What am I missing?

[bob cavanaugh]

Group,
Although this is off-topic, I have to jump in...
Robert is being reticent about the state-of-the-art regarding shall we say
"data recovery". While I will adopt the same level of reticence (probably
for the same reasons) let me state my firm belief that the FBI could have
applied to other US government agencies or third parties to achieve their
ends. What I believe this was really about (while agreeing w/ Robert on the
previous precedence issue) is 1) If Apple caved the FBI's job would be much
easier, so why not try for the low-hanging fruit? Once Apple acquiesced,
nobody else on the planet could take a stand against the precedents.
Remember that even our US court system was divided on this issue 2) They
took advantage of the heinous acts in San Bernadino to frame the debate on
personal privacy vs security in their favor, making future requests more
likely to succeed in the courts. It is more difficult to make a case for
compelling companies to add back-doors to deter financial scam artists than
it is to state you are protecting people from terrorists.
Final note: The district attorney's office in New York City claims they have
about 200 phones they want to unlock and were very eager to see the FBI
court case resolved in their favor. Again, I believe this is not an issue of
capability rather one of time, money and resources.

All that being said, I believe the FBI and law enforcement need to update
their toolsets and resources. Lest any of you think I am not concerned about
this topic, I live about an hour from the office where the shootings took
place. I do not believe that the entire security fabric that we all depend
on every day should be compromised in response; there are other ways to
handle the problem.

Thanks,
 
Bob Cavanaugh