Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark

Re:Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark by bryanlarsen on Thursday January 11, 2018 @10:25AM (#16124459)

And yet Apple regularly receives praise here for thwarting law enforcement.

The difference seems obvious to us, but it wouldn't be to someone outside of tech, and similar justification will be used by used by people building the Uber program.

I suspect the large majority of entities who are stymied by Apples extensive encryption who wouldn't be stymied by trivial encryption are law enforcement and other state entities.

I also suspect that Uber's protocol has been invoked against against intruders and/or commercial visitors.

So while Apple good and Uber bad, the difference is gray, not black & white.

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Re:Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark by ctrl-j on Thursday January 11, 2018 @10:38AM (#16124648)

> And yet Apple regularly receives praise here for thwarting law enforcement.

That wasn't my takeaway from the Apple/FBI interactions.

They said pretty plainly: "We'll help however we can, but even we can't get into our customers data. We're also not going to break that so that anyone, including you, are able to."

Isn't that a big difference?

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Re:Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark by rlanday on Thursday January 11, 2018 @01:13PM (#16126180)

What is “trivial encryption”? This is something that keeps out “bad guys” but not “good guys”? Pretty sure that doesn’t exist.

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Re:Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark by rm_-rf_slash on Thursday January 11, 2018 @10:27AM (#16124498)

Apple protects its customers. Encryption that stops cops also stops criminals.

Uber is only protecting its profits. The customers are incidental to its blatant lawbreaking.

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Re:Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark by letsgetphysITal on Thursday January 11, 2018 @10:36AM (#16124621)

Apple protects its profits. Encryption that enables privacy protections for consumers also stops cops investigating crime.

Apple is not your friend and does not have your best interest at heart. It is a company like Facebook, Microsoft, Ford, Boeing... They all just want the money. If making hard to break encryption sells more units, then that is the only motivation.

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Re:Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark by IBM on Thursday January 11, 2018 @10:54AM (#16124866)

There's no evidence that Apple's ideas about privacy or encryption have any positive effect on sales. The only people who might even be aware of it are tech people, and that doesn't move the needle at all. See the tech people gripes about the Macbook Pro, which went on to sell well anyway.

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Re:Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark by nyolfen on Thursday January 11, 2018 @10:36AM (#16124614)

do you think apple is motivated out of the goodness of its collective heart?

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Re:Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark by mikestew on Friday January 12, 2018 @04:24PM (#16136428)

Do you propose that it is impossible to "do the right thing" and make a profit?

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