Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and How the tech
Speaker 1: Are Yet it is a Friday, which means it's time
Speaker 1: for a classic episode of tech Stuff. This one is
Speaker 1: titled Apple versus the FBI, and originally it published on
Speaker 1: March second, twenty sixteen. This is sort of an ongoing
Speaker 1: struggle between companies like Apple and various agencies because, as
Speaker 1: we will hear in this episode, the FBI wanted ways
Speaker 1: to be able to access locked iPhones that had been
Speaker 1: recovered from say a suspect, and Apple is trying to
Speaker 1: do its best to maintain consumer confidence by tecting their
Speaker 1: data and their devices. We've heard similar things, which I'll
Speaker 1: talk about more at the end of this episode, that
Speaker 1: have involved other law enforcement agencies and investigative agencies here
Speaker 1: in the United States. But first let's listen to this
Speaker 1: classic episode from twenty sixteen. So we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: something that's actually we're gonna have to work very hard
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons because we're talking about Apple versus the FBI.
Speaker 1: The whole story that's unfolding as we record this, and
Speaker 1: to talk about what is behind that case, what are
Speaker 1: the implications, what is the FBI's argument, what is Apple's argument?
Speaker 1: And in addition to that, we have, of course the
Speaker 1: added responsibility of remembering that this is all centered around
Speaker 1: a truly awful crime. Yes, absolutely so. The what we're
Speaker 1: what we're talking about specifically hit inanstream news when Apple
Speaker 1: did something that a lot of tech companies have never done.
Speaker 1: They issued a blanket statement letter and went public. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with they went public with a response to an FBI request.
Speaker 1: But I guess I'm getting ahead of it. What was
Speaker 1: the crime? Well, let's yeah, let's I'll give you the
Speaker 1: background on what's happened and we'll build from there. So
Speaker 1: first we have to look back on December second, twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen in San Bernardino, California. That's in southern California, and
Speaker 1: that's when two well an American citizen and a legal
Speaker 1: resident husband wife team, both of Pakistani descent, committed a
Speaker 1: mass shooting. It was a Sayed Rizwantharouk and tash Fen
Speaker 1: Malik who committed this act, and it happened at the
Speaker 1: Department of Public Health. They were having an event that
Speaker 1: was starting off as a training event and then it
Speaker 1: was supposed to transition into a holiday event. And after
Speaker 1: the training element, Farouk, who was actually at the event,
Speaker 1: he was in the employee of the Department of Public Health,
Speaker 1: he was a food inspector, left, came back with his wife.
Speaker 1: They were both heavily armed and they both started firing
Speaker 1: into the crowd of people at the Department of Public Health.
Speaker 1: Fourteen people were killed, twenty two injured. Very serious crime.
Speaker 1: Then far and Malik left. They fled the scene. Turned
Speaker 1: out they had also left behind an explosive device, which
Speaker 1: thankfully did not detonate. Failed to detonate, and they fled
Speaker 1: in a vehicle that they had rented a few days before,
Speaker 1: and several hours later law enforcement tracked them down. There
Speaker 1: was a confrontation, there was a shootout, and then both
Speaker 1: of the shooters died as a result of that shootout.
Speaker 1: The FBI has stated that they believed, based upon the
Speaker 1: evidence they were able to find that the two were
Speaker 1: acting on their own, that they were not part of
Speaker 1: some sort of terrorist cell in the United States. However,
Speaker 1: they can't be absolutely certain of that. That's where the
Speaker 1: crux of this issue with Apple is going to come
Speaker 1: into play, and the big part of it is they
Speaker 1: can't account for it's just less than twenty minutes of
Speaker 1: the activity that happened between the shooting or leading up
Speaker 1: to the shooting, and around the shooting, because they're thinking
Speaker 1: that there's a possibility that something that happened within that
Speaker 1: time could give them more information and at least allow
Speaker 1: them to confirm whether or not they truly acted on
Speaker 1: their own or if they were under the direction of
Speaker 1: some other group, which could potentially and this is an
Speaker 1: FBI argument, which could potentially give the government the ability
Speaker 1: to prevent a future attack. And more to that point,
Speaker 1: neither of them had been listed in any database as
Speaker 1: a potential threat, So that puts extra pressure on the government,
Speaker 1: right because citizens say, well, why did this happen? The
Speaker 1: government says, we followed procedure and neither of them registered
Speaker 1: on any of our There were no red flags, so
Speaker 1: we had no way of knowing. And that means there's
Speaker 1: actual extra pressure on the FBI to investigate this thoroughly,
Speaker 1: partially to show that in fact, everything that could be
Speaker 1: done had been done short of taking some extreme step
Speaker 1: that none of us want to see, right, the idea
Speaker 1: of like, Okay, everyone of Pakistani descent has to leave
Speaker 1: the country. That's ridiculous. We would that's that's returning to
Speaker 1: an era of the United States history that we do
Speaker 1: not want to revisit, a World War two internment camp situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't want that. We don't want that because it
Speaker 1: is never fair to lump innocent people in for or
Speaker 1: that one of them might be guilty. That's not cool, right,
Speaker 1: this is I'm already getting angry and i haven't even
Speaker 1: gotten to the part about the apple stuff yet. I'm
Speaker 1: going for a slow burned thing myself. That's fair. So
Speaker 1: one of the thing that's that all of this is about,
Speaker 1: ostensibly any at any rate, is an iPhone. It's specifically
Speaker 1: an iPhone five C probably running iOS nine. That's based
Speaker 1: upon the various public filings we've seen about this. And
Speaker 1: it was county owned. It was owned by the Department
Speaker 1: of Public Health and then issued to Farouk who worked
Speaker 1: for the department Department of Public Health, so it was
Speaker 1: county owned. The FBI went to the county and said,
Speaker 1: we want your permission to access the contents on this phone.
Speaker 1: The county said, of course, you have our permission, you
Speaker 1: can access it. Now, if that's all their worked to it,
Speaker 1: it'd be fine. Sure, I would just access the phone.
Speaker 1: They've already received permission from the phone's owner, and they
Speaker 1: could cull through it to look for any evidence that
Speaker 1: would lead them to more information about this crime. But
Speaker 1: there is a security measure on the phone, and it's
Speaker 1: a very simple one. It's on lots of smartphones. It's
Speaker 1: a little password. In this case, it's a four or
Speaker 1: six digit pin which can be alpha numeric if you
Speaker 1: activate that option on the six digit. So it's one
Speaker 1: of the two, we don't know which, and without that pen,
Speaker 1: you cannot access the information because the way the pen works.
Speaker 1: This is where we get into the tech stuff. Been right.
Speaker 1: There are two levels of encryption, or two keys to
Speaker 1: this encryption. One of the keys is the pen. The
Speaker 1: other key is hard coded onto the device itself. All right,
Speaker 1: It's only it's if you think about movies like those
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties movies with the nuclear power, where you have
Speaker 1: to have two generals put their keys into the same
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So if you don't have the pin,
Speaker 1: it can't combine with the hardware key, and therefore you
Speaker 1: cannot unlock the information. The idea here is that Apple
Speaker 1: doesn't have the pen right, which is cool because it
Speaker 1: means that if you or I or you listeners have
Speaker 1: an iPhone, it means you can trust Apple. Because they
Speaker 1: don't know your pin right, they can't access your phone.
