[ENOTTY]

I think lawyer time is quantifiable so that's one thing.

But the cost of moving a developer over to satisfy the DoJ's request is practically unquantifiable. Say DH has a dev team of 10. One of them moves over to implement the DoJ search protocol and develop redaction scripts. Do the other 9 now work this person's workload?

Or does DH bring in a new developer? Now DH has to train this person up. We all know, as programmers, that a new developer to a team induces a temporary drag on performance.

Anyways, I think Apple covered this hypothetical in their response brief to the FBI request.

[krisdol]

Again, this just sounds like the cost of doing business. You’re not always going to be able to have everyone working on the ideal goals. Sometimes a developer will have to be working with auditors (be they from the private or public sector) or lawyers on something other than their typical project.

I also don’t think a search protocol would be a part of this request, as much as a dump of redacted data.

[dangero]

Another good example of this is an IRS audit. I went through one the first year I setup my business. They said it was a "random" audit, meaning not based on any specific findings. I had to put all of my small business resources (me) onto defending the audit for probably 40 hours. In the end, they found nothing, so it was just purely a resource drain.