negative PR-points, doubled. That doesn't mean he's not lying, it just makes it less likely.

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