Speaker 1: You know, that was the whole point, right, Two points one.
Speaker 1: Apple wanted to make its secure enough so that consumers
Speaker 1: would say, I feel good about buying an iPhone because
Speaker 1: I know whatever I store on it, whether it's something
Speaker 1: that's personal or it's just you know, it's no one
Speaker 1: else's business, whatever it may be, sure no one else
Speaker 1: is going to have access to that unless I give
Speaker 1: them my pen. It's good for Apple, not just because
Speaker 1: consumers are happy, but because Apple then has an out.
Speaker 1: If the government comes to Apple and says, hey, we
Speaker 1: want you to break into this phone, they can literally
Speaker 1: say we cannot do that. It's not that we will not,
Speaker 1: it's that we literally physically cannot grant your request because
Speaker 1: it's impossible. And there's also I would just to expound
Speaker 1: that point a little bit further. This I'm not suggesting
Speaker 1: as their conscious will or intention, but this also removes
Speaker 1: possible culpability. Yes, yes, so all of these are very
Speaker 1: important points, right, So let's get into a little bit
Speaker 1: more of why the FBI is coming to Apple. So
Speaker 1: let's say that it's a four digit pin. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: all numeric, all numeric, simplest version. That means there are
Speaker 1: ten thousand combinations that are possible for that pen. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's you're limited to ten thousand, okay, which is that's
Speaker 1: a lot, but it's not that much if you're going
Speaker 1: to do something like a brute force attack. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if you do a brute force attack on a normal system,
Speaker 1: and there are only ten thousand variations, it's with a
Speaker 1: fast enough computer, it's just a matter of minutes, right,
Speaker 1: But there are some limitations on the iPhone that make
Speaker 1: this harder. Does it freeze if you enter the incorrect pin? Oh?
Speaker 1: It does more than freeze, all right. So first of all,
Speaker 1: there is an eighty millisecond delay when you enter a
Speaker 1: pin and when it gets verified that it is or
Speaker 1: is not the correct one when the key turns right.
Speaker 1: So with that eighty millisecond delay, that doesn't sound like much,
Speaker 1: but it means you can't just blast a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of numbers through. Also, you have to type it in
Speaker 1: on a screen. You can't hook it up to a
Speaker 1: computer and just digitally send the various pin combinations to
Speaker 1: try and get through. You have to actually tap them
Speaker 1: on the screen to do it over and over. So
Speaker 1: that means you tap in the number eighty milliseconds pass,
Speaker 1: you get the confirmation or denial. Tap in a number next.
Speaker 1: If you hit ten consecutive incorrect pen entries, the phone
Speaker 1: interprets that as saying someone else who is not the
Speaker 1: owner has gotten possession of this phone. So in order
Speaker 1: to protect the owner's information, we're scrambling everything and you
Speaker 1: lose all the metadata. Everything is useless. So even if
Speaker 1: you got the pen afterward, you would not be able
Speaker 1: to access the stuff you were looking for in the
Speaker 1: first place. You would maybe be able to turn on
Speaker 1: the phone, but there wouldn't be anything there to find. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would have just you would have just it would
Speaker 1: be like you just accidentally set fire to the file room,
Speaker 1: Like you know, like you can't get into the file
Speaker 1: room door, and whatever you try and do accidentally sets
Speaker 1: a fire inside the file room. You then get the
Speaker 1: key to the file room, and then you think, well,
Speaker 1: what's the point lady lost everything, and it's it's virtually assured.
Speaker 1: Yeah that out of those thousand, yeah, out of those
Speaker 1: ten thousand tries, your first ten are going to be wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean just the odds are pretty much against you,
Speaker 1: unless you're ridiculously lucky. So there's that, and of course
Speaker 1: they don't they also if it were an actual later iPhone,
Speaker 1: if it weren't the iPhone five C, they would have
Speaker 1: an added problem, which is that with the later models
Speaker 1: there's an additional delay after four failed tries. So if
Speaker 1: you try four times and fail, it will then give
Speaker 1: you a five second delay before you can try the
Speaker 1: fifth time. After that, it gives you a fifteen second
Speaker 1: delay after that, like by the time you get to
Speaker 1: the ninth try, it's an hour delay. Like, think about
Speaker 1: what you're doing, right, So, but the five C doesn't
Speaker 1: have that, so you may have read about that delay.
Speaker 1: It does not qualify for this particular space. Through force
Speaker 1: won't work in the most basic pin situation. But in
Speaker 1: the sixth digit alpha numeric, I just imagine the same
Speaker 1: rules apply, but the yeah, yeah, yeah exactly, But the
Speaker 1: possible answers are much greater because now you've got six
Speaker 1: digits you've also got the possibility of alpha characters in
Speaker 1: their alphabet characters. I believe so. Um so, anyway, from
Speaker 1: why I hear, if you were to try and use
Speaker 1: brute force on a six digit alpha numeric one, it
Speaker 1: would take you with a with a fast computer that
Speaker 1: had been optimized for this, it would take you about
Speaker 1: six years to break through it. And that's going through
Speaker 1: all the different possible combinations, assuming that there's not another
Speaker 1: kill switch type deal like there is with the iPhone.
Speaker 1: By the way, that's software that Apple has built into
Speaker 1: the iPhone, or really firmware that Apple is built into
Speaker 1: the iPhone. It's not like it's a fundamental you know
Speaker 1: quality that all smartphones. Oh right, yeah, yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: specific to Apple phones. Right, So you've got this problem, right,
Speaker 1: You have the FBI. They've gotten permission from the owner
Speaker 1: of the phone to access the phone's contents, but the
Speaker 1: owner of the phone doesn't know the pen because the
Speaker 1: owner of the phone had had issued it to an employee.
