Excellent point.

Very true.

I am reserving my "pride" in the courage of people to demand liberty for after the fedgov has been reduced to the power allowed under the Articles of Confederation.

The the fedgov would just create another terrorist who has the new encryption, and demand that Apple do it again.

Well, here is a new wrinkle in the whole thing: Apple told them what to do to try to get a new backup made, but the FBI apparently told San Bernadino to reset the password to the iCloud account, screwing up that possibility. Could it be they are manipulating the situation to force Apple to give them an open door to all phones?

http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-says-i...

I'm happy that Apple is putting its foot down and acting like businesses should (by protecting the security of its customers), but I'm deeply disappointed that this is what America has come to. Does anyone else have this kind of bittersweet... pride, almost?

I don't know if the technology or science behind my thoughts are feasible, but if I were Tim Cook, I'd have my 'best and brightest' re-engineer the encryption engines so that in the Next Release, the code to crack the Previous Releases could never work.
Then push every Apple Device's OS to the NEW Encryption Level and THEN give the gumblement the help to crack the old security technology.
Impossible, maybe. "Unfair to Apple customers too lazy, stupid or ignorant to accept the new Encryption Download?"
Maybe, but maybe they deserve to be Darwined out of the gene pool anyway!

Go Apple!

I'd rather they all were fired and the federal police ended forever. The state and local police have the ability to investigate and to share information. Federal police is just a power grab that is looking more every day like Naxi Germany and Soviet Russia.

They already have records of whom and when the terrorists corresponded with. Those logs are kept by all phone companies and Internet providers and regularly turned over to the government. In a month following the last Cloud backup, which the Feds have access to, there couldn't be that many leads that they can't follow. They are doing an "investigation" - they are doing theater. When the mentally unstable sicko had a murder spree in the Navy Yard, the FBI cut away walls and steel beams for "analysis" in the lab! Analysis!?! They were thoroughly analyzing what? The origins of the 12ga shot shells bought in Walmart? Really? The entire building was taken apart and forensically analyzed - and the determination? Yes, they confirmed the number of deaths and who was killed by which projectile! Impressive. Oh, yes, another $100M was requested and received to build a new building. Ya know, I would rather they did their jobs than postmortem theatrics.

If the FBI had intelligence that could have prevented what happened and did nothing I'm willing to change my position on the matter. If this is just supposition my initial impression stands. I have no doubt that the government is constantly at war with the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. I also have no doubt that after a crime, or in this care a terrorist act, the authorities collect as much evidence as they can. In this case the evidence could lead to others who may be willing and able to conduct future acts of terror on US soil.

They were "radicalized" in their mosque - doesn't the FBI monitor those? They displayed their allegiance at work - but the leftists that they worked with (and slaughtered) found that quite acceptable. Their neighbor saw obvious signs of danger - but was prevented from voicing them due to political correctness.
Aren't there plenty of areas for the FBI to concentrate on instead of further eroding the rights of all Americans in the hope of finding those pesky "right-wing Constitutionalists"?

Is this true? Do you have a link?

From what I understand, the fbi is not interested in solely getting into this one phone...I think if they were there would not be an issue.

I despise hackers because they have cost us a lot of money we might have used elsewhere...like preventive heal measures, savings for a rainy day or in case of an economic collapse...nowadays, it costs a lot of money to keep the same computer running well cause of all the garbage coming from the internet.

There is always some creature out there that ruins a good thing.

The previous incidents were with an earlier iOS, with less encryption. Apple has listened to their customers regarding privacy issues, and has deliberately removed earlier back door code. There are licensed third party applications offered to corporations and government that enable those headquarters to disable passwords remotely. Unfortunately the county that employed the terrorist decided not to have this code installed.

How is McAffee going to social engineer a break-in on a physical hardware device? Did his hackers snoop that phone number and hack the communication stream that had password? Without that the newish iPhones use one-way hash encryption and does not store the user's password on the device or anywhere. Therefore, without the password which is needed to unencrypt the iPhone's stored data, the FBI needs direct access to the storage volume and then give it to NSA to brute force attack it.

Did you understand what I just said? Translate: the FBI/NSA wants Apple to remove its strong encryption on all iPhones.

We have to have a good definition of the problem before we can discuss the validity of potential solutions. The best description I was able to find was on io9:
"Apple offered the government four alternative techniques to help it access the phone’s data, as an alternate to creating a special software, the executive told reporters. This is a very different scenario than the one portrayed in the government’s motion, which paints Apple as thoroughly uncooperative.

But there is one thing the government and Apple agree on: It is technically possible for Apple to write the kind of software in demand. In fact, the executive admitted that the Cupertino company would be able to write this software not only for its newest phones but also for all phones it has in use. And that’s one of the reasons Apple insists that the burden of writing the software is far too great—any software it creates could act as a master key.

Apple hasn’t revealed exactly how far it will go before it acquiesces. However, this will likely have an impact on how it designs security measures in the future. Apple may design them to make it technically impossible to force the company to comply. "

If this is accurate, it changes my answer: Apple should (a) use one of its 4 solutions to hack the individual phone, (b) let the appeal against writing exploit software for the FBI drag on for years, and (c) make future versions of the iphone unhackable. (God should make a rock that is to big for him to lift.) After years worth of appeals, and with all of the phones by-that-time unhackable, the issue will be moot.

Jan

So, the FBI and other 3-letter agencies had all the information required to prevent the massacre. But they did nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing... Now, they want to create even more of a police state and acquire more control of the citizens so that, postmortem, they can definitely determine that this was a case of workplace violence!

And the excuse that they need the contacts is total BS - all contacts are recorded and traced. The content of the messages may be encrypted, but they know whom the messages were addressed to. Shouldn't take much brains (admittedly, more than they have) to follow the leads.

First of all, the government could care less about this particular phone. They want to be able to crack any and all encription to increase their power. This foray into the legal system is just a convenient excuse to get universal access to all of our secrets.

Second of all, I cant believe the NSA cant pay some hacker (like McAfee) to do this. Snowden could probably do it also.

Thirdly, This attack on apple is such a thinly disguised attempt to take away all our security that it should be seen and treated as such.

If they do get to get Apple to capitulate, I will have to just not use their device's encription anymore and find another way to keep my info safe.

If government want master key program-NO
If government just wants help to catch Jihadist-YES. Everything else is just commentaries.

the govt doesn't want anyone to do the decryption
for them -- they want the key. . they want the omniscience
which they see in the mirror when they shave or apply
make-up or brush their teeth or whatever. -- j
.

Here's an A.E.I. article on this topic with a number of links to additional info:
https://www.aei.org/publication/suppo...

Is the encryption on the SanBernardino phone the same version as those earlier cases? Apple has gone to great lengths to create a truly unbreakable cipher. It may be that no one, not even Apple, can crack the system if there isn't a back door already in the code.

For the Solons of Washington, nothing less than another limitation to our freedom is to be expected. Many have used patriotism as an excuse for collectivism, even those who are supposedly Constitutional scholars.

Don't worry, folks, our wonderful government is only here to help us.
Big Brother just wants a backdoor to watch our everything.
So you don;t want to be looked upon as a domestic terrorist, do you? For sure you don't!
Just get with the system and represent yourself as one cool dude or dudette.
Go, go, good government, go!
Good government is . . . WORKING!
Yay!.
Just love your good government
I am Bernie Sanders and I approve of this message. .