# Should Apple help the government hack into encrypted devices? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2016, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333 "2016-02-17T13:20:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/301 "2016-02-19T18:52:11Z")
Agreed. One problem with phones is that they do aggregate a lot of disparate private data. So if the courts eventually rule that anything on the phone is basically in “plain view” once the cops have PC to search some part of it, that’s going to mean that every person accused of a crime basically reveals all of their private information to the cops. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/302 "2016-02-19T19:02:48Z")
Correct. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/303 "2016-02-19T19:59:26Z")
I came here for contradiction, not agreement. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/304 "2016-02-19T20:03:18Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I came here for contradiction, not agreement. No you didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/305 "2016-02-19T20:08:59Z")
A solution has been found to the problem. [del]Mighty Mouse[/del], I mean John McAfee can hack the phone with his team of Super Hackers in three weeks. [http://nymag.com/following/2016/02/](http://nymag.com/following/2016/02/) > [@](#): > > “With all due respect to Tim Cook and Apple, I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet > [@](#): > > They are all prodigies, with talents that defy normal human comprehension > [@](#): > > “It will take us three weeks." ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/306 "2016-02-19T20:24:43Z")
Why can’t we all just accept that there should not be any assumption of privacy over the internet. We accept that our politicians and leader should be completely transparent and save their emails, but preserve privacy for terrorists. I don’t need privacy over the air, or on the internet, because I won’t expose anything I want private over the air. It makes no sense to assume privacy when thousand upon thousands of hackers exist out there who do wish to do you harm. If you got to inform someone of a secret, do it face to face or with snail mail. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/307 "2016-02-19T20:28:40Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > If you got to inform someone of a secret, do it face to face or with snail mail. Whatever you do, don’t use mail. They don’t even need a warrant to see who you’re sending mail to, and they can certainly read the contents surreptitiously much easier than any other way. In you want to inform someone of a secret, it’s best to dig a very deep hole, cover yourself in tin foil, and have a whispered conversation using mostly pantomiming. America! ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/308 "2016-02-19T20:30:22Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > …We accept that our politicians and leader should be completely transparent and save their emails, but preserve privacy for terrorists. … No we don’t. We expect them to maintain records of their business as public servants. We don’t expect them to reveal all the personal email they exchange, except for those dumb enough to do it over government owned computers or through government owned email accounts. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/309 "2016-02-19T20:54:46Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > No we don’t. We expect them to maintain records of their business as public servants. We don’t expect them to reveal all the personal email they exchange, except for those dumb enough to do it over government owned computers or through government owned email accounts. Tell that to Hillary Clinton… ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/310 "2016-02-19T21:01:44Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > I consider it a virtual certainty that the government has already broken the encryption and gotten everything they want off the phone. I would say this is 99% likely to be right. If the NSA can’t bust into my Angry Birds device on their own, seriously, they need to fire everyone and start over. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/311 "2016-02-19T21:03:02Z")
I’m not about to defend Hilary Clinton over what she did with government email. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/312 "2016-02-19T21:17:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I would say this is 99% likely to be right. If the NSA can’t bust into my Angry Birds device on their own, seriously, they need to fire everyone and start over. I’m no expert on encryption, but my understanding is that the iPhone uses AES-256 encryption. If the federal government has a way to crack that kind of encryption without the key or partial key, that would be a very big deal. Indeed, I would think the first evidence that they have this power would be that the federal government itself would stop using AES-256 for classified information, which AFAIK, they have not. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/313 "2016-02-19T21:20:17Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > I don’t need privacy over the air, or on the internet, because I won’t expose anything I want private over the air. Sorry, but this is nuts. First, if you’re out of town and wish to have an intimate conversation with your wife, you want that to be publicly available? And the technology exists to encrypt communications, so the terrorists will be using that. Sorry, you can’t do anything about it. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/314 "2016-02-19T21:23:57Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > First, if you’re out of town and wish to have an intimate conversation with your wife, you want that to be publicly available? I can’t see why the government would be _interested_ in my naughty conversations unless I’m suspected of a crime. > [@](#): > > And the technology exists to encrypt communications, so the terrorists will be using that. And that’s why that encryption needs to be breakable. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/315 "2016-02-19T21:27:10Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I would say this is 99% likely to be right. If the NSA can’t bust into my Angry Birds device on their own, seriously, they need to fire everyone and start over. This would require a fundamental breakthrough in theory. I think it’s highly UNlikely that that AES256 is cracked. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/316 "2016-02-19T21:30:27Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I can’t see why the government would be _interested_ in my naughty conversations unless I’m suspected of a crime. Well, he didn’t say _the government_. He just said there’s no need for privacy over the Internet. What about when I access my bank accounts? > [@](#): > > And that’s why that encryption needs to be breakable. Maybe you misunderstood me - when I said the technology exists, I meant to imply that it’s _unbreakable_ encryption that exists. It’s known math and you can’t make the world un-know it. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/317 "2016-02-19T21:32:24Z")
Is it theoretically possible that the NSA has figured out a weigh to break the iPhone’s particular hardware implementation of AES256, as opposed to a theoretical crack to the standard in general? Or that they’ve been able to somehow insert a backdoor in the manufacturing of the chips? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/318 "2016-02-19T21:42:10Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > And that’s why that encryption needs to be breakable. Unfortunately, the reality of mathematics is that a brute force attack on an AES256 key would take longer than a billion billion years. And the knowledge of how to create such encryption keys is public already. So if you need it to be breakable, get cracking on solving the discrete logarithm problem. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/319 "2016-02-19T21:48:15Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I would say this is 99% likely to be right. If the NSA can’t bust into my Angry Birds device on their own, seriously, they need to fire everyone and start over. They need to execute a few, fire everyone else and start over anyway. The National Security Agency should be a force for _improving_ the security of the American people, not sabotaging it. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333/320 "2016-02-19T21:48:39Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Is it theoretically possible that the NSA has figured out a weigh to break the iPhone’s particular hardware implementation of AES256, as opposed to a theoretical crack to the standard in general? Or that they’ve been able to somehow insert a backdoor in the manufacturing of the chips? Yes. It’s theoretically possible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-apple-help-the-government-hack-into-encrypted-devices/746333.md?page=17)