So, it turns out that Apple has declared an arms race. They said they're preparing a new version of iOS that would make it impossible to break according to the existing court order. I hadn't been planning on upgrading my iPhone, but I might just have to do that now, just to show my support! :mrgreen:
Vlad, we are not talking about binding legal precedent, but a precedent in their compliance with court rulings in this matter. If Apple were to comply with a court ruling such as this in one country and not others, you can imagine the consequences. Fines, criminal charges, banning from a country, whatever could be thrown at them, and Apple executives could face extradition charges for contempt of court. Also, how many other countries would follow suit knowing Apple was playing favorites with the U.S., complying with only their courts? Apple would be through as a global company. Regarding your example, if Apple created a security override for Russia as the result of a court order, that you can be quite assured the judge in the San-B case would be quoting that case to show that Apple has the ability to comply with their order to do the same. And instead of this conversation, we would be discussing how such a traitorous company like Apple deserves every consequence the government could throw at them.
@KingCalm...that's exactly what I said. All could happen to Apple would be a sales ban. But Russia or China can apply a sale ban no matter what a US court decide. Heck...iPhones was banned in China for years until Apple decided to comply to Chinese government demands and host iCloud servers in China for the chinese customers. Same about Russia. Apple decided to store iCloud backups of russians users on russian servers just to avoid ban. Apple sales can be banned by any country at any given time. No matter what US jurisprudence is saying. Next potential sales ban is in 2017 in EU. A US judge could say that Apple don't need to have microUSB charger. European law is saying otherwise.
Simple... Let's assume a US court is going to say that Apple don't have to comply to FBI demand. Next week FSB in a russian court will ask Apple to unlock a phone. Do you really think that a russian judge will care about "but a US court said we don't have to do it". Most likely the judge will be like " this is a Russian court and not an US. We judge in russian way. Comply with FSB or you'll face a sales ban."
It is true a Russian court could issue an order and subject Apple to whatever fines for not complying. But they are less likely to ban Apple from their country if at least Apple is consistent in it's policies and refusals. After all, it hasn't happened yet , and there is no reason to assume it would unless Apple was shown to be either a threat to their national security, or otherwise showing purposeful contempt for the country (which is the only way a refusal to comply with the same court order in one country but not in another, could be seen). Apple's argument for non-compliance is gutted if they agree to supply security hacking software to just the U.S. Besides, there is precedent for foreign countries bringing suit in U.S. courts (easier to establish personal jurisdiction), at which point a U.S. order would have precedential value.
@KingCalm what i wanted to point out was that Apple had no problem to expose the privacy of their users and comply with russian and chinese demands when their sales was jeopardized. Apple outsourced the iCloud services for thier russian clients to russian data center. Only a naive one can think that a data centre can exist in Russia without being friendly to Putin's regime. Unlike Facebook who chosed to stay away of russian and chinese markets as long the price was the privacy of their users. One another hand Apple can afford this stand off against US government because they know will never be serious sanctions. They do know that a sales ban in USA it's quite impossible because that will be Apple's death most likely. And for sure US government can't afford to risk the death of Apple. Not to mention that Todd who still love bacon would riot if he couldn't buy an iPhone anymore.
Apple is legendary for security and yet their are still expolits in their code the easiest way to make it unhackable is less code less code means like super cool things on your phone lol also means it's not a ridiculous amount of time looking over and over and over the OS.
@vlad :lol: By the way, this just in: Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon have all joined Apple in its fight against the FBI.
And Google? C'mon...hypocrisy at his finests. Google live from advertising. Basically from mining their users data.
Vlad, setting up a local cloud server, even for the specific purpose of allowing a country like Russia to spy on its own people, that is completely different from forcing Apple to create a security hack that could allow access to every idevice around the world. That is a very big difference. It isn't even comparable to what is being demanded of Apple now. (Nowhere have I seen anything where Apple created programs to allow Russia to access individual phones, just any information in the cloud). However, I agree that Apple has to make its stand against this here in the U.S., especially knowing Todd has its back.
Have you have heard of jaikbreaking? It's exploits those exploits it often takes them anywhere from 3 months to a year to find enough exploits to jailbreak IOS. Exploits are ways to get around the security of the iphone (in its unlocked state).