Speaker 1: The employee had come up with the pen, So they
Speaker 1: don't know. If it's a four digit, they don't know,
Speaker 1: if it's a six digit, they don't know. They don't
Speaker 1: know if this this feature where after ten tries everything
Speaker 1: gets erased. They don't know if that's necessarily active because
Speaker 1: you can turn it off, but all indications point to
Speaker 1: it being on. For one, it was on when the
Speaker 1: phone was issued to Farouk right, and people typically don't
Speaker 1: change their defaults vs phone users. So FBI wants Apple
Speaker 1: to do something particular, and it's something different from what
Speaker 1: we've talked about in previous episodes about a backdoor entrance
Speaker 1: into a system. It's not quite the same thing. So
Speaker 1: you've got this phone, you can't brute force attack it
Speaker 1: without risking damaging the contents. Apple cannot access the information
Speaker 1: on this phone by design, they did not want that
Speaker 1: to have that capability. So what the FBI wants Apple
Speaker 1: to do is build a new version of iOS just
Speaker 1: for this phone, a specific iOS for this own that
Speaker 1: disables the safety features that would one prevent brute force
Speaker 1: attacks from happening quickly, to allow brute force attacks to
Speaker 1: happen by hooking up the phone to a computer so
Speaker 1: you don't have to tap those numbers in it shore
Speaker 1: and three disabling that kill switch. So what the FBI
Speaker 1: wants Apple to do is to build up a brand
Speaker 1: new iOS again just for this one phone, and then
Speaker 1: install it on the phone. This would all you know,
Speaker 1: hypothetically happen on Apple grounds, like at an Apple location,
Speaker 1: either at the corporate headquarters or wherever. And then in theory,
Speaker 1: you would then destroy the the the custom iOS because
Speaker 1: you only needed it for that one phone, right, because
Speaker 1: it was so easy to toss the one ring, bring
Speaker 1: it back to more door and destroy it. Right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, Mount Doom plenty of backdoors. It's fine,
Speaker 1: it's integral to the plot. That was That was Sauron's
Speaker 1: problem was that he did not plug the security vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: into Mount Doom. I mean, that's that's a classic example,
Speaker 1: like you know, right up there with the whole land
Speaker 1: War with Asia thing. So FBI has been very very
Speaker 1: careful in framing this in a way that presents it
Speaker 1: as a reasonable request, one time thing. That's a that's
Speaker 1: a big deal, right saying this is for one phone
Speaker 1: and one phone only, you would you know, we're suggesting
Speaker 1: the Apple creates an iOS that's directly tied to a
Speaker 1: unique identifier on that phone, meaning even if the iOS
Speaker 1: were somehow to leak, sure it would not be applicable
Speaker 1: to any other device on the market, so it could
Speaker 1: only work for this one phone. So that that sounds
Speaker 1: good in its current form. That's that's important. They didn't
Speaker 1: go so far as to say that that's the important
Speaker 1: part that's left out, but yeah, so that's that was reasonable.
Speaker 1: You could argue saying this is for one case only.
Speaker 1: It's it's an important case. People died as a result, extraordinary,
Speaker 1: and we need to have a clear timeline because we
Speaker 1: don't know if there's something what is there something planned
Speaker 1: for December second, twenty sixteen, right, or was there another
Speaker 1: person involved that we need to get hold of, because
Speaker 1: otherwise that this could happen again. So they've said, you know,
Speaker 1: one time only, use going to destroy it after that
Speaker 1: use Hey, an Apple, if you don't want to make
Speaker 1: this iOS, that's fine, you don't have to do it.
Speaker 1: We'll do it. We'll hire some people to reverse engineer it,
Speaker 1: build out an iOS ourselves. Here's the thing, though, Those
Speaker 1: iPhones will only verify firmware if there's a special Apple
Speaker 1: digital signature attached to the firmware. So in other words,
Speaker 1: if the digital signature, which is unique to Apple, if
Speaker 1: that's not in there, it won't be verified by the device,
Speaker 1: it won't be loaded on because Apple famously wants to
Speaker 1: make sure that their hardware and software works together. And
Speaker 1: that's it. No one else gets to play in that
Speaker 1: play box. Yeah, it's the same with their Matt computers forever, right,
Speaker 1: Like you were really meant to run Apple software on
Speaker 1: Apple hardware and never the twain shall part, right, So,
Speaker 1: same thing with this iPhone. So the fbis is so
Speaker 1: we're not even asking you to give us the digital signature,
Speaker 1: which would be disastrous if Apple did that. The whole
Speaker 1: point of the signature is to make sure that only
Speaker 1: Apple can do this stuff. What they're saying is will
Speaker 1: make this iOS, will give it to you. Yes, you
Speaker 1: will sign off and send it. Right, you give a
Speaker 1: little stamp of approval with your little digital signature, and
Speaker 1: then we can load it onto this phone. But that
Speaker 1: way you don't even have to build the code. See
Speaker 1: we're being really reasonable. We'll be back with more with
Speaker 1: Apple versus the FBI after these quick messages. So here's
Speaker 1: here's the other issue. Apple kind of shot itself in
Speaker 1: the foot. See this is kind of a workaround already,
Speaker 1: this idea of being able to create a new kind
Speaker 1: of firmware to work around the security measures while not
Speaker 1: affecting any of the underlying data. The reason why that's
Speaker 1: possible at all is that Apple has allowed for the
Speaker 1: possibility of issuing a firmware update to a phone without
Speaker 1: the phone's owner having to accept it. Ah. Yes, see,
Speaker 1: if Apple had designed this so that when it pushed
Speaker 1: out a firmware update, you, as the user, had to
Speaker 1: log into your phone and accept it, there'd be no
Speaker 1: way for Apple to do this because you would already
Speaker 1: have to have the pen in order to accept the update.
Speaker 1: So you can't work your way around the pin because
Speaker 1: even the update to try and do the workaround would
Speaker 1: still need the pen. But that's not the case. Apple
Speaker 1: can issue a firmware update without the user's consent. This,
Speaker 1: by the way, also a security problem. Not just a
Speaker 1: security problem in this particular case. But what if someone
Speaker 1: at Apple, you know, decided to code it in so
Speaker 1: that you could activate the microphone remotely. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: and they shoot this firmware update out and you don't
Speaker 1: have the ability to deny it. You might not even
Speaker 1: be aware that it happens unless you happen to be
Speaker 1: using your phone when the firmware update gets pushed to
Speaker 1: your phone. That's an issue. So because Apple can do this,
Speaker 1: that gives FBI the the leg up to make this request.
Speaker 1: So the FBI just is trying to be as reasonable
Speaker 1: as possible in their request while avoiding the addressing the
Speaker 1: problems that could arise should Apple agree to it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. Okay, that's that's that's the thing.
Speaker 1: No matter how single use this might be. Yeah, no
Speaker 1: matter how noble or even crucial the cause, right, there's
Speaker 1: not there is not a practical way that this would
Speaker 1: work without severe repercussions. Yeah, there's a there's a word
Speaker 1: I like to use in this case. It's called precedent. Ah.
Speaker 1: So when you said a precedent where Apple agrees, acquiesces, surrenders,
Speaker 1: is compelled to however you want to put it, to
Speaker 1: agree to FBI's demands, you can't undo that. That has happened.
Speaker 1: And perhaps more importantly, not only has it happened in
Speaker 1: the US government, but now other governments that operate where
Speaker 1: Apple sells products could come to Apple and say, we
Speaker 1: know you can do this because you have done it,
Speaker 1: and we know you will do this because you did
Speaker 1: do it. So if you want to do business in
Speaker 1: our country, you know, the one that starts with Chu
Speaker 1: and ends with Aina. You will do this for us.
Speaker 1: And when you're talking about a government like China's government,
Speaker 1: you could see how this could be used to an
Speaker 1: abusive extent. Anyone who is identified as a dissident could
Speaker 1: be targeted. And China's an enormous market. Right, Apple cannot,
Speaker 1: as a publicly traded company turn its back on the
Speaker 1: biggest emerging market in the world, not even emerging, it's emerged,
Speaker 1: the biggest market in the world. Also, it's a there
Speaker 1: are manufacturing basis for apples in China. That's part of it.
