Except let's consider that what's playing out now with Apple is not of this matter at all. What's playing out with Apple is a company with the means and capability to assist in a specific matter, refusing to do so on purely ideological grounds of questionable relevancy in a case where complying is pretty unquestionably the right thing to do.
That's an absolutist position. It is a refusal to consider context, and has needlessly signaled an escalation to government.
If you want to consider context, be sure to look at more of it. The subjects in question are dead, and cannot further harm anyone. The phone was set to upload information to icloud, and all such information has already been given to the authorities. There is nothing more to be gained from unlocking this phone, except a legal precedent.
Considering the context, this is a power play by the FBI, trying to apply an irrelevant law to further weaken privacy.
The phone in question had it's iCloud password reset by someone. It has not uploaded it's contents to iCloud, which is why this is happening.
And so again, context: we're not arguing about whether getting the data is right, we're having some bizarre proxy argument mediated via all-writs which is being framed as an encryption battle, when it is at best a battle over how much compensation Apple should receive for it's work.
It's odd that you leave out that it was the county that reset that password, "at the FBI's request"[1].
> context
Why are you leaving out the last 20+ years of context? The FBI has been pushing for encryption backdoors for a long time. Even just last year Director Comey was insisting that they needed a "golden key" (aka backdoor) to encryption.
Yes, you're seeing a proxy argument at the moment, but it's by the FBI and anybody else who claims this has anything at all to do with the dead shooter in San Bernardino instead of the multi-decade fight over We The People using encryption.
Actually I didn't know about [1], since news articles were only covering "by someone" up till recently. It was just "a county employee".
But let's unpack then the argument being had: "oh the FBI could've just asked the cloud provider for data". What precisely, is the functional difference here, if we exclude the actual effort required to implement what is being asked for?
Encryption and the use thereof, is not the argument being had. It's whether it's right to grant access to the data at all, which Apple is claiming it isn't. Which is also patently absurd, especially in this case as it pertains to (1) a criminal matter, (2) a deceased person (who does not have a right to privacy) and (3) a phone owned by someone else (the county) who has okayed accessing it.
Apple is taking an absolutist position, and so are most of their supporters. If this were an apartment, no one would be asking questions. If it were a lockbox, the bank would've cut it open. But because this is a digital device, for some reason, everyone suddenly insists its "totally different" and that the FBI clearly "doesn't understand technology". Except for the pesky detail that the very specific help asked for pretty much only hinges on if it's undue burden to Apple or if compensation should be involved, because it's absolutely possible to do, but additionally this part of the court order (http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/SB-Shooter-Order-Compelling-Apple-As..., page 4, item 4):
If Apple determines that it can achieve the three functions stated above in paragraph 2, as well as the functionality set forth in paragraph 3, using an alternate technological means from that recommended by the government, and the government concurs, Apple may comply with this Order in that way.
Apple is free to do pretty much anything which would comply with the goal of accessing the device, provided it does actually access it. Until such a point as they propose something reasonable and the government rejects it, once again, the only defense they are actually using is "digital devices are magically different". Because no part of this order somehow rides its away automatically into "ban encryption". But boy have they (Apple) done a good job ensuring that's getting put back on the legislative agenda.
In that case, you might want to do more reading on the topic.
> What precisely, is the functional difference here
See the numerous other threads, as this has been explained many times.
> [many words restating the FBI's misleading framing of their order to Apple]
The FBI wants a backdoor into any crypto that gets in their way. To deny this is to deny not only the past 20 years rhetoric from the FBI and their current actions involving this case and the other phones they also want to unlock. If you think that such a backdoor can exist without breaking encryption, then you haven't been paying attention to how fast exploits spread.
Let me guess - you think that this is isolated to ONE phone? That the FBI isn't going to turn around and use this same order on every other phone in the future? Or are you calling Susan Landau a liar[1] and insisting that Apple can somehow keep a backdoor secret while maintaining a daily service to use that backdoor?
You seem to be going out of your way to try to blame Apple, while ignoring both the technical context and the FBI's actions and motives.
Are you saying that Apple should unquestionably comply? Well, I don't think so, because I don't think there is convincing argument that the phone contains information to help the FBI in any way. This is an excellent excellent example of the FBI going father than anything reasonable, rebuffed by smart citizen holding their ground. While I might accept other opinions, it is therefore far from "unquestionable".
A man committed a mass murder, is dead, and the legal owners of the phone have okayed a search of it. If this were an apartment, a lockbox, or apparently even just his iCloud account, we would only need 2 of those to be fulfilled.
Since people keep complaining that they "totally should just get it from iCloud" it seems pretty obvious no one is actually not okay with the concept of a search.
That's an absolutist position. It is a refusal to consider context, and has needlessly signaled an escalation to government.