US Government Pushed Many Tech Firms To Hand Over Source Code (zdnet.com) 151
An anonymous reader writes: Apple isn't the only company that has been asked to hand over the source code of its operating system. In an effort to find security flaws that could be used for surveillance or investigations, the U.S. government has made numerous attempts to obtain the source code from other tech companies. From the ZDNet report, "The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. The Justice Department wanted to draw outrage, painting Apple as the criminal. With these hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time.'"
Turs out the US of A is no different! (Score:5, Insightful)
...hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time...
Can some one explain to me how this behaviour by our [democratic] government, is very very different as compared to similar action taken by "those regimes" to the east? I mean, I do not see the difference here!
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I don't want a 'revolution'; I just want them all to leave me the hell alone!
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Surprise, asshole! I'm not planning on voting for any of them, Republican or Democrat. I'll vote for some 3rd-party candidate, just to give the finger to the whole process.
I don't want a 'revolution'; I just want them all to leave me the hell alone!
So you're planning to take the one action that ensures that they can and will ignore your wishes.
Smart.
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o Donald Trump, the racist, bigot, loudmouth, failed 'businessman', who will probably start WW3, and at any rate is alienating the leaders of other countries before he even gets into office? Who, by the way, was machoed out by a slender blue-eyed blonde woman (Megan Kelly) so badly that he refused to show up at a debate because she was moderating it? Yeah sure he'll handle World Politics so well now won't he?
o Hil
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Most of the money they're taking out of your pocket is going to retirees, sick and disabled veterans, and the military. Are you going to tell them why they don't deserve it? They've paid their dues.
Myself, I'd rather have my tax dollars go to help someone who doesn't deserve it than to bomb someone who doesn't deserve it.
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Are you going to tell them why they don't deserve it?
Sure they do. How about they take it from someone WHO ACTUALLY HAS MONEY instead of taking it from me WHO HAS VERY LITTLE!? Stop stealing from the poor and giving it to the poorer!
Re: Turs out the US of A is no different! (Score:2)
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Here is how it works, you vote for the one who you think will best serve the public interest, do not cheer lead, do not get sucked in by marketing, basically keep a little informed about the various players actual actions and vote based upon those actions. Now it doesn't stop there, if they turn out to be back stabbing liars, vote them out of office by voting for whom you now believe is the best candidate the most likely to serve the public interest. You do this from 18 till the day you die, it is your resp
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Ah, the good old "lesser of two evils" argument! There's no surer way to ensure the process doesn't change than to just go along with the lesser of two evils.
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Sanders isn't really a Democrat. He's just shooting for the Democrat ticket this time because trying it as a third party doesn't work.
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well firstly the us would have to be an actual democracy. but the electorate college, gerrymandering and your 2 party system make it just democracy enough to fool the majority.
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...as is true with nearly any "democracy".
Don't get confused by abuse of terms in the vernacular.
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We were never a democracy, but a representative republic.
It's a desert topping and a floor wax.
Democracies can have many forms. Republics can have many forms.
On of those forms is a republican representative democracy, that's what you've got.
What kind of ill educated fool thinks there's some contradiction between being a democracy and a republic?
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If less people bought into this Democrat cult of victimhood, then the whole gerrymandering thing would be a total non-problem.
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You have the illusion of choice?
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Think so. Heck, this year I'll change and vote for Kang instead.
Re:Turs out the US of A is no different! (Score:4, Insightful)
...hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time...
Can some one explain to me how this behavior by our [democratic] government, is very very different as compared to similar action taken by "those regimes" to the east? I mean, I do not see the difference here!
We "Aspire" to be better... Americans aspire towards Liberty, Freedom of Speech, Free elections and when we fall short we are supposed to feel bad about it. For over two centuries we have been unsteadily moving towards our ideals. Belief in Liberty had to overcome the realities of slavery and then Jim Crow laws. Belief in Freedom of Speech is always under continuous assault by those with power to coerce. Our rights to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures have come under increasing attack lately, but have always been at the mercy of the fears and threats of the day. Our right to bear arms to defend ourselves have steadily eroded in the past 30 or 40 years or so. Democracy is just as beholden to the Party bosses that manipulate local elections and local press with casual ease. And good old fashioned corruption is still a big problem in the US as it is everywhere else in the world... These things ebb and flow with the times.
What we are supposed to do as Americans is draw inspiration from the dreams of our founders for Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and not give into the cynicism that this is 'just the way it is'
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There is a big block of people who do not aspire to these virtues: Trump supporters. They don't feel bad about racism, they don't feel bad about violence against their opponents, they don't feel bad about suppressing dissent, they don't even feel bad about supporting Nazi-like policies (thank you Godwin!).
