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A comment on Apple vs. The F.B.I.: How the Case Could Play Out. Parent comment

Re:Apple vs. The F.B.I.: How the Case Could Play Out by studentrob on Sunday March 20, 2016 @06:53PM (#11325098)
That woman is so clueless. Her ideas are easy to debunk. She thinks tech companies like Apple must have access to encrypted data since they sell targeted ads. She mentions this when she questions Lynch on the DOJ budget hearing [1]. She fails to see the difference between iPhone data on disk and Facebook posts.

Obama, meanwhile, doesn't have much better understanding of the tech world. He characterizes Facebook posts as "public" [2]. While I agree it is better that citizens think of online data as public, FB is most definitely not all public. It just isn't set up with the protections being put in place on the iPhone.

[1] http://www.c-span.org/video/?406201-1/attorney-general-loret... (seek to 51:00)

[2] http://www.snappytv.com/tc/1159970

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Re:Apple vs. The F.B.I.: How the Case Could Play Out by kabdib on Sunday March 20, 2016 @10:03PM (#11325736)
Feinstein was prominently anti-crypto in the Clipper Chip / Crypto Wars I. She's been doing this for over 20 years. I don't think she's clueless. What she knows and what she says are probably very different. Political power has little to do with displays of technical competence.
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Re:Apple vs. The F.B.I.: How the Case Could Play Out by studentrob on Sunday March 20, 2016 @11:19PM (#11325997)
Perhaps I overstated it. I have only seen a few videos of her recently and I got the impression other senators in the room don't really take her seriously anymore. Maybe she was knowledgeable during CW I but her argument makes no sense in this particular case. Plus, I do believe you can be an influential person without really knowing what you're talking about. That's politics.
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