[Discuss] Encrypt Everything? Good Luck With That

[Bill Horne]

On 3/29/2016 1:48 AM, Bill Ricker wrote:
> ​(And this wasn't even the SBS's operational phone, it was his work 
> phone, so it's still just posturing. They'll be back when they have 
> something else they think public opinion might back them on.)​ 

The FBI's choice of case and approach have caused my incipient paranoia 
to start blooming, and I'm wondering when someone is going to say 
"Ignore that man behind the curtain".

I supposed alleged terrorists aren't likely to draw much public 
sympathy, but the FBI has always been the most savvy of the federal 
agencies when it comes to self-promotion, and picking a fight with Apple 
just doesn't seem like good PR to me. It might be that someone at the 
NSA has a score to settle at the Hoover building, and the FBI heard 
deafening silence when they asked the Puzzle Palace to take a look in 
the iPhone they seized, but to go against Apple - in an election year, 
no less - strikes me as currying the wrong sort of favor.

I suppose there's a wheel within this wheel: perhaps someone with a 
finger in the FBI's budget pie wanted to strong-arm a hefty campaign 
contribution from Apple. It's also possible that Apple's execs wanted 
some free ink and to boost the iPhone's reputation for security, and 
that everyone inside the beltway knew how this would play out months ago.

Still, it's too easy to assume a hidden puppeteer when trying to explain 
confusing events, so I'm trying to find some logical reason for the 
imbroglio that doesn't require underhanded back-room deals. However, the 
contradictions pile up faster than the logical conclusions:

1. If the FBI were trying to slide a software version of the Clipper 
chip through the back door (pun intended), then they'd have to be aware 
that Apple could just code around it with the next point release of IOS.

2. If the Hooverites thought they could establish a legal precedent 
which would obligate any firm to provide free software design, testing, 
coding, and support at their whim, then their bureaucratic compass needs 
to be realigned: it's pointing in a direction that Americans no longer 
want to go, and which not even right wing conservatives want them to 
choose.

3. If the San Bernardino shootings have become a way to test the 
political winds, that means this trial balloon is made of lead: nobody I 
can think of wants the FBI to have access to their secrets. The fact 
that Hoover routinely blackmailed members of Congress to build the 
foundation which his marble edifice rests on has got to weighing heavily 
in any decision - again, in an election year - that lawmakers would make.

4. I suppose the FBI might be currying favor with TheDonald, and hoping 
that whomever gets elected would remember them as being tough on terror.

Still, I get the feeling that we're all being sent to find a broomstick.

Bill