Trump, Rubio and Cruz are competing to stake
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Partisanism is also a human failing
Re: Turs out the US of A is no different! (Score:2)
For over two centuries we have been unsteadily moving towards our ideals
Your examples notwithstanding, for over a hundred and fifty years, we've been moving away from our ideals - as Jefferson predicted we would.
good post, explains American Exceptionalism (Score:3)
Good post. It also partially explains an observation that Obama and many others clearly are unfamiliar with, which is titled "American Exceptionalism".
The idea is that while most nations are ethnic groups who established geographical borders, the US is not. The US founding fathers, in the founding documents, declared that they were creating a new nation in order to have liberty and justice and ... . When the US government (including voters) fail to protect freedom and justice, they fail at precisely
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It doesn't matter. The election results show that 98% of the voters approve. If there is a problem, you know where to look.
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They seem to be learning the meaning of 'Democratic' from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
I Goes Deeper Than That, Folks (Score:5, Funny)
Apple isn't the only company that has been asked to hand over the source code of its operating system.
I heard that even Linux had to hand over the source code of its operating system.
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Woosh!
Makes me wonder (Score:3)
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No shit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's becoming obvious that the government needs to be outright forbidden from doing just about anything except a few specific things, rather than merely not authorized. Just like there's hardly any difference between pointing a gun at someone and saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if I had more money?" as compared to saying "Your money or your life." -- nowadays there's very little difference between the government "asking" and the government demanding.
Re:No shit (Score:5, Interesting)
I love your comment! You know, that is EXACTLY what the original intent of the US Constitution was - the founders essentially said 'here's a short list of what the Federal government is allowed to do, anything else is up to State legislatures to decide for themselves'. And since then, through a myriad of little cuts, the Constitution has been reinterpreted (as a "living" document) to mean the opposite, and anyone talking about State's Rights is now called a Racist (Because state's rights were cited during slavery debates, therefore all State's Rights are racist, see what they did there?) The Commerce Clause has been interpreted so widely that the Feds can claim authority over almost anything (Wickard v. Filburn: you can't feed your own wheat to your own animals if we tell you not to, as your production of wheat could influence the supply of wheat, which is sold across state boundaries, and therefore we can tell you what to do.) FISA lets our secret tribunals order anyone to do anything without even letting them talk to their own lawyer about it, and thanks to the latest interpretation of the All Writs Act now any court can order anyone to do anything. Welcome to the new definition of "freedom". And pick up that can.
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That's a great interpretation of my country vs our country.
If you want, no one stops one from selling his own wheat within the state and never crosses state lines--it's called a local market... or you setup your own store. It's been done. It's just that to fulfill free market *growth* and higher profits, federal corporations/global conglomerate move into the state freely (cause the state wants its taxes). You're somewhat forced to sell in the federal market place to stay competitive (unless you have an outs
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Except that the courts have ruled that intrastate sales of marijuana fall under the commerce clause because they affect the interstate sales thereof.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:No shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Your example is actually incorrect. According to current interpretation of the Commerce Clause, there is no such thing as a local market exempt from federal control, as under the precedent of Wickard v. Filburn; SCOTUS: "[b]ut even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect". And that word "substantial", despite sounding so reasonable, was applied in its initial case to a single farmer who chose to feed his own cows his own grain instead of buying feed, so "substantial" under current precedent has already been scoped down to include things you do on your own land with your own property. I'll state again - the Constitution has been reinterpreted to mean nearly the opposite of what it actually says, in practice. You are free to be a consumer of approved goods you use in approved ways without asking permission, but you have few remaining unencumbered freedoms even on your own land. If you feel otherwise you aren't paying attention.
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True, which is why the Constitution (and its Bill of Rights) also enumerates things the entire Government is not allowed to pass laws that infringe upon, which includes states, cities, municipal tax boundaries. Of course, those too have been reinterpreted into near meaninglessness, in most cases by having the evolving official interpretations of their plain English made so narrow and Legalistic that they no longer apply most of not all of the time...
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Actually, as originally interpreted the only restriction on states was that they were required to have a republican form of government. The Bill or Rights was not a restriction on the states, for all of being lifted from the constitution of Virginia. Each state had it's own constitution, and THAT was what set the powers and limits of that state.
The revised interpretation, where the amendments in general (as opposed to when they specifically mention that they were applying to state governments) did not app
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Before the civil war this was true. The nature of the US government was essentially recreated after the civil war as an entirely different creature. Some people seem to forget this change, others resent it. From the start it was a democratic experiment and the civil war proved that it was flawed and failing, and the experiment restarted. Maybe it's showing signs of failing again?
