LOS MARGINADOS: Privacy crunch: Apple vs. the FBI

viernes, 19 de febrero de 2016

Privacy crunch: Apple vs. the FBI

Connecting is MercatorNet's blog about social media and the virtual self. We'd love to hear from you. Send us your tips and suggestions. Post comments. We want to make it as lively as possible. The editor is Denyse O'Leary, a Canadian journalist. - See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/connecting/view/privacy-crunch-apple-vs.-the-fbi/17642#sthash.WiRtWEUu.dpuf

FRIDAY, 19 FEBRUARY 2016

Privacy crunch: Apple vs. the FBI

BY DENYSE O'LEARY

The San Bernardino massacre last December has laid bare a growing conflict in our global world between security and privacy. In the current Apple vs. FBI conflict, the FBI wants to decrypt suspects’ phones, to learn of terrorist contacts. Digg offers an explanation:

Late on Tuesday evening, Apple CEO Tim Cook published "A Message to Our Customers," taking a defensive stance against a court order that would force Apple to ease decryption of the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. The battle is just the most recent series of events in a drawn-out war over national security and encryption between tech companies and the government.

As the Guardian explains,

In 2014, Apple began making iPhones with additional encryption software that they said they couldn’t unlock, even if faced with a court order ... Sheri Pym, the federal judge, has ordered Apple not to turn off its encryption but to make it easier for federal agents to randomly guess the suspects’ iPhone passcode.

Analyst Lance Ulanoff offers an explanation at Mashable: “If Apple loses to the FBI, we're all screwed.”

… if the terrorist used the iOS security option that wipes the phone after 10 consecutive failed log-in attempts, that information will be lost forever.

The FBI believes Apple can build a firmware upgrade that will prevent the phone from performing a data wipe and make it easier to crack the passcode. Now a judge is ordering Apple to comply.

That would currently take 5.5 years.

Apple CEO Tim White sent a message to all customers:

Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

He added,

In today’s digital world, the “key” to an encrypted system is a piece of information that unlocks the data, and it is only as secure as the protections around it. Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge.

And the “anyone” could be within government or without.

Apple has sometimes allowed decryption in the past, but is now showing understandable newfound reluctance, and the case could end up at the Supreme Court.

This is an issue that citizens must wrestle with privately before voting.

My own view (it seems fair to give one at this point) is this: If government were simply and solely a force for righteousness, that might be one thing. But does anyone who has been paying any attention actually believe that about governments today?

The government of Quebec, Canada, proposes to allow falsification of death certificates for euthanasia (at the same time as euthanasia of the incompetent is being promoted), and the government of Queensland, Australia, proposes to forbid therapy for people who would prefer not to be gay (how did that become government business?).

Sometimes governments crack down on sex criminals, and other times they collude to hide their crimes.

Generally speaking, secular governments today lack any reliable moral centre. One can’t even predict what they will think up next.

Whatever the costs may be of denying them decryption rights, the costs of allowing them may be greater.

See also: The internet: Privacy fights back It’s worse than we thought. But is Privategrity the answer?

Denyse O’Leary is a Canadian journalist, author, and blogger

- See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/connecting/view/privacy-crunch-apple-vs.-the-fbi/17642#sthash.WiRtWEUu.dpuf

At first sight, making proposals for a law that allows euthanasia might seem like a cop-out, complicity in evil and all that. But when your national legislature is going to make such a law, no matter what; when it has been ordered to do so by the Supreme Court (those almighty judges again), there is little you can do short of trying to make the rules as tight as possible.

That is what Margaret Somerville has done in her recent submission to a parliamentary committee on euthanasia, as you can read on our website today. Dr Somerville, who heads the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University in Montreal, is an acknowledged expert in this area and was invited to make a submission to the committee.

As a matter of fact she told them a bit more than they wanted to hear from her – for a start, that she thinks the whole idea is wrong. But her proposals (and they reflect the court’s views), if followed, would do a lot to reduce the risk of a slippery slope developing. It would also protect both the conscience rights of doctors and the safety of people who do not want their death hastened.

I was struck in particular by her point that “a new profession should be established to carry out euthanasia. The practitioners should not be healthcare professionals or, if so, only ones who have permanently retired from practice.” Anyway, read for yourself; sooner or later you may need ideas like this.