APPLE vs. US OVER THE SAN BERNARDINO PHONE

A friend asks:

"Amice fidelis, can you give me the informed man's take on the apple-us kerfuffle? The news is obviously no help and I'm at a bit of a loss."


Fascinating. A good response is McAfee's here

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcafee-ill-decrypt-san-bernardino-phone-for-free-2016-2?IR=T
Cybersecurity legend John McAfee weighs in on the FBI's wanting Apple to decrypt the San Bernardino phone.

Key points I subscribe to:

1) You can't let authorities crack the iPhone just once. Impossible for both technical and legal reasons.

2) Open it, and they will come. (state and mafia sponsored Russians, Chinese, N. koreans etc.)

3) Case implies iOS is uncracked. (This is the first time I hear it, I assumed it was cracked long, long ago, and covertly, and this may well be the case).

4) McAfees position implies that Apple has ground to flatly refuse on grounds of national security, not privacy.

They haven't done so yet,and he doesn't say so, but just wait. Secondary implication is that authorities don't have the foggiest idea wtf they are getting into. Which is par for the course. I disagree with those who clamor about US imperialism. USI may exist because the moral underpinnings are there and the economic-milirary might is there too. But the US is headless, has been headless since the 1960s, and won the cold war completely accidentally. There is no decisionmaking conveyor belt even from the Koch Brothers to policy. At most, paymasters can influence taxation and mess up elections, but that's about it. No political consciousness, zero long term awareness, no direction. None.

I even wondered if this is just for show. This is basic, basic, basic spygaming. You crack Enigma, then let the Kriegsmarine keep on attacking your convoys so they don't suspect you did. Again, nobody says to, but it's possible. Unlike general policy this piece of theater is easy to pull off for a while as only a few PR control points are needed.

Everyone with a calculator could have figured out the NSA might have been hashing all voice calls for the last 5-6 years minimum. Just arithmetic. But it took a major leak to get consciousness.  https://www.google.it/search?q=Brewster+Kahle's+spreadsheet+on+the+cost+of+storing+all+phone+calls
Brewster Kahle's spreadsheet on the cost of storing all phone calls.
This calc i've been doing myself since the 1990s, stopped because feasibility was still long off.

5) McAfee claims he will do it for free with his 1/2 mil a years nerds, same kind of ppl Ru and Cn use, but US doens't. Then specifies he'll do it WITH PREPONDERANT USE OF SOCIAL ENGINEERS.

He even says there is no barrier to entry in the game (except FBI stolidity). I can confirm my genius pot-smoking polysexual USian GF was targeted for hiring (by the NSA to do intel) but declined on grounds of a) "windowless basement" workplace, mentioned by idiot recruiter b) salary cut, c) pot (and alcohol), d) x-sexuality (that was a while ago). FBI (conintel) was supposedly even more uptight.

Remember the armed security guys neatly dressed and sitting in the plane before the 1st passenger arrived? Should have been undetectable, but STATED official policy was that those undetectable agents had to give an impression of authority on the public, never mind the hijackers. Such is the level of idiocy.

Now, the social engineering angle: he said HIS SOCIAL ENGINEER NERDS WILL PURLOIN SECRETS FROM APPLE CORP. FOR FREE (ok, they may bribe someone at Apple, but McAfee won't say as much nor  charge Uncle Sam).  There is no other possible interpretation on earth. You use social engineers to get someone who knows to release information that should not be released.

Now the scariest of all: under 5) McAfee fails to mention that IF HIS TEAM CAN PULL IT OFF ON THOSE TERMS, ANYONE AT OR NEAR THAT LEVEL CAN.

From a legal point of view this matters:
- the US can force Apple, get legally valid evidence, and do it again
- a nongov entity can get the info that can be used strategically but won't be usable in court, avoid creating a legal precedent, avoid letting the govt in on the trick (and McAfee may have to forgo bragging rights).

BUT FROM A STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE POINT OF VIEW, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.