The constitution was written originally with the concept of slavery being in the foreground. So it is full of all sorts of od
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Most "constitutionalists" mean they want original meaning and interpretation of the constitution, which was highly racist, but they also include all the amendments as well. For me I do not think it is useful legally to consider what the original founders thought about things because they don't understand the modern world and we're not living in theirs, but constitutionalists seem to put some sort of sacred weight to the founders.
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I think you're confused. Slashdotters don't want anyone to be above the law, especially not government nor corporations.
Re: Differences (Score:2)
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No, he just finished reading the constitution & bill of rights.
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Article1, section 8 lays out ALL the specific things that the government is ALLOWED to do.
Amendment 9 says other rights shall not be taken away.
Amendment 10 says if the right isn't given to the federal government, then it's the states and/or peoples rights.
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Why are we talking about fantasy fiction again?
goofy priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
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So... (Score:2)
I have a some questions... (Score:1)
How many punch cards would it take?
How long would the paper tape be?
yep, showing my age here...
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Use binary cards without sequence numbers, so that if the punch cards get dropped there's no easy way to resequence them.
They asked for the linux kernel (Score:5, Funny)
The US government repeatedly asked Linus Torvalds for the source code of Linux.
I heard they are pretty pissed off, something about being called "git" if I remember correctly.
Article is misleading, they meant China (Score:1)
or did they?
Tech industry needs better lobbyists... (Score:2)
Because the government spends all their time looking at these companies, while completely ignoring the activities of certain large banks. Isn't HSBC still providing money laundering services for terrorists? Frankly, I'm amazed that the government has money to pursue this kind of thing while the SEC has 4 whole people, and they are paid to look the other way.
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God is on the side with the best lobbying.
Compensation. (Score:2)
Considering that property seizures do have to be compensated, I wonder what the valuation on the iOS source code would be? And how long would Apple litigate, before handing it over, to set said value? There are after all, real, hard, numbers for iPhone sales over the years. And then there's extrapolated future sales to consider.
Bruce Willis reference (Score:1)
Bad guys (Score:2)
Source Code should be a requirement (Score:1)
Software copyright should not apply at all when complete source code is not available
Re: Source Code should be a requirement (Score:2)
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Disagree. A binary without source code is still a substantial, useful work represented in a tangible medium that deserves protection.
Software patents, OTOH, should only apply to software for which source is available. It's very possible to implement the same functionality with entirely different code, and without being able to view the original, it's impossible to know whether you're infringing or not.
Right Now (Score:2)
Right Now is 2016. Right Now [youtube.com] is also a song by Van Halen and most of the things they mention in the video are still going on. They were always going on, and everybody knew it. The first thing that leaped to my mind was this little cartoon at 3:40 in the video. [youtube.com].
Fifth Amendment "Taking" (Score:2)
In my opinion the US government - in the person of its primary internal investigation agency - obtaining either a compelled downloadable security bypass hack or the source code to enable them to construct their own, would have committed a Fifth Amendment "Taking".
What would be taken would be the security reputation of the company, and thus the bulk of their current and future markets worldwide (ESPECIALLY foreign), for all fut
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So the Feds should buy Apple for about the cost of 4 F-35s. Sounds like a deal to me but why would they do that if they can get what they want through the courts for comparatively free?
Our Rights (Score:1)
Re:I thought we liked open source? (Score:5, Insightful)
If an organization or individual wishes to license their code under an open source license, then that's great. But when someone is forced to hand over proprietary code to the government via secret tribunals, that's very very fucking bad.
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Yeah, but I'll bet the government sweetened the deal: "You give us your source code, we'll give you some juicy government contracts."
"Tastes better . . . lasts longer . . . "
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Nope. The gubmint likely SOURED the deal: "You give us your source code, and we don't send you to Gitmo!"
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No it isn't really.
At that point, corporations are only being forced to hand over what they already should have had to hand over to the US Library of Congress.
You're confusing the idea of "Open Source" and freeware.
Re:I thought we liked open source? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except they're not handing it over to anybody except the government.
And then any modifications the government makes, nobody else sees either.
So no, not really like open source at all.
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Depends which license we're talking about. With the GPL, no you may not modify the source and then keep your changes secret.
"Must reveal the source of your modifications": "I changed this. But you can't see it." That's not how it works.
GPL doesn't deal in direct and indirect, unless you go LGPL. The GPL itself is quite consistent.
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> At that point, corporations are only being forced to hand over what they already should have had to hand over to the US Library of Congress. [emphasis added]
I assume you're calling out duties to participate in the "Cataloging in Publication" [loc.gov] program of the Library of Congress?