Speaker 1: That's already been a security concern. Let's also consider I mean,
Speaker 1: if we're being honest, Okay, how how do I say
Speaker 1: this correctly? Jonathan? Oh? Yes, Okay. While there is no
Speaker 1: universally acknowledged proof that corporate corporate espionage projects or operations
Speaker 1: coming from China are sponsored by the government, right, there
Speaker 1: is widespread certitude that that is the case. Ockham's razor, right, Right,
Speaker 1: Ockom's razor. You look at it and you think, okay,
Speaker 1: it is entirely possible that any hackers operating in China One,
Speaker 1: maybe they're not Chinese. Unlikely but possible too. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: operating from a different country and using proxies to go
Speaker 1: through China. But considering the firewall of China, that seems
Speaker 1: like that extra headache for those hackers. Three, they could
Speaker 1: be operating. They could be Chinese and operating in China,
Speaker 1: but not be directed by the Chinese government, in which
Speaker 1: case they would still have to use proxies in order
Speaker 1: to access that level of infrastructure. It just gets to
Speaker 1: a point where you think the simplest explanation is, in fact,
Speaker 1: there are these state backed hackers that are doing this
Speaker 1: on behalf or on the request of Chinese government. If
Speaker 1: not on the request, at least with the implicit approval.
Speaker 1: There we go at least someone looking the other way.
Speaker 1: But even that's not enough. There's assistance involved anyway. I'm
Speaker 1: derailing us as well. The point being that if if
Speaker 1: Apple were to agree to this FBI request, that is
Speaker 1: a distinct possibility that it would face not only future
Speaker 1: requests from from other government agencies as well as the FBI,
Speaker 1: but from other countries as well, and that it would
Speaker 1: it would be the wedge that drives open the possibility
Speaker 1: of the things like these backdoors that Apple and other
Speaker 1: companies have been resisting for years now. No, there is
Speaker 1: one other there there is a case that I think
Speaker 1: we should clarify here. Um when we talk about precedent,
Speaker 1: there have been precedents in the in the legal past
Speaker 1: wherein Uncle Sam was allowed to compel a company right
Speaker 1: to do and this is different. But we do need
Speaker 1: to I think we need to differentiate these because it
Speaker 1: is legal in the US to compel a third party,
Speaker 1: whether an individual or a corporation to um help how
Speaker 1: do they word it, like execute a court order or
Speaker 1: something like. Yeah, So you're you're talking about the all
Speaker 1: Ritz Act, right, which is a very old thing, back
Speaker 1: to what's seventeen eighty nine. Okay, US wasn't even the
Speaker 1: US very much the right. This is not a smartphone
Speaker 1: specific law. There were still occasional battles with the British
Speaker 1: going on. Okay, seventeen eighty nine, so all the states
Speaker 1: were here, yet many of them were not here yet. Yes,
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine is when this want was first written
Speaker 1: down as part of the Judiciary Act. So specifically, what
Speaker 1: the all Ritz Act allows the government to do is
Speaker 1: to compel a third party to accommodate federal orders like
Speaker 1: a search warrant. So, in other words, the federal government
Speaker 1: can issue a search warrant to law enforcement. The law
Speaker 1: enforcement can go to let's say it's an apartment building.
Speaker 1: They can go to the manager of the apartment building
Speaker 1: and say, we have the search warrant. The all Ritz
Speaker 1: Act tells us that you have to allow us to
Speaker 1: go into this apartment to search it. And then the
Speaker 1: apartment owners says all right and lets them in. Now,
Speaker 1: this serves a couple of different purposes. It expedites the
Speaker 1: work of the federal government in investigations and things of
Speaker 1: that nature. And it also provides a protection to those
Speaker 1: third parties because the third party is having to comply
Speaker 1: with a federal request. And if you are a person
Speaker 1: like an apartment manager and your other tenants are coming
Speaker 1: to you and saying why are you letting them into
Speaker 1: someone's room without their permission, you can say I have
Speaker 1: to by law. That protects you as the owner as well,
Speaker 1: because it means that you're not you're not You're not
Speaker 1: a rat. You know you're you're you're following the law.
Speaker 1: You're obeying the law. Right, So automatically, anything you do
Speaker 1: in the assistance of the execution of that court order
Speaker 1: is automatically legal. I mean as long as you're yeah,
Speaker 1: as long as they're not saying, hey, we need a
Speaker 1: search warr and you go sure, Hey, while I'm on
Speaker 1: the way, do you mind even steal the car right
Speaker 1: or there? Or they can't say, hey, we're going to
Speaker 1: get a search warrant? Do you want to just lessen
Speaker 1: now right? That would not be cool. But there's a
Speaker 1: very important idea that's attached to the US all Ritz Act,
Speaker 1: which is that, and the Supreme Court has ruled on this,
Speaker 1: you cannot rely on the all Ritz Act to compel
Speaker 1: a third party to action if it creates an unreasonable
Speaker 1: burden upon that party. So you might say, well, what's
Speaker 1: the unreasonable burden for Apple? I mean, all they're asking
Speaker 1: for is a way around this security system, just time,
Speaker 1: just the one time. So there are actually several counter
Speaker 1: arguments to this. Um. First, uh, you know, Apple is
Speaker 1: saying their programmers may not even know how to make
Speaker 1: the code that would allow for this to happen. They like, listen,
Speaker 1: we don't even know that we can build this yet,
Speaker 1: So you're asking us to do something that we don't
Speaker 1: know we can build. So that's an unreasonable burden because
Speaker 1: it means we have to dedicate our assets to from
Speaker 1: from projects that they should be working on to trying
Speaker 1: to figure out if this thing is possible and if so,
Speaker 1: how to do it now. The FBI's argument was essentially, hey,
Speaker 1: you're in the business of writing codes. There should be
Speaker 1: no problem, right. I would desperately need a bleep sound
Speaker 1: effect right now. But I call BS. Let's be nice.
Speaker 1: I'll call BS on that argument, because to me, that's
Speaker 1: the same as coming up to Let's say, let's say
Speaker 1: Ben that you are a cook, yes, and you cook
Speaker 1: in an Italian restaurant. You're you're the Italian restaurant's head cook.
