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Comment by ajamesm | Hacker News Reader

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/think-donald-trump-blasts-appl...

> "To think that Apple won't allow us to get into her cellphone? Who do they think they are? No, we have to open it," Trump said during an interview on "Fox & Friends."

> The Republican presidential front-runner called it a matter of common sense:

> I agree 100% with the courts. In that case, we should open it up. I think security overall — we have to open it up. And we have to use our heads. We have to use common sense. Somebody the other day called me a common-sense conservative. We have to use common sense. Our country has so many problems.

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Not trying to be mean, but are you saying that Trump represents a new and terrifying threat to infosec because he "agrees 100%" with the existing courts and administration?

He doesn't "agree 100%" with the courts. Saying it doesn't make it true. He likely has no idea what the courts think about this issue, and doesn't really care.

I'm just responding to what was quoted here saying he agrees with the courts. Was there something in this interview or another that contradicts that?

Trump doesn't generally take concrete positions, so I can't find any other meaningful quote from him on surveillance or encryption or anything like that. If you're just asking in general, he has disagreed with the courts many times, such as on Roe v. Wade or his own lawsuits.

This quote in isolation is still not great, what does "I think security overall — we have to open it up" mean? But looking at it in isolation is obviously not very useful. Combine it with his lack of a position on many other important issues, and his cabinet picks so far.

He was obviously talking about agreeing with the courts in this case, not every matter, which wouldn't even be a rational statement since courts disagree. He does speak in generalities, but so does every politician. He's often especially vague, for sure. That doesn't seem to be a legitimate reason for so many people to project their worst fears onto every generality, to the point of hysteria.

Well, the only really concrete actions he's been able to take so far have been announcing cabinet appointments, and so far they're confirming those hysterical peoples' fears. So maybe they have a point.

All politicians speak in vague generalities, but most have a record. When a president has no record and no position, I think it is reasonable to prepare for the worst, just in case.

When he appointed someone who was apparently under serious consideration for Clinton's cabinet too, that still confirmed those hysterical people's fears. It's almost like they're not actually falsifiable in any way.

Which pick are you talking about? I couldn't find much with google. But regardless, Clinton isn't the president, so it doesn't really matter who she was considering. Trump is appointing people who don't understand climate change, want to abolish the departments they're in charge of, oppose minimum wage rises, don't understand what Planned Parenthood is for, have no government experience, etc. Obviously lots of people like these things, that's why he's making the appointments, but don't tell me you didn't hear these fears before the election. People were hysterical about these exact possibilities, and now they're happening.

No, you were supposed to read the whole thing.

The government took the position that Apple should unlock the phone. Trump said he agreed. Which part did I miss? I'm honestly curious.

the "Apple should unlock the phone" part

"Apple Inc. has received and objected to or challenged at least 11 orders"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute

I'm not sure what I'm missing here. The position of the government was pretty clear that "Apple should unlock the phone," until the FBI did it independently.

Personally, I agree with Apple's position. Security requires trust, and Apple showed good reason to trust them, enough that I went out and bought an iPhone.

But I have no idea how Trump agreeing with the courts and the FBI shows some kind of radical new threat.

That Apple saga was quite an interesting view into American politics. If you ask me, Trump and a lot of the government is out of touch with Privacy rights. The opposite battle is taking place with free speech in Canada[0], with the government wanting to curtail free speech in the name of preferred pronouns referencing gender. In both cases, the Government wants to harm free speech, but I think many people who are against it in Apple's case would be for it in Canada's. I could be wrong though.

[0] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37875695

It's an interesting parallel you draw. In one case, Canadian students played pranks on an out-of-touch professor, and in the other, the incoming presidential administration in America is taking actions that have historically preceded mass deportation and genocide, both in the sense of "necessary" and "sufficient". Not to say the two aren't directly comparable -- though the queer kids are real dark horses vis-a-vis establishing and normalizing concentration camps.

Perhaps the lesson to draw is that, really, we're all authoritarians in some degree. Some of us want our uncle to stop saying the N-word at the Thanksgiving dinner table, some of us don't identify with our assigned gender and lash out at the opposition with responses of disproportional magnitude, and some of us want to classify people by religion and detain them. America truly is a melting pot.

"Who do they think they are?" and "I think security overall — we have to open it up" are the more concerning parts of this particular quote.

But he used that in advocating a "common sense" approach to security. It's nothing but a vague non-statement that government needs to make reasonable decisions. Your response is going to depend entirely on your opinion of Trump and his administration's judgment. If you support it, you'll support the statement, but if you oppose it, that statement changes nothing, because you always knew the administration was going to use their own version of "common sense" to make decisions. So your reaction says nothing about Trump and just hints at your existing biases, which is fine, but no argument for concern.

"We have to open it" means "we have to make apple turn over decrypted communication." The next point in this argument involves a sentence diagram and a dictionary. Do we have to go there?

And his opponent had said even worse things, and committed even worse actions against the practice of information security. If hackers are scared of Trump, they should be downright grateful that Clinton didn't win.

And I say this as a member of the info sec community who most certainly did not vote for Trump. There are very few politicians in the US that could be considered "good" for hackers, present administration included. Trump hasn't said or done anything that our current government hasn't already said or done.

I guess we could have a long conversation about whether it's Clinton or Trump who would have ultimately been worse in terms of national infosec implications,

but that conclusion is far away from "Trump is not bad for infosec, actually" especially when you look back further than the Obama administration and remember that the US government used to classify cryptography as literal munitions.

(I think candidates in both parties past, present, and future have been daft on this) A "common sense" approach to security is basically, "of course good guys should have access." Reality means that, "well, sometimes nobody has access." We can work on a compromise, but that's going to be a long, thoughtful, nuanced conversation that should happen in the open--which nobody seems to want.

Feel free to call it "bias," for me it's "context" based on past behaviors. Trump is very reactionary, flagrantly ignores facts (at least when talking to the public), and seems unwilling to look at what was sacrificed to achieve what he advocates. If he treats emails that way I think he'll have as much luck as the last person did.

I was actually surprised and disappointed to find how other government officials seem to disregard privacy. Knowing Trump's history, I'm not surprised and concerned how things would get pushed further. No matter who won I think we should be louder and be fighting back.

the fbi is a branch of government, not "the government"

and yes, they did get a judge to side with them, but to side with such a ruling because "the government" is a disservice to justice.. as there is much more to the rule of law then blind obedience to a single ruling.

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