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Active shooter at NAS Pensacola
- Thread starter Waveoff
- Start date
FBI Probe Ties Florida Attack to al Qaeda, Faults Apple
A Saudi aviation student who killed three people last year at a Florida Navy base had extensive ties to al Qaeda, top U.S. law-enforcement officials said Monday as they accused Apple Inc. of stalling the probe by refusing to help unlock the shooter’s phones..
www.wsj.com
BZ, FBI.
Ricosroughnecks7
Well-Known Member
FBI Probe Ties Florida Attack to al Qaeda, Faults Apple
A Saudi aviation student who killed three people last year at a Florida Navy base had extensive ties to al Qaeda, top U.S. law-enforcement officials said Monday as they accused Apple Inc. of stalling the probe by refusing to help unlock the shooter’s phones..
BZ, FBI.
BZ, but this should not have been made public.
If you know anything about LEAs and the IC then you know what I'm talking about.
Horse shit.
they could have gotten that data months ago if Apple had helped
maybe if China had asked, they would have done it
maybe if China had asked, they would have done it
China probably required Apple to provide a back door for the chicoms exclusive use in order for Apple to enter the market.
Seriously mixed feelings on this as an American, as should you all... That said yes it would have been great if Apple did in this instance. But if anyone truly trusts and wants the gov to be able to willy nilly hack phones (I don't personally buy the "we got lucky and don't know how to do it again" phraseology)... China might be a better place to live!
i don't disagree, but there is a difference between "govt hacking phones willy nilly" and some sort of solid due process that can be applied in certain cases
<sarcasm on> i dunno, something foolproof like a FISA court? <sarcasm off>
<sarcasm on> i dunno, something foolproof like a FISA court? <sarcasm off>
Yeah I used those words intentionally for that reason, but if they ACTUALLY had a good process for it I'd be OK with it. I'd just be surprised if that's the case. And I would tend to lean towards the libertarian argument if I have to.
All of that said, the shooter was NOT an American citizen, and while I'm sure there are plenty of other complications (SOFA, foreign relations, etc), I would have loved the FBI to get that information sooner.
Part of the problem is that the hardware and software doesn’t care who makes the request. There’s either a backdoor or there’s not. There’s either a weakness in the encryption or there’s not.
And if it’s in the codebase for use in a duly authorized search warrant with US court approval, it’s also there for KGB and MSS folks to find and try to use. And don’t think that they wouldn’t try to strongarm Apple into giving it to them. “Nice iPhone factory and chip fab you have there. Shame if something were to happen to it.”
So then that thing you put into an iPhone for counterterrorism in the US is getting used against the Uyghurs and Tibetans, because it was that or tank Apple’s stock and put a bunch of Americans in the unemployment line.
Edit: Oh, and “we got lucky and can’t do it again” is not unlikely. Every time that scroll bar on your phone apps goes round and round, or every time iOS wants to update, there are rounds of bug fixes and improvements that get pushed, even if they’re all under the hood and you don’t see them.
I obviously wouldn’t be able to discuss if I knew, but every time a patch gets pushed, I’d imagine there’s a non-zero chance that someone squirreled away in a windowless box working for some country’s intelligence service goes “shit. We just lost Tool X.”
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Ricosroughnecks7
Well-Known Member
This is a next level comment. Kudos to you.
Edit: Another thing to consider hypothetically, what if Apple actually helped them and they said they didn't? That's a win win.
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Great thought experiment, but highly unlikely these days. I work at a FAANG and I’m amazed at how much power employees have over C-suite dilemmas like this. So much so, in fact, that a distasteful action like this would not last very long before it got leaked and let’s just say that juice is not worth the squeeze.
Well, maybe a FANG if not a FAANG. Amazon and Microsoft seem to have done a good job of dodging that bullet. Brad Smith at MS really hit it out of the park with his response here.
Of course, AWS and MS also have craploads more cleared talent than the others, and are already elbow-deep in DoD work, so that probably has a lot to do with it.
I don’t disagree with you on the government work piece, but that’s not what this is. This is a question of breaking a customer promise (security on a personal/consumer product). FBI or not, it’s a bridge too far if the company wants to stay in business.
I understand the argument but disagree with the premise. This is a matter of a duly elected government being able to exercise its legitimate police power. You shouldn't get to hide from a search warrant; that's the price we pay for living under a constitutional system and the rule of law. Just because I acknowledge that it's difficult for technology to distinguish between the CCP and a signed warrant from an American or European judge doesn't mean I think the latter should be a dead letter. If there's a warrant to search your devices from the legitimate government of a liberal democracy the so-called "promises" a company gave you shouldn't matter for a damn.
That's all pie in the sky, and I understand the reasons why in reality international companies are leery of China or Russia (or hey, Saudi Arabia) coming in and saying "but what about OUR warrants?" But dammit, it's way less than optimal, and this Saudi terrorist asshole is Exhibit "A."