Speaker 1: Three initial in stars. I go up to you and
Speaker 1: I say, hey, listen, I'm from the federal government. I
Speaker 1: got this, uh, this this executive order, this federal order
Speaker 1: for you. Okay, all right, you have to now go
Speaker 1: and make a dinner of Peruvian food right now for
Speaker 1: thirty people that are in the restaurant. You can do
Speaker 1: it because you cook right exactly. Or it's like saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be a disastrous Peruvian dinner at very least
Speaker 1: a looser interpretation, like for another example, let's say to
Speaker 1: make it even broader. Yeah, because I think this is
Speaker 1: this is pretty good too. So, uh, Jonathan, let's say
Speaker 1: that you are a doctor. All right, Okay, you're at
Speaker 1: your doctor, doctor Strickland, doctor Strickling. Hey, hey call me Jonathan,
Speaker 1: doctor Strickland's my dad. You right, So you're an easy
Speaker 1: going doctor, clearly, Um, and you are, and uh you
Speaker 1: you're an ear nose and throat man. Okay yea. And
Speaker 1: uh so I come up to un say I'm from
Speaker 1: the federal government. I have an executive order but not
Speaker 1: an appointment. So you're already kind of irritated, right, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, and I say, I need you to make
Speaker 1: the cure for cancer. Yeah that's a bit much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're a doctor, right, you know about organs
Speaker 1: and stuff cancer affects bodies. Or going to Harley Davidson
Speaker 1: Davidson and saying, look, you you make stuff where wheels
Speaker 1: are connected to chassis and they turn and a motor
Speaker 1: keeps things going. I need you to make a bus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, as you see where the where it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's it's you can't argue that because this company is
Speaker 1: in the business of doing this one thing, which by
Speaker 1: the way, is just one part of Apple's business, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that they are capable of making this other thing that
Speaker 1: happens to fall into that same category. That is ludicrous
Speaker 1: on the face of it. So that's argument number one
Speaker 1: about it being a burden. Okay. The second burden is
Speaker 1: the one that we've already touched on. It sets a precedent.
Speaker 1: If Apple can be forced to attack the security of
Speaker 1: its own system in this case, it could happen again
Speaker 1: and that would be a disastrous result for consumer uh,
Speaker 1: you know, confidence in Apple's products. Right, that's very bad
Speaker 1: for Apple's bottom line. So if Apple says, look, you
Speaker 1: will make us lose millions, if not billions of dollars
Speaker 1: in revenue, how is that not an unreasonable burden? How
Speaker 1: can you argue that that burden is reasonable? Right exactly?
Speaker 1: And that's so. And not only that, but then you
Speaker 1: get into the foreign agent approach, the foreign state approach,
Speaker 1: saying what if this means that China comes to us
Speaker 1: and says, because of this other thing that we agreed
Speaker 1: to do, we now have to do it in China
Speaker 1: all the time, and real human beings are being pursued
Speaker 1: and their lives are turned upside down and ruined as
Speaker 1: a result of it. And it's all because we have
Speaker 1: to comply, because this has already set a precedent that's
Speaker 1: an unreasonable burden. And finally, they've even said that it's
Speaker 1: a violation of their right to free speech. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that is because code has been ruled as
Speaker 1: a type of free speech in the past, and if
Speaker 1: the government compels Apple to write code that Apple doesn't
Speaker 1: believe in, they're being compelled to speak against their own beliefs,
Speaker 1: thus a violation of free speech. Now that argument, most
Speaker 1: people are saying it's probably the weakest of all of
Speaker 1: their styling on it a little, but I gotta admit
Speaker 1: that's pretty awesome style. Well, yeah, that is. I enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And there, while it's reaching, it's not invalid. And let's
Speaker 1: consider that Apple legally, in this kind of case, is
Speaker 1: playing against Uncle Sam and on its home territory right.
Speaker 1: And this means that you you might often wonder why
Speaker 1: when there are suits or countersuits or legal problems, why
Speaker 1: so many cases open with just this laundry list of arguments,
Speaker 1: And it's because it's you know, if we could go
Speaker 1: back to my Italian restaurant, you're just throwing this spaghetti
Speaker 1: at the wall. It's a scattered gun approach, it absolutely is,
Speaker 1: or if you prefer, it's casting a very wide net
Speaker 1: because you aren't sure which tactic is necessarily going to
Speaker 1: be your best one from the starting gate, so you
Speaker 1: want to throw out all of them at once, and
Speaker 1: if it's if it's a compelling enough argument, then you
Speaker 1: can get things thrown out before they go any further.
Speaker 1: And in fact, Apple has said that they're willing to
Speaker 1: go all the way to the Supreme Court with this
Speaker 1: particular fight. The CEO said that publicly. Yeah, which interesting
Speaker 1: because I you know, we recently lost a US Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justice here in the United States, and I actually
Speaker 1: think he probably would have sided with Apple on this
Speaker 1: one because of his very strict view of the constitution,
Speaker 1: right he's an originalist antonin Scalia. Yeah, So going back
Speaker 1: to this argument of it, I'm going to read a
Speaker 1: quote and I want to see what your reaction is,
Speaker 1: because I know what mine was. This is from Congressman
Speaker 1: David Jolly of Florida, who said Apple's leadership risks having
Speaker 1: blood on their hands. Ben is shaking his head and
Speaker 1: looking at me in disdain. Not at me, he's looking
Speaker 1: through me. It's absolutely insincere, first off, and it's usually
Speaker 1: whenever you listeners, whenever you hear people make lurid imagery
Speaker 1: based appeals to emotion, right, or these these hyperbolic accusations
Speaker 1: that this is the bread and butter of I'll say
Speaker 1: it the political class theater exactly. That's a great phrase.
Speaker 1: And so to say this in such a way, what
Speaker 1: it does is psychologically you get an image of somebody
Speaker 1: with with literal blood on their hands, and then you
Speaker 1: know they're trying to cast aspersion against Apple, not by
Speaker 1: not by making any point about the arguments Apple is
Speaker 1: making right, but by going instantly to, uh, these people
Speaker 1: are murderers, right if we don't do why are you
Speaker 1: defending murderers? That's that's that's essentially you know, uh, the
Speaker 1: argument about you know, it's it's one of those those
Speaker 1: legal arguments you will hear occasionally. This is an illegal argument,
Speaker 1: but it's like the legal arguments you will occasionally hear
Speaker 1: where it's clear that the lawyer is trying to appeal
Speaker 1: to the jury's sense of emotion. Sure as opposed to
Speaker 1: addressing the facts of the case itself. Right, Um, so,
Speaker 1: I agree entirely with you. The first reaction I had was,
Speaker 1: I'm offended by that statement. I mean, it's condescending and
Speaker 1: it imagines that it imagines that the person that would
Speaker 1: be swayed by that is not intelligent enough to read,
Speaker 1: and it it deflects the fact that there are two
Speaker 1: people who were responsible for that terrible exact attack, two people,
Speaker 1: and those two people are the people who are holding
Speaker 1: the guns and pulling the trigger and aiming at people.
Speaker 1: Those those are the ones who have blood on their hands,
Speaker 1: and of course they're they're both dead now, they both
Speaker 1: died in the shootout with the law enforced. But the
Speaker 1: point being that they're the ones responsible, not Apple. Apple
Speaker 1: did nothing in relation to this crime. In fact, Apple
Speaker 1: didn't give the fricking phone to Furut that was issued
Speaker 1: by the county. Apple just made some made a device
Speaker 1: that has this level of security on it that people wanted.
Speaker 1: People wanted that level of security. They want the reassurance
Speaker 1: that Apple itself can't access their phones without their permission.
