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by hodgesrm 3774 days ago
Clearly Apple's security has market value but that needs to be balanced against the benefits to society as a whole. Just restricting this to US law it seems Apple is not defending an existing right to privacy of the "man's home is his castle" sort. Those have been limited from the beginning by warrants and other acknowledged mechanisms of government to poke its nose into people's private affairs in the interest of the general welfare. The "right" that Apple is defending seems new and much more absolute--that you may possess devices may not be opened under any circumstances whatsoever.

The question of whether such rights exist is separate from the question of whether breaking into one device threatens security of all others. If true that seems to call into question the assumptions on which data protection algorithms are based. In other words, assuming you can create truly unbreakable encryption and it only works if there are no backdoors, is that really a data protection strategy that meets the needs of society as a whole? You could argue it's flawed even if the mathematics work perfectly.
1 comments
jasonjei 3774 days ago
What of Yahoo when they allowed Chinese authorities to access an email account? While we might believe in the integrity of the US government, my faith in a backdoor being made available to the Chinese government used responsibly is low.
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hodgesrm 3774 days ago
Opening up accounts as Yahoo did seems like a condition of doing business in that market. It seems unrealistic to expect that Apple will be able to maintain their position against the Chinese government for very long. They will either have to conform or leave the market as Google did. I don't follow how Apple can really win that one if the Chinese government chooses to push the issue.

p.s., I'm not defending the Chinese position in any way. If it were my company I would leave the market.

p.p.s., For anyone down-voting it would be helpful to state your argument for doing so. The Apple case is not as clear cut as some of the learned commentary on HN would have it.

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ApplaudPumice 3774 days ago
> While we might believe in the integrity of the US government

It seems here that nobody here is concerned about non USA citizens.

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LeoNatan25 3774 days ago
Even USA citizens should not believe in the integrity of the US government, considering the surveillance antics it has taken on its own citizens.
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