I am not trying to be glib/mean here, but you should probably see a therapist to learn how to cope. It sounds like you are suffering.
388 karma · joined September 17, 2013
Upon reflection, I realized what a stupid mistake I had made in interpreting averages and went back to the source report to see if I had misread it. Indeed I had: contrary to what I stated, the 27.7% and 23.3% averages both exclude the US; they are the weighted and unweighted averages, respectively. While I would argue that the unweighted average (23.3%) is more appropriate for policy comparison, I would no longer characterize the ATF statement in question as "highly deceptive". My mistake.
( http://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2014/06/11/how-does-bing-pre... )
[1] http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-USB-Male-Mini-Cable/dp/B0...
[2] http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=...
> That’s hugely important. And under Apple’s old operating system, cryptography protects iPhones from rogue police officers, too.
Kerr is a lawyer, not a techie, and it really shows here. This statement first of all implies that the previous system was "adequate, but with a backdoor", which of course we know is not possible.
But that is a matter of theory; the practice, according to [1], is that previously iOS filesystem encryption wasn't tied to the user passcode anyway, so it wasn't even a matter of "decrypting" the devices, nor was it something only feasible for Apple to do. Indeed, vendors such as Elcomsoft (believably, given the info in those slides) claim that their software can grab most user data without a password [2].
The aforementioned slides mention a second level of encryption, "data protection", which is derived from the passcode, and which Elcomsoft claims to not be able to access. I wonder whether Apple could (since if implemented properly it shouldn't have).
> Because Apple demands a warrant to decrypt a phone when it is capable of doing so, the only time Apple’s inability to do that makes a difference is when the government has a valid warrant.
Kerr never says it, because he knows it's not true, but he gives the impression throughout the piece that because Apple could access on-device data when presented with a warrant, it had to. It didn't. Perhaps Kerr thinks they had/have a moral obligation?
> The policy switch doesn’t stop hackers, trespassers, or rogue agents. It only stops lawful investigations with lawful warrants.
I don't know what Kerr is getting at here. If it is within the means of "hackers" or "trespassers", it is surely within the means of law enforcement.
> How is the public interest served by a policy that only thwarts lawful search warrants?
But it doesn't only thwart lawful search warrants, it protects against other would-be intruders. Apple is simply choosing, in light of recent controversies regarding government incursions on privacy, to highlight that aspect.
> Apple’s new policy seems to thumb its nose at that great tradition. It stops the government from being able to access the phone precisely when it has a lawful warrant signed by a judge. What’s the public interest in that?
Apple is responding to a political and market reality: a lot of us don't believe that "great tradition", as practiced, is actually serving the public interest. I guess it is out of the scope of the piece for Kerr to explain why we're mistaken, but many of those applauding Apple's decision aren't going to buy it, and yet it's his argument's key premise.
> Because the victim isn’t alive to share his password, and the phone will have locked before the body was found, the government won’t be able to search the phone to find the messages. Apple’s policy will keep the police from finding the killer. That seems bad.
Maybe. But recall, for perspective, that 15 years (generously) ago people didn't carry these repositories of personal information with them.
> If we get a lot of cases like that, I suspect Congress may look to legislation to try to restore the privacy/security balance more in the direction of the traditional Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.
I would expand on the same point as above: what year's balance are we striving to "restore" to? Law enforcement today have unprecedented access to personal information, and that will be only marginally less true when smartphone encryption is more widespread and robust.
> The most obvious option would be follow the example of CALEA and E911 regulations by requiring cellular phone manufacturers to have a technical means to bypass passcodes on cellular phones.
I know Kerr is talking about what Congress might do and not what would be ideal, but I'm sure Kerr knows the lessons of the Clipper chip [3].
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I've been stewing over this since I read it on Friday. Apologies for the rantiness.
[1] http://www.slideshare.net/eltufl/ios-encryption-systems [2] http://www.elcomsoft.com/eift.html?r1=pr&r2=ios6#passcode [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
> The philosopher Herbert Spencer famously argued that competition among men for survival was not only inevitable but good. [...] In retrospect, it is easy to recognize his theory of nature as an unacknowledged description of nineteenth-century England... It was only natural that colonial regimes brutally extracted resources from Asians and Africans unable to resist their guns. Those who survived at the expense of others were simply proving their own fitness, and their enemies’ weakness.
Or, as I specified in my original comment, "the colonialism of his day".
Please. I don't know about Spencer's unnamed "followers", but he was not quite what you would call a fan of the colonialism of his day:
> That a government cannot undertake to administer the affairs of a colony, and to support for it a judicial staff, a constabulary, a garrison, and so forth, without trespassing against the parent society, scarcely needs pointing out.
> Moreover, colonial government, properly so called, cannot be carried on without transgressing the rights of the colonists. For if, as generally happens, the colonists are dictated to by authorities sent out from the mother country, then the law of equal freedom is broken in their persons, as much as by any other kind of autocratic rule.
From Social Statics, Chapter 27, Section 1 (available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/spencer-social-statics-185... ).
The organization behind it is the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that has performed ample pro bono litigation against civil asset forfeiture abuse.
If you choose to donate to them (which I encourage), note that they do legal work in other areas that you may or may not agree with, so you should take a look at that first.
(Note: I am not affiliated with IJ, I just admire their work.)
Glancing at them real quick, they're a T-Mobile MVNO and their mid-range unlimited plan is $50/month with 2GB of high-speed data. Straight Talk, which is usually on T-Mobile but depending on device and region also uses the other three major carriers, is $45 for an unlimited plan with 3GB of high-speed data. And MetroPCS, owned by T-Mobile, is also $50/month for a mid-range plan, but with 3GB of high-speed data.
Unless it has better roaming priority, I don't see what it brings to the table (maybe pay-as-you-go is a different story, though, if that's what you're interested in).
[1] http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/09/04/the-new-moto-g-leaks...
They also used associated tools like fastboot and adb.
Now, US telecom companies aren't very likeable, sure. I'm with them there, as I imagine most people are. But it's not good journalism.
> For example, new safety requirements mean that individual truckers drive fewer miles than a decade ago: An average long-haul truck can now cover 8,000 miles a month, down from almost 11,000 in 2007, according to the trade association.
So the maximum miles driven per month is 73% of what it was in 2007, whereas the inflation-adjusted salary is 97% (based on eyeballing the graph) of what it was.
Now, if despite the higher maximum drivers were going, say 9000 miles a month before 2007, the difference would be less stark. Nevertheless, viewing from that perspective makes the situation seem much different.
Of course, that doesn't account for the 03-07 downward trend.
And while I do agree in theory that they should "just" raise wages if they need more drivers, we should be careful jumping to conclusions as outsiders. After all, it is possible, for instance, that paying new (and probably many existing) drivers more could eat up the revenues gained from the customers they're currently turning away. And moreover, said prospective customers could adapt so that by the time the trucking companies have enough drivers, the orders are no longer there.
Also, many people I know with $1000+ MacBooks use them for almost nothing but web browsing.
A USB/Bluetooth mouse can be helpful, but there are many situations where that is inconvenient.
That said, if you are a wiz with keyboard shortcuts it won't make much of a difference. But most people aren't.
While I share the same general sentiment, and I don't know what laws the US has about quarantining people, I think the big factor to keep in mind here is that as American citizens, they have every right to return to the US -- they just happen to be returning for medical treatment. Whereas foreign nationals with infectious diseases (much less Ebola) could be turned away as a matter of routine.
Corporations that invert will not stop paying US taxes. They will stop paying it on foreign-earned income.