Speaker 1: It's a very important cornerstone of security. In fact, if
Speaker 1: you look at iOS eight or earlier, Apple could bypass security,
Speaker 1: they could access the information on a phone without your pen,
Speaker 1: without you acquiescing and allowing that to happen. But they
Speaker 1: specifically change that with iOS nine. They made it so
Speaker 1: that they could not do that because they said, it's
Speaker 1: important for consumers to trust the company. And how can
Speaker 1: you build trust if you know in the back of
Speaker 1: your mind and this company could at any moment access
Speaker 1: my private information that I have not chosen to share
Speaker 1: with them, Well, you know that trust is destroyed in
Speaker 1: that case, right, kind of brings us back to that
Speaker 1: unreasonable burden. So these arguments are continuing. I think the
Speaker 1: next stage doesn't start till till March tenth, and we're
Speaker 1: recording this on February twenty sixth. So I am very
Speaker 1: hopeful that the government sides with Apple on this ultimately,
Speaker 1: that when this gets the courts at any rate side
Speaker 1: with Apple on this, because if they do not, this
Speaker 1: is the This could be like the snowball effect where
Speaker 1: we see more requests of this nature come in and
Speaker 1: thence it. Once it's been established as precedent, it's much
Speaker 1: easier to happen in the future, and it's easier to
Speaker 1: see larger requests, like things that are that go beyond
Speaker 1: all we need you to help us circumvent the security
Speaker 1: and may go into we need you. We finally are
Speaker 1: going to get what we wanted all this time. We
Speaker 1: want a direct path that like a doorway that's labeled
Speaker 1: FBI that lets us go straight into the data that
Speaker 1: your users are storing on their devices, which leads to
Speaker 1: because the FBI, this leads to a horrific situation, because
Speaker 1: the FBI is an institution sure made up of individuals.
Speaker 1: Remember when the Snowden leaks revealed to us the extent
Speaker 1: of unethical use of surveillance by the NSA. People would
Speaker 1: look up their ex girlfriends or they were star ex boyfriends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were just looking up people that they were interested
Speaker 1: in with absolutely no oversight. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: when we talked about the Chinese government looking the other
Speaker 1: way for hackers, that was the same thing that occurred
Speaker 1: with the NSA. To assume that, for some reason, given
Speaker 1: the opportunity, individuals in another law enforcement branch or another
Speaker 1: institution would not do the same thing, yeah, is cartoonishly naive.
Speaker 1: We will conclude our twenty sixteen discussion about Apple versus
Speaker 1: the FBI after this quick break, you know, using the
Speaker 1: argument of this is a one time use, that wouldn't
Speaker 1: stop the FBI from requesting another one time use, or
Speaker 1: another one time use, or even extending that beyond it,
Speaker 1: saying all right now, we want a one size fits
Speaker 1: all approach to doing the same thing because it's too
Speaker 1: much time for us. And don't worry, we'll get a
Speaker 1: cord order before we do it. Will make sure that
Speaker 1: nobody else gets access to this ability. And you'll know
Speaker 1: that the cord order is good because they'll be classified.
Speaker 1: So we'll just inform you when the orders are approved.
Speaker 1: I have said it many times that there is no
Speaker 1: way to ensure security by enforcing a vulnerability. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that's a way to encapsulate it. But there
Speaker 1: is a question that I have that I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of you have as well, ladies and gentlemen, which is,
Speaker 1: let's say the worst happens, Yes, okay, worst happens court
Speaker 1: rules in favor of the FBI, and Apple says, nah,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do it. Well, I mean if
Speaker 1: if the court, assuming he goes all the way up
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, this could end up becoming a
Speaker 1: matter of law where it's codified that companies have to
Speaker 1: obey that within the United States, which would mean far
Speaker 1: reaching implications, not just for Apple, but for all companies, everyone,
Speaker 1: any any tech company, any company really that any company
Speaker 1: doing business in the US, not even based here, but
Speaker 1: just doing business. So that's a big deal. It's it's
Speaker 1: potentially disastrous for privacy. There's rampant possibilities of misuse. We've
Speaker 1: talked about the possibility that if you do create a vulnerability,
Speaker 1: someone somewhere is going to try and figure out a
Speaker 1: way to also gain access to that vulnerability, right, And
Speaker 1: these are not necessarily other law agencies or intelligence agencies,
Speaker 1: or maybe they are intelligence agencies. They just have to
Speaker 1: be intelligence agencies working for a different country. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and here's the problem, because we've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: man I. Legislation, I think we talked about this with
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicles before. Legislation is almost always outpaced by technological innovation. YEA, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you will almost always see a case where someone
Speaker 1: has figured out something really interesting to do with technology,
Speaker 1: or perhaps even really scary things they could do with technology,
Speaker 1: and there are no laws to cover it because before
Speaker 1: that person figured it out, it didn't exist. So you
Speaker 1: don't write laws for stuff that doesn't exist. We don't
Speaker 1: have a law saying listen, guys, I I just it's
Speaker 1: keeping me up at night. We have got to write
Speaker 1: a law about what happens in the case that the
Speaker 1: Lochness Monster is real, gets out of Scotland, comes over
Speaker 1: to New Jersey and starts to eat people. We need
Speaker 1: a law to protect us from this potential catastrophe, right,
Speaker 1: I'm ridiculous. Yeah, Like if we're senators, everyone in the
Speaker 1: audience and you, Jonathan, myself, and then one of us
Speaker 1: walks in and says, guys, I know that. I know
Speaker 1: that we have some other issues coming up, and we
Speaker 1: have to nominate this court justice, and there's an election
Speaker 1: coming up. But I think we need to look into
Speaker 1: the future and look at the big picture, which is
Speaker 1: moon boot theft, right, because I don't want people shoeless
Speaker 1: on the Moon when and if we build a colony there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think arguing, for example, for robot rites right now
Speaker 1: might be a little premature that kind of thing. Maybe
Speaker 1: not forever, but for now, it's definitely it's good to
Speaker 1: think about. But you know, you make a very astute
Speaker 1: point when you say, if we're talking about codifying something
Speaker 1: or codifying a law, then what happens is once the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court rules on something like this and it becomes
Speaker 1: a matter of law, it is much It is very,
Speaker 1: very difficult to get that kind of ruling. The Supremes
Speaker 1: are pretty busy people. Yep, they don't hear every case
Speaker 1: that's brought before. They absolutely don't. And then but the
Speaker 1: thing is, you think it's hard to get one of
Speaker 1: the to get those justices to change the substance of
Speaker 1: American jurisprudence. Imagine trying to get them to change it back.
Speaker 1: This is like a Pandora's box Pandora's jar situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now this is not not good. You don't want this
Speaker 1: to happen for multiple reasons. Now, all that being said,
Speaker 1: are our sympathies with the families of those who are
Speaker 1: wounded and killed as a result of this mass shooting.
