What am I missing?

[Robert J. Hansen]

> Can I ask why the conspiracy theory is "outrageous"?

Yes.  You and Johann seem to be of the opinion the FBI's petition was
unusual.  It wasn't, really, except in the fact that they were going
after someone who had the resources to fight it, and they were asking
for just a little bit more than Apple was willing to go along with.  But
the general idea, "use the All Writs Act to compel a company to bypass
security measures"?  Already been done.  The precedent already exists.
See, e.g.:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7012457256018582034

Johann's position: "The FBI wanted to get precedent on their side so
they could use it as a club against other smaller companies."

My position: "The FBI already had precedent on their side from clubbing
other smaller companies, and they decided they finally had enough legal
support to go after the big fish: Apple."

If you believe Johann's position, it requires you to believe two things:

	* The FBI is dumb enough to go after the biggest player first,
	* The FBI doesn't know they already have the precedents they
	  want.

Do I think the FBI had plans for how to capitalize on a court victory?
Sure.  But this particular idea, that the FBI wanted to get precedent on
their side to go after smaller players next, is ... it's crazy talk.

> Hmmm, if you want to use public opinion as a force, you'd first need
> a terrorist or child molester or what not who uses a phone made by a
> small company... Which phone would that even be, by the way? Ubuntu
> phone, Jolla?

The Middle East in particular is full of small, weird mobile phone
manufacturers.  Looking over my notes of mobile manufacturers I've
worked with and starting at the top, there's Alcatel.  Lot of Motorola,
lot of Samsung, and at the end there's ZTE.

It is *not* hard to find atrocities on mobiles by small manufacturers.
And in the interests of not going into detail on the stuff of my
nightmares, I'm going to leave it at that.