There is no such obligation for copyright in general.
Picture if there were: Everything - every CHANGE to every website, every version of every application - would have to be sent to the Library of Congress. Every blog post. Ev
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As the writer of proprietary code that is critical to the security of millions of products, I'm more than happy for the code to be seen by more people. The company requires NDAs, but once that's in place, we don't have qualms and it's been shared with customers who care to ask, certification bodies and governments who want a look-see. Develop code on the understanding that it will be looked at by adversaries, friends and bureaucrats. When you aren't embarrassed to show it, your code is in a better place.
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As the writer of proprietary code that is critical to the security of millions of products, I'm more than happy for the code to be seen by more people.
It is only really good if the viewers of your code tell you of any security/... problems that they find. This will not be happening when the FBI/... takes your code, they will just use that knowledge to the detriment of your customers - not all of who are bad guys.
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The only ones who made constructive comments (towards stronger security) were the ones you might expect not to.
My only experience with the FBI is of them waltzing into my standards meeting and demanding CALEA provisions be baked into the air interface, while I was busy specifying end to end crypto that would render it moot. Fun times. It was an open standards meeting. You could have been there too and enjoyed the show.
Re: I thought we liked open source? (Score:1)
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Modded offtopic? It must be a slow day for trolls.
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Many of my projects are closed source. I would be happy to release the source code... once I go back and fixup all those shameful kludges and quick and dirty hacks.
Maybe Apple is just embarrassed about their code? After the Microsoft sources leaked, it confirmed to me that being ashamed about the quality of code is probably the #1 reason Windows is still proprietary software.
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Most companies do some kind of code review and automated testing as well as user-interface studies. Compilers will be set to the highest level of warnings and even mark unused variables as errors and not warnings. Device drivers will be from third parties and have the similar standards. There won't be anything to be embarrassed about.
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The ironic thing is that back in ~1992 that the Dept. of Commerce already warned about the the US's policy of encryption hindered the US more then it helped:
* https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/... [gpo.gov]
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Being limited to a company and the government is still closed source.
Of course, you either knew that and are a troll, or are a complete moron.
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Yes.
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| NOYES >
Whoops, a little quantum superposition slipped in there.
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It's all Objective-C which makes your eyes bleed.
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"Why is handing over the source code a bad thing?"
It is not. That part of "secret trial" probably is.
On the other hand (AFAIK) that's not what it was requested to Apple.
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So more people are being given access to source code, and more eyeballs make all bugs shallow. I call it a win.
Except when FISA courts are involved, they're looking for security bugs to exploit, not actually fix.
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When China demands Windows source code isn't it universally acclaimed as a good thing because of the Big Bad US and how nationalism (as long as it's not the U.S.) is a wonderful thing?
No, it's not. You're factually incorrect with that whole "universally acclaimed" thing.
So more people are being given access to source code, and more eyeballs make all bugs shallow. I call it a win.
If the additional people given access to the source code are using it to find holes to use for their own purposes, and those bugs are not returned to the company, then it's a net decrease in security.
Yes, I know, you're just here to knock down strawmen, but someone might have actually taken this seriously.
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Why is handing over the source code a bad thing?
Because of all the "Fuck the FBI. Fuck the NSA." comments in it.
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George Orwell will claw his way out of his grave just to tell us "I told you so! I told you so but you wouldn't listen!".
They DID listen. They're just using 1984 as a how-to manual rather than a warning.
But they listened.
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Well, the voters have to be complicit in that as well....
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No, they are using "Lord of the Flies"
Trump, Clinton, Cruz; crooked, corrupt, and crazy... For all practical purposes majority rule is nearing its EOL.
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The Trump campaign is using the movie "Idiocracy" as a how-to manual rather than a warning...
I get uncomfortable every time time Idiocracy comes up because of the implied embracing of the Eugenics movement of the 1920s and '30s. Buck v. Bell, perhaps the worst Supreme Court decision ever written, comes to mind. That the decision saying the compulsory sterilization of someone considered "feeble-minded" is allowed in the interests of the state is actually still on the books and was never overturned hurts my heart a bit.
A solution: the government will never read my cod (Score:5, Funny)
I have a solution to this. Most of my code can never be read by the government, or anyone else I don't want reading it.
I've made that impossible, by writing it in -Perl-, with page-long regular expressions. :) Just try reading my recursive descent parser for almost-html embedded in almost-xml written as a 8,000 character regex, Obama.
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I write my code in MUMPS and comment it in Cherokee.
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+1. I was going to post the same.