The article suggested by LinkedIn is titled “Should Apple fight a court order to unencrypt iPhones? #unlockiPhone”. However, my question is this, why didn’t the FBI just go to the NSA for what they needed? Why didn’t the FBI just hire the latest hacker who was able to hack the iphone and give him the same deal other hackers before him got? Jail or a nice cushy job while he’s on probation for his ‘cooperation’? Why didn’t the FBI just recruit one of Apples software engineers? I’m sure at least ONE of them would take the bite…ummm, job.
The FBI must be assuming that all terrorists have an iPhone (what number are we at these days? 6 or 7?) and that somehow, Nokia, Samsung, or Microsoft are not good enough for a gen-u-ine jihad.
Then there’s the whole messy business of dealing with courts and bribing judges, finding loopholes and eventually (since the FBI and the IRS often work together) the backlash of a lost court case could cost Apple a few audits, astronomical fines and someone being hauled off to jail for insider trading a-la-Martha Stewart.
Why make a public announcement about such petty things as human rights, privacy, freedom of choice? When large business in small business attire and our Federal Government will likely prove that one of the most lunatic and dysfunctional couples in all of reality television history (the really, real reality, without script, writers, nor cameras following them until after the fact) now long dead had typical marital issues.
It reminds me of the 6 Walmarts closed over 6 months ago in the southern states where Walmart publicly announced they were doing some major plumbing work only to reopen as FEMA centers with ahem, military ‘training’ facilities by heavily armed military personnel. (Just Google Walmart, FEMA centers and Military)… or you can watch and listen this town hall meeting where a military personnel is trying to convince this town that there will not be Martial Law in Texas for the military exercise called Jade Helm 15 that was supposed to last 3 months and now has been extended until November.
In the grand chess game of life, nothing ever is as it seems.
Just follow the money…the money leads towards three paths, one to the customers and the other to the stock holders. The last path is to sold secrets to some unknown third party… because nobody can keep their mouth shut.
Apple got squeezed and juiced by the FBI in one of the most anti-climatic events in our current history. The NSA virtually wiped out any illusions we had of privacy. In a comedic interview of Edward Snowden as he was shown videos of people who forgot who he was 2 years later and showed so much apathy one could observe poor Edward going into a deep depression while sitting closer to Siberia than any one of us would have wanted. That was, until John Oliver showed him what people really care about…
Nobody wanted the Federal Government to look at naked pictures and of their ‘junk’ in compromising positions. So many penis pictures…so little time.
Because ultimately, that is what Apple’s fight in court is about. Our compromising selfie’s as we try to maintain the illusion of a conservative population. Customers want their privacy and stockholders want their profits.
As for me?
I dropped my iphone3g years ago and it no longer works properly. Before that, I was gouged during the 2 months I went to the US with my Canadian iPhone on a road trip in 2008. ATT wrote a piece of code where the last line said “Goodbye Gracie” and shut down my iPhone after an update only to later find out all of my 15,000 photos of my trip were wiped out and this was after 3 hours with Apple’s tech support pleading on the phone for a solution.
I want my 3 hours back!
So I went back to my flip phone and a prepaid $15/month calling plan. I like pretending I’m on the Star Trek Enterprise and any minute I might get a call from Captain Kirk.
In all seriousness, I suspect Tim Cook is about to find out a few years from now what it felt like to be Edward Snowden after the comedian John Oliver broke the news to him. He will sit quietly and wonder if it was all worth it.
He should have listened to my favorite Canadian poet Lenard Cohen when he wrote the song “Everybody Knows“
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows that the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight is fixed
The poor stay poor and the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows that the boat is sinking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody’s got this broken feeling
Like their father or there dog just died
Everybody’s talks in their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows…
Use your powers for good, not evil.
Peace!
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Next Generation of Systems Design at Siemens