Speaker 1: Absolutely I feel off for them. And if there were
Speaker 1: any other way to get to that information that did
Speaker 1: not require Apple to be complicit in destroying its own security,
Speaker 1: I would be in favor of it. And in fact,
Speaker 1: the FBI has taken such pains they got access to
Speaker 1: the iCloud backups that this phone creates. The problem being
Speaker 1: that the phone didn't have an iCloud backup for the
Speaker 1: month leading up to the actual attacks, So there could
Speaker 1: be information on the phone that's not on the cloud,
Speaker 1: and that's why the FBI wants to get access to that.
Speaker 1: I totally understand the reasoning behind it, but two things,
Speaker 1: of course, keep me from being completely sympathetic. One is
Speaker 1: that the FBI has for years been trying to get
Speaker 1: backdoor access to multiple systems exactly. Yeah, So that so
Speaker 1: you could argue that perhaps this mass shooting is being
Speaker 1: leveraged cynically by the FBI in order to further their goals,
Speaker 1: because it's hard to say no to such an emotionally
Speaker 1: devastating event. Opportunistically, I would say, yeah, I do know,
Speaker 1: I believe it. And this is just my personal opinion
Speaker 1: based on again precedent. It is completely within the realm
Speaker 1: of not only possibility but plausibility that an institution would
Speaker 1: wait for an opportune time to make this this kind
Speaker 1: of legislation, like the argument for Internet surveillance, based on saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we need to protect people, we need to protect you
Speaker 1: from inappropriate content and your children, think of the kids. Right, Really,
Speaker 1: this is this is a lot of the same stuff
Speaker 1: we heard in the wake of the Patriot Act. Absolutely
Speaker 1: where a lot of people felt the Patriot Act was
Speaker 1: a reactionary piece of legislation that was drafted far too
Speaker 1: quickly and what had had reached far far are too
Speaker 1: why for what it was proposing, what what everyone claimed
Speaker 1: it was all about? Right, and uh, that was a
Speaker 1: big mess. This is also potentially a really big mess.
Speaker 1: And the Patriot Act, the substance of it was pretty
Speaker 1: much had been written in advance. Yeah, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: pretty like now that used to be a controversial statement,
Speaker 1: but now it's acknowledged. Yeah, so this is this is uh,
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that the FBI has had this
Speaker 1: plan for a while, not this specific implementation, but this
Speaker 1: desire to get this workaround access to things. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I totally understand their point of view. Two, they're trying
Speaker 1: to investigate things. It's not like the FBI is necessarily
Speaker 1: made up of the cigarette smoking man and all of
Speaker 1: his cronies. You know, I'm not I'm not going I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to to uh disparage then I don't
Speaker 1: want to demonize them, Right, That's not That's not what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get at. Either. The FBI's intends may
Speaker 1: in fact be nothing but noble that they want this
Speaker 1: in the efforts to investigate, solve crime, prevent crime from happening,
Speaker 1: and not in any way that is malevolent. However, the
Speaker 1: fact remains, whether their intentions are noble or not, it
Speaker 1: opens up this opportunity for people whose intentions are demonstrably
Speaker 1: not noble to take advantage of those same opportunities. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm glad you said that, because I
Speaker 1: wanted to see something that I want to add to
Speaker 1: this something that is rarely said when we talk about
Speaker 1: government surveillance or concerns about privacy. Right, one thing that
Speaker 1: is rarely said is that law enforcement agencies, law enforcement institutions,
Speaker 1: and individuals in the US actually do quite an extraordinary
Speaker 1: job compared to a lot of places. If you're fortunate
Speaker 1: enough to grow up in a place that has rule
Speaker 1: of law, where you can walk down this street in
Speaker 1: the dark, or you can say you can say, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, whomever your senator president is, you can go
Speaker 1: on the internet and say I think they stink yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're in jerk. Yeah, I think you're the
Speaker 1: piece of bologna with shoes. And then but in other countries,
Speaker 1: we you know, people get arrested for that, people get imprisoned.
Speaker 1: So we're not get a race, yes, like not just
Speaker 1: arrested or imprisoned, but the government in some countries will
Speaker 1: take steps to make it seem like that person was
Speaker 1: never a person exactly. They'll keep the photos, but you
Speaker 1: won't be in them. And I say that because it's
Speaker 1: a sense of much needed perspective. However, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not demonizing the people who work at the FBI institutions,
Speaker 1: whether private or public, seek power, they seek further influence.
Speaker 1: And that's it's not because it's some sort of James
Speaker 1: Bond super villain thing. It's not specter. And it's because
Speaker 1: it allows for it allows for an easier, more efficient
Speaker 1: pursuit of whatever the original mission would be. Right, all right,
Speaker 1: we got a little bit more to say on this
Speaker 1: topic before we get to that, though, Let's take another
Speaker 1: quick break. Ben and I we both talk about things
Speaker 1: that here at work where we say, gosh, I wish
Speaker 1: we had X because it would make our lives so
Speaker 1: much easier. Well, even if we got X, we would
Speaker 1: come up with why. That would be the next one. Right,
Speaker 1: we get X. X is awesome, X is helping us out.
Speaker 1: We're like, oh man, it's so good to have X here.
Speaker 1: But you know what, Yeah, it would be great if
Speaker 1: we had WHY because if we had WHY, we could
Speaker 1: really do our jobs. Well, we get why, and then
Speaker 1: you know, man, X and why or work out like
Speaker 1: a dream. But boy, if we had Z, can you
Speaker 1: imagine the level we get to now what we do, Ben,
Speaker 1: We make fun audio podcasts, videos and articles that go
Speaker 1: on the intranet and that's awesome. And so really our
Speaker 1: capacity to do horrible, horrible harm is fairly limited. I
Speaker 1: mean in respect to how our jobs comparatively. Yeah, yeah, Nick. Granted,
Speaker 1: if either of us wanted to go outside and just
Speaker 1: start throwing Kingo pops popsicles at people, we could go
Speaker 1: on a popsicle rampage havoc. But that's that's not job related.
Speaker 1: The FBI, the CIA, the NSA, a lot of those
Speaker 1: three letter organizations, in pursuit of what they need to
Speaker 1: do in order to fulfill their their organization's mission, in
Speaker 1: some cases will step over lines that we cannot allow
Speaker 1: people to cross because it creates a system that is
Speaker 1: at least as dangerous as whatever problem they're trying to solve.
Speaker 1: You know. Another example of this is the the idea
Speaker 1: that the idea of absolute prevention. Like you know, there
Speaker 1: was the old conversation about tortures several years ago, when
Speaker 1: it was the ticking time bomb argument, which was, should
Speaker 1: torture be legal if there is a criminal in custody
Speaker 1: who is suspected of having knowledge of another nine to
Speaker 1: eleven here? Yeah? Yeah, Jack Bauer from twenty four kind
Speaker 1: of argument, Should torture, while reprehensible, be allowed when it
Speaker 1: gets results? And this, this kind of reasoning is dangerous.
