re: #150 Blind Frog Belly White

During the discussion of Apple’s stand on being ordered to create software to allow the breaching of their own security, one point came up which I thought warrants further discussion, beyond the specifics of this case and the merits of lack thereof of Apple’s claims.

It was suggested that if a company’s security were known to be unbreachable (for whatever reason) such that data on a device would be completely secure, then terrorists, criminals, and child pornographers would all buy these devices and have a place to put/store their data that no government could access.

This is a salient point, but to me it brings up a larger point - Do we believe that if electronic evidence exists, it must only be allowed to exist in a form which the Government can access? If a manufacturer develops and sells an electronic device, must it be designed to allow persons other than the owner to access the data on it?

Leaving aside the argument that creating a backdoor for the Good Guys provides a backdoor for the Bad Guys, do we really believe the Good Guys must always have a back door?

It also ignores the trove of other information that such a platform makes available to the government. If Apple’s devices are so good that they become the preferred smart phone of suspect classes then those classes will also be transmitting their movements and locations in real time. They will still be using government monitored networks, will still be subject to traditional hacking tools, honeypots, compromised malware apps that turn the device into surveillance devices, etc.

As such there are palpable benefits to the government in allowing Apple to maintain its sense of integrity. These cast such a wide and useful net for investigative purposes as to quite plausibly outweigh any transitory benefit that publicly compromising the device may bring.

We’ve basically convinced most of the world that carrying around an always on, all-in-one monitoring device is a good thing. Now the government wants to fuck that up.