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FBI admits error when trying to change terrorist iPhone password; Apple lawyer speaks of “police state”

And let's go to more details of the case Apple vs. FBI


As always, to understand everything we are going to talk about here it is essential to have read all the articles we have published on the subject so far. And there were few:

FBI admits it was wrong

Apple had commented that the FBI lost the best chance of getting the information on the iPhone 5c of the terrorist to hand when it decided to reset the password of the Apple ID attached to the device because of that, the phone no longer had to do a new backup and send it to the cloud (iCloud) when entering a known Wi-Fi network and being connected to a power source. For until then the FBI had not made the mistake, but now that has changed.

During a hearing of the Judicial Committee of the Chamber, when asked if they had closed the possibilities of getting their hands on a most recent backup of the iPhone (currently they only have access to a backup made on October 19, well before the terrorist attack. ), FBI Director James Comey confirmed that they made a mistake when resetting the Apple ID password in the first 24 hours they had the device in their hands.

Does privacy have limits?

In the opinion of Warren Buffett (billionaire investor and American philanthropist), yes.

As reported by CNBC, he is one more to stand by the FBI, even giving 9/11 as an example. For him, if the FBI was receiving reliable information that something was going to happen, it would be a case in which security would outweigh privacy.

Obviously Buffett does not think this applies to any case / situation. In "lesser things", he agrees that privacy should reign. The big problem, in this scenario, is to delimit the cut line between these situations.

In the investor's opinion, one way to resolve this would be for the FBI director himself to assume any responsibility: “If there is something important, something that the attorney general or the head of the FBI would be willing to sign, go to a judge and say: 'We need this information and we need it now', I would be willing to trust that this officer would behave properly. ”

"If we lose, we will be taken to a 'police state'"

The Apple lawyer talked to Laurie Segall, from CNNMoney and explained a little more the company's point of view on the subject.

Affirming that iPhone security is precisely the reason many customers choose the device, Ted Olson said it is very easy to say that there is terrorism involved in the case and that, therefore, Apple should do everything the government wants. For him, because the case involves terrorism, we must violate the civil freedom that we all cherish.

Of course, he agrees that terrorism must be combated and that something like that is unacceptable, but there are limits. Asked what happens when Apple creates an impenetrable system that it seeks to do, Olson said that everyone, as citizens, has the right to write something on a piece of paper and burn it later. There are limits to how far the government can go.

Testimonials in Congress

In his testimony in Congress, Bruce Sewell (senior vice president and general counsel for Apple) said that the world is watching the case closely and that the company's ability to maintain a consistent position across countries, to say that it will not compromise the safety of any of its users around the world, will be substantially weakened if Apple is forced to create a backdoor on the iPhone.

He said that Apple has not yet received similar demands from other countries, but that if the company is ordered to comply with the government order, it will rain orders like this in a short time.

Sewell also shared something interesting about the disappearance of Flight 370 (in Malaysia). When asked how quickly Apple is able to respond to government requests for help, he said that in this specific case, the company started helping out about an hour later, trying to locate the plane. "We had Apple operators working with phone providers around the world, with airlines and the FBI to find something."

Professor Susan Landau addressed important questions about the technology used by the FBI, suggesting that the government agency needs to focus on innovation and recruiting talent to build better tools instead of asking Apple to create unsecured software. "Instead of laws and regulations that weaken our protections, we must allow security agencies to develop 21st century capabilities to conduct investigations."

The case of the arrest of the Facebook executive in Brazil

This week, a “similar” case ended up in the prison of Diego Jorge Dzodan (vice president of Facebook for Latin America).

The executive was arrested, he is already released thanks to a habeas corpus after Facebook failed to comply with a court decision in which it should share information exchanged on WhatsApp for suspected drug traffickers. The problem, according to the company, is that they cannot provide information they do not have.

We cooperate to the best of our ability in this case, and while respecting the important work of law enforcement, we strongly disagree with this decision.

WhatsApp does not store users' messages. We only keep messages until they are delivered. Upon delivery, they exist only on the devices of the users who received them.

In addition, we are extending a strong end-to-end encryption system, which means that users' messages are protected from cyber criminals. No one or WhatsApp or anyone else can intercept or compromise people's messages.

Can you understand why Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and other companies are supporting Apple in the case against the FBI, right? Should the American government win this dispute, all companies that somehow deal with sensitive information from users will become the target of possible investigations / retaliations.

(via Re / code, Cult of Mac, The Next Web, MacRumors, G1)