This week, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, posted a public letter to his customers explaining why Apple intends to fight a court order demanding that they help crack the security of a dead terrorist’s iPhone. Hearing this, you might think, “I don’t use Apple stuff, so I don’t care,” or “this doesn’t affect me and I want them to catch terrorists.” The problem is, this issue could set a precedent that will affect all of us. Watch today’s Byte to learn more about this issue and why it could affect you, and check out the references below—especially Cook’s Letter—for more details.
Show Note: Unfortunately, this episode is posting a few days late, and I missed a day of the Daily Byte. Technical issues forced me to re-shoot the content.
(Episode Runtime: 8:01)
Direct YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIVHl-tO0BQ
EPISODE REFERENCES:
- Tim Cook’s letter to customers on FBI order – Apple
- FBI uses old law to force Apple to weaken security – Slate
- The actual U.S. court order to Apple [PDF] – Document Cloud
- Editorial debate on FBI or Apple – Bloomberg View
- What is the All Writs Act? – Daily Dot
- How U.S. lawmakers are reacting to the issue – Techdirt
- Well-known hacker’s technical view on this case – Fox News
- Other tech companies back Apple – ZDNet
- Blocking encryption products will not prevent terrorists from using others – Schneier.com
- UPDATE: LA Congressman’s response to the Apple issue (hear, hear!) – House.gov
- UPDATE: Screw up prevents a cloud backup retrieval wo/backdoor – Gizmodo
- FUN: Eccentric McAfee claims FBI doesn’t need Apple, he can crack the iPhone – Uber Gizmo
— Corey Nachreiner, CISSP (@SecAdept)
One of your best! Fascinating topic and thank you for the detailed references as always.
Thanks Jack… appreciate you following, and let me know if there’s any way we can make the videos more interesting. I think it’s a fascinating topic too… but am a little concerned with the direction governments are going…. and not just the US, but globally. I would hope governments would get involved with digital security as far as helping protect us from the bad guys, but rather they seem to want to leverage some “black hat” techniques themselves, and I believe that will make the problem worse in the long term.
You know it is amazing how often I hear people who no nothing about IT security say that doing this backdoor is safe. I wish someone would take a poll of IT professional and publish that information.
Hmmm. Good idea. We have survey tools, perhaps we should do that survey! ^_^
While I’m ok with governments having an open and transparent discussion with the security industry to try and figure out if there is any sort of “safe medium,” where we could find a way to offer any sort of help in catching criminals, the “backdoors” or encryption weaknesses that have been proposed aren’t the right choice… and it’s even worse that they are often trying to do these things outside the public’s eye.
One of the best things about Cook’s message is simply the fact that it forces the discussion into the public.
Excellent topic of discussion, glad you covered it! I totally agree with Apple, as you do, I think the Government is placing everyones personal data at risk by asking Apple to comply with their request. It will be interesting to see how far up the legal chain this goes and what the outcome is.
You really believe Apple is concerned about its users privacy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/technology/how-tim-cook-became-a-bulwark-for-digital-privacy.html
“Apple had asked the F.B.I. to issue its application for the tool under seal. But the government made it public, prompting Mr. Cook to go into bunker mode to draft a response, according to people privy to the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The result was the letter that Mr. Cook signed on Tuesday, where he argued that it set a “dangerous precedent” for a company to be forced to build tools for the government that weaken security.”
They pretty much would have done anything the government wants as long as all involved remained silent. Only when the FBI made the whole thing public Apple made it into a “privacy-vs-state” debate.
And it’s not that Apple has not unlocked iPhones for the government before. In fact, it has done it at least 70 times in the past.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/17/apple-unlocked-iphones-for-the-feds-70-times-before.html
It’s not as clear cut or black and white as many think.
I do think they care… In the times Apple has shared data, it was unencrypted versions of the icloud data, via individual subpoenas. I think Apple is more than willing to cooperate with government and share what data they can with individual legal cases, but at the same time, they have constantly improved thier systems, making it harder and harder for them to store unencrypted customer information. The different here is that now the government is asking them for encrypted data that they have specifically designed no real way for them to have access too.
This is not clear cut, nor black and white, which is why I think it requires a public transparent discussion… However, my personal view is still that every citizen has the right to strong encryption, and we should be very careful before giving any government any key to that public encryption.