Speaker 1: Not I'm not saying that because of any desire to
Speaker 1: see human tragedy, but I'm saying it's dangerous because of
Speaker 1: the assumptions it makes. Yes, that a special case will
Speaker 1: remain a special case, right, and that perhaps the next case,
Speaker 1: which maybe isn't quite so special, like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: we've done it before, so what's the deal here? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean you were cool last time. What happens? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So this is this is exactly why neither I think
Speaker 1: I feel pretty strongly about this. I think I'm on
Speaker 1: the right track that neither you nor I feel that
Speaker 1: the FBI should win out in this particular case. I
Speaker 1: think this is something where we really need to see
Speaker 1: Apple come out on top. I am not a huge
Speaker 1: fan of Apple. I don't own a lot of Apple
Speaker 1: products I have. Apple does not sponsored this show. I'm
Speaker 1: not getting any money from Apple. If anything, I'm losing
Speaker 1: money to Apple because my wife is a fan. She
Speaker 1: wants to get an Apple Watch, but I am not.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting anything from Apple. I do think they're
Speaker 1: in the right, but because I don't want to see
Speaker 1: a precedent where a company that creates a secure system
Speaker 1: has to be or can be compelled to compromise that security.
Speaker 1: It defeats the purpose of the security. And whether it's
Speaker 1: this case, which is extraordinary and very emotional, or something
Speaker 1: much less impactful for the general public, maybe it's something,
Speaker 1: you know, simpler and less dramatic. It doesn't matter. You
Speaker 1: cannot You cannot go down that pathway and expect things
Speaker 1: to turn out all right. You've got to figure out
Speaker 1: other ways to do that kind of investigation. Either Apple
Speaker 1: needs to go in a direction where they can they
Speaker 1: can access user data without having to circumvent a security
Speaker 1: system like this, which means they have to go backwards,
Speaker 1: which can really is not a possibility, or Apple and
Speaker 1: other companies have to create systems where it really is
Speaker 1: impossible for them to access without the consent or the
Speaker 1: actions of the owner of the device. I suspect that
Speaker 1: every company is rushing to develop that kind of approach
Speaker 1: right now, because none of them want to be in
Speaker 1: this position where Facebook, Google, Microsoft all publicly showed support
Speaker 1: for Apple. Apple right now is um you know, part
Speaker 1: of Apple hired a dev that worked on Edward Snowden's
Speaker 1: favorite messaging app, obviasually. Yeah, and I don't know how
Speaker 1: much of that is meant to be like a pr move.
Speaker 1: But also they have, um, you know, the leaked Snowden
Speaker 1: papers are out there, and I know I'm harping on them.
Speaker 1: It revealed an ugly behind the scenes look at corporate
Speaker 1: involvement with government request for surveyor you know, so the
Speaker 1: average consumer you me, h, Gary Busey whomever. We have
Speaker 1: much less trust in general in these companies because we
Speaker 1: have a reason not to trust them. Well, we have
Speaker 1: handed over so much of our own personal data. We
Speaker 1: trust that the devices that hold that personal data aren't
Speaker 1: going to just give that away to whatever entity without
Speaker 1: our consent. We trust that that's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: When things like this pop up where we start to
Speaker 1: question that trust, that's problematic. There's someone else that Apple
Speaker 1: has recently hired, Ted Olson. Does that name sound familiar
Speaker 1: to you, Ted? Ted Olson's a lawyer. So Ted Olsen's
Speaker 1: going to be representing Apple. Ted Olson's probably best known
Speaker 1: for representing George W. Bush in the Bush versus Gore
Speaker 1: election fallout. You know, for those of you in the
Speaker 1: United States, when when Bush was running against Gore, there
Speaker 1: was this whole battle about, you know, voting recounts, voting recounts,
Speaker 1: and Olsen represented w George W. Bush on that and
Speaker 1: Bush ended up winning that. So now he's representing Apple
Speaker 1: in this particular battle with the FBI. So interesting to
Speaker 1: see these kinds of personalities involved in this. And now
Speaker 1: I know that with the public perception it's been a
Speaker 1: little c saw ish, but general public, I would argue
Speaker 1: the people who are not necessarily paying attention to the
Speaker 1: text sphere, I think a lot of them are citing
Speaker 1: with the FBI because it's a terrorist story. It's a
Speaker 1: story about trying to establish the most information of about
Speaker 1: these these shooters as possible. Sure, do you think so? Though?
Speaker 1: I do? I think that I think at least a
Speaker 1: lot of polls that I've seen leading up to today,
Speaker 1: the general public tends to side with the FBI because
Speaker 1: the FBI has a very emotional story. Apple's story is
Speaker 1: much more rationally based, intellectually based, and the FBI story
Speaker 1: is is penned on this event, this very emotionally charged Eventum.
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's going to continue. I think.
Speaker 1: I think people who are savvy in the text sphere,
Speaker 1: I think the majority of them side with Apple. But
Speaker 1: it's still because it's still it goes back to the
Speaker 1: taking time bomb argument, you know. Yeah, yeah, So this
Speaker 1: is one of the stories that we definitely had to cover.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's it's such a huge it's probably
Speaker 1: the biggest story in tech right now as we record this. Um,
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that you could join, maybeen to chat
Speaker 1: about this, to kind of give your your insight as well,
Speaker 1: and to talk about why this is so important not
Speaker 1: just from a technology standpoint, but just a philosophical standpoint
Speaker 1: in a matter of law as well. Okay, that concludes
Speaker 1: that twenty sixteen episode on Apple versus the FBI. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the intro, this is an ongoing issue,
Speaker 1: and it's not just about accessing physical devices. There have
Speaker 1: also been lots of attempts from the FBI and other
Speaker 1: agencies to convince companies like Apple to give them backdoor
Speaker 1: access to otherwise encrypted forms of communication. As I have
Speaker 1: said repeatedly in various episodes, this is a terrible idea.
Speaker 1: Anytime you create a purposeful backdoor to an otherwise secure system,
Speaker 1: assuming that that is even possible, because it's not always possible.
Speaker 1: But if you do that, all you have done is
Speaker 1: really introduced a vulnerability. You have created a huge target
Speaker 1: for every hacker out there that is that wants to
Speaker 1: be able to infiltrate that system because you have created
Speaker 1: a work around through the otherwise legitimate way to send
Speaker 1: encrypted data back and forth. It is never a good
Speaker 1: idea to do that. It just it decreases security rather
Speaker 1: than increases it. And so this is an ongoing issue
Speaker 1: between investigative agencies and tech companies. I don't expect we're
Speaker 1: going to see it go away anytime soon. There will
Speaker 1: always be a struggle but I sure hope that we
Speaker 1: never get to a point where more and more tech
Speaker 1: companies begin to introduce these backdoors, because it just makes
Speaker 1: everyone less safe in the long run. If you have
Speaker 1: suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, please reach out to me and let me know.
Speaker 1: One way, of course, is to download the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: It is free to download, it's free to use. You
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Speaker 1: there's a little microphone icon on the tech stuff page.
Speaker 1: You can leave me a voice message up to thirty
Speaker 1: seconds in length let me know what you would like
Speaker 1: me to cover, or if you prefer, you can go
Speaker 1: over to Twitter and send me a message there. The
Speaker 1: handle for the show is tech Stuff HSW and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an
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