Your Privacy & Security Attacked Again by Attorney General & FBI Director

Defend yourself. Protect your country. Fight for our Constitution. By taking up Obama’s call to action.

VOTE.

Barack Obama

It’s happening again

After months of trying, the FBI successfully broke into iPhones belonging to the gunman responsible for a deadly shooting at Pensacola Naval Air Station in December 2019 …

The Verge report The FBI successfully broke into a gunman’s iPhone, but it’s still very angry at Apple

Here we go again. Apple is in the spotlight, again, for a security stance that they are taking to protect its users.

AppleInsider Editorial The FBI’s iPhone encryption backdoor demand is unsafe and now unwarranted

Back in Dec I shared some posts about these issues in:

• Your Privacy is Being Violated – YOU Are The Product
• Fight to Protect your Security & Privacy Against Clueless Politicians
• And Apple Platform Security Guide Defines Good Practices about the technical details of Apple’s approach to security.

They Are Lying To You

ACLU senior staff attorney Brett Max Kaufman pointed out that what Barr didn’t address was why, if the FBI can get data off the iPhone without Apple’s help, they still need the back door?

“Every time there’s a traumatic event requiring investigation into digital devices, the Justice Department loudly claims that it needs backdoors to encryption, and then quietly announces it actually found a way to access information without threatening the security and privacy of the entire world,” said Kaufman.

“The boy who cried wolf has nothing on the agency that cried encryption.”

The Register – Attorney General: We didn’t need Apple to crack terrorist’s iPhones – tho we still want iGiant to do it in future

Backdoors are still not the answer

Like we’ve said before, again and again, the cat-and-mouse game between law enforcement and criminals has been played as long as civilization has existed. And, once again, in the interest of expediency, the government wants to unlock smartphones on demand.

And, again, Apple is telling the feds to forget about it, and are being specific about why they should. Like Apple has said before, there is no backdoor limited only to the good guys. If it exists, it will be found and used by the bad guys.

AppleInsider Editorial The FBI’s iPhone encryption backdoor demand is unsafe and now unwarranted

Apple said in part:

The false claims made about our company are an excuse to weaken encryption and other security measures that protect millions of users and our national security.

Apple’s full statement is copied below.

Apple’s full statement

The terrorist attack on members of the US armed services at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida was a devastating and heinous act. Apple responded to the FBI’s first requests for information just hours after the attack on December 6, 2019 and continued to support law enforcement during their investigation. We provided every piece of information available to us, including iCloud backups, account information and transactional data for multiple accounts, and we lent continuous and ongoing technical and investigative support to FBI offices in Jacksonville, Pensacola, and New York over the months since.

On this and many thousands of other cases, we continue to work around-the-clock with the FBI and other investigators who keep Americans safe and bring criminals to justice. As a proud American company, we consider supporting law enforcement’s important work our responsibility. The false claims made about our company are an excuse to weaken encryption and other security measures that protect millions of users and our national security.

It is because we take our responsibility to national security so seriously that we do not believe in the creation of a backdoor — one which will make every device vulnerable to bad actors who threaten our national security and the data security of our customers. There is no such thing as a backdoor just for the good guys, and the American people do not have to choose between weakening encryption and effective investigations.

Customers count on Apple to keep their information secure and one of the ways in which we do so is by using strong encryption across our devices and servers. We sell the same iPhone everywhere, we don’t store customers’ passcodes and we don’t have the capacity to unlock passcode-protected devices. In data centers, we deploy strong hardware and software security protections to keep information safe and to ensure there are no backdoors into our systems. All of these practices apply equally to our operations in every country in the world.

Apple