The FBI–Apple encryption dispute concerns whether and to what extent courts in the United States can compel manufacturers to assist in unlocking cell phones whose data are cryptogr
In 2015 and 2016, Apple Inc. received and objected to or challenged at least 11 orders issued by United States district courts under the All Writs Act of 1789. Most of these seek to compel Apple “to use its existing capabilities to extract data like contacts, photos and calls from locked iPhones running on operating systems iOS 7 and older” in order to assist in criminal investigations and prosecutions. A few requests, however, involve phones with more extensive security protections, which Apple has no current ability to break. These orders would compel Apple to write new software that would let the government bypass these devices’ security and unlock the phones.[3]
The most well-known instance of the latter category was a February 2016 court case in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wanted Apple to create and electronically sign new software that would enable the FBI to unlock a work-issued iPhone 5C it recovered from one of the shooters who, in a December 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, killed 14 people and injured 22. The two attackers later died in a shootout with police, having first destroyed their personal phones. The work phone was recovered intact but was locked with a four-digit password and was set to eliminate all its data after ten failed password attempts (a common anti-theft measure on smartphones). Apple declined to create the software, and a hearing was scheduled for March 22. However, a day before the hearing was supposed to happen, the government obtained a delay, saying it had found a third party able to assist in unlocking the iPhone. On March 28, the government announced that the FBI had unlocked the iPhone and withdrew its request. In March 2018, the Los Angeles Times later reported “the FBI eventually found that Farook’s phone had information only about work and revealed nothing about the plot.”[4]
In another case in Brooklyn, a magistrate judge ruled that the All Writs Act could not be used to compel Apple to unlock an iPhone. The government appealed the ruling, but then dropped the case on April 22, 2016, after it was given the correct passcode.[5]
There is an idiot Thakur making the statement
Sree Iyer: Namaskar. May 27th, 2021, Thursday. Welcome to Daily Global Insights with Sri and Sree, episode number 172. Some stunning news coming your way, fasten your seat belts and get ready for a fast drive. So Sridharji, welcome to PGurus Channel and as always, you are co-hosting this for the last 172 sessions. Here is the latest one. Sir, welcome to the channel and let’s have some fun today.
Sridhar Chityala: Good morning everybody and good evening to those in India and the respective locations around the world. We are looking forward to an exciting Thursday as we begin, the wrap-up or wrap down for the weekend.
Sree Iyer: We start, as always with US news, the Department of Homeland Security Chief Mayorkas tells Congress, the border is closed: No further Invasion along the Southwest border. I think this is one of those self-inflicted wounds that they think they have healed your thoughts.
Sridhar Chityala: I think this is a congress briefing and it is well orchestrated to be fair to Mayorkas, you know, he was just following the policies, which the Biden Administration is laid out. So there was the Surge, there was the unprecedented access in and lots of questions, propped up. The vice president is yet to turn up after more than 60 days, or 90 days since her nomination. They seem to have closed the borders whether that has stopped infiltration, one never knows, but at least he is saying they have prevented the surge. there are no longer bases lining up in the borders to bring these people and spread them across various centres.
Sree Iyer: Shuttered Chinese Houston consulate called a major hub for Science and Technology Espionage worldwide. And this was something that happened during Trump’s term, isn’t it?
Sridhar Chityala: This is something that has happened proceeding and went on until it was terminated. It is apparently started somewhere around 2015 and went on till about 2019. So Georgetown University Center for security and emerging Technologies were asked to examine and they looked at 642 different International technological cooperation opportunities between 2000 and 2019, identified by the Chinese diplomats and the Chinese technocrats. And they found a link to these diplomats and the technocrats were to the Houston Embassy or what they call the Houston post, which seems to have emerged as the key hub for election and globally disseminating information out of the Houston post. Those is the findings, which has now come out. No wonder that when this Embassy was raided or attempted to be raided, there was a diplomatic furore that was raised as a whole bunch of documents that were burnt and it was burning during that period of time. Remember during I don’t know which episode it is but we did cover that in the DGI program. So, it is fairly evident that this was the place from which the technological Espionage occurred and they have listed the number of projects and programs, which was examined by the Georgetown Center for security and Emerging Technologies.
Sree Iyer: And viewers would remember that DGI that Daily Global Insights started when Trump was still president. In fact, we started as the lead-up to the election started and therein lies the tail and we will be there for a long long time to come.
The next item as the covid-19 Fallout continues, a new report shows that Biden Administration halted the probe linking lab leak to covid-19. Why, why, why stop this probe why? What was going on in their minds?
Sridhar Chityala: Well, I think the latest developing story is that there is a lot of heat. We have again covered in the past few days in the DGI, every house rep, every senator has raised these issues. In fact, And Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have been very vocal for Fauci to come out and speak about what happened and what he knew at that point of time and what he did not share and the heat piled up and slowly information has reached out. It’s possible that it originated from a lab rather than from natural organic circumstances. Apparently, now the news came out yesterday that it was Bided Administration, which stopped the probe then as the heat began to pile on the latest breaking story is Biden has said, reopen and re-examine and let’s get to the bottom of this. What will they do, when they get to the bottom of these remains to be seen, but at least he seems to have reconciled or conceded to the fact that he cannot hide any further behind the shadow of hiding this investigation or stopping this investigation.
Sree Iyer: I think the Biden Administration owes a big answer to the people of the United States. They need to explain why this was stopped. And if it was not stopped, what was the real reason why it went slow? Now that it is coming out, I think it’s very important to share the truth with the people that are my two cents, sir.
Let’s move on to the next item. Trump says, China took care of Joe, took care of Hunter but for my efforts on vaccines, millions of lives would have been lost like him or hate him. This part of it is very true. What are your thoughts, sir?
Sridhar Chityala: I couldn’t agree with you more and he has this investigation as the investigation around the Covid picks up as the wave spreads around the world, whether it is wave2, wave 3, wave 4. Whether different forms are variants, all with Covid, as the origin, which is from the Wuhan labs, is not an India variant, it’s not a Brazil variant, is not a South Africa, it’s not the UK. It’s all variations of the China virus, which emanated from the Wuhan lab, China is well aware of the facts. The fact is that as this investigation was going on, they could not kind of rest and they needed a vaccine to deal with the issue because the United States was facing significant consequences, around that point in time. The maximum amount of death and maximum amount of infections actually occurred in the United States that’s the reason why we have close to 32 million people affected and more than 600,000 deaths across the United States. The vaccine was done in a record time and the person to be credited for his president Trump in less than seven months. We had a vaccine in the market.
Sree Iyer: 35% of Americans unwilling to spend $1 behind Climate Change, Competitive Enterprise Institute Poll say and another 15% they would go as high as $10 per month. At the end of the spectrum, 1% said they would spend as much as $900 to $1000 per month to help in climate change. So, this is unusual, that 1% actually want to spend up to $1000 per month, to help in climate change. What are your thoughts, sir?
Sridhar Chityala: My thoughts are, I certainly do not belong to that 1% and happy to be part of the 15%, rather than the 35%. I’m happy to give, you know, $10 per month. But this is another program that is a self-prophecy of this Progressive and Biden. They have not built an economic case, they are not built-in economic narrative. They have not identified simply they have stated. It could be the costs of climate change, could be the cause and that’s why you have floods, that is why you have changed. Now, they’re going to put billions and billions of dollars of money behind it and people have no support for these types of lofty programs that has no economic outcome. Well, Japan, you have to take Japan will tell you that it has been zillions of dollars without making significant progress in even reducing one-degree Centigrade in its ambitious goals of meeting the climate change requirements.
Sree Iyer: and Yellen skips House small business hearing, defying legal requirements and angering both parties. This is not the first time she has done this. What could be the reason sir?
Sridhar Chityala: The only thing that I can think of is Janet, there’s this couple of complaints against Janet. One is that she doesn’t turn up. She only comes for meetings but she is not seen in the Treasury Department. In fact that ever since she was you know given nominated and assume the role of the treasury secretary, she has hardly been seen on the floor of the Treasury Department. So this is one big complaint. The second is I think that she has been very vocal and going around and talking about you know, various fiscal and monetary policies at the integration. Yesterday, we covered in DGI. There has been a lot of heat around the small business programs, including the small business administration complaining, that is a lot of fraud because millions of dollars of money have been rolled out. The number ranges up to even 8 billion dollars of fraud as a result of all these various Covid programs and lack of scrutiny. By the way, this is bipartisan both Republicans are complaining and the Democrats are complaining. So, I don’t want to speculate my only assumption is that or my only thought process here is You know, she may be too embarrassed or she doesn’t have the data but to defy legal requirements, and not turn up is not a pretty good sign for the treasury secretary.
Sree Iyer: And in Indian news, India versus social media platforms, WhatsApp, and India battle it out in Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court and the latest is the compliance of the new law that is required to be done from the 26th of this month. Where in the Indian law states that any social media platform should be able to point out to the government the starting point of a message or a forward and they said this is required only for security reasons, not for every message. So, there is some, nuances around with they have couched it but WhatsApp is still trying to fight it out in the Delhi High Court saying that it breaks their encryption. I don’t buy that, I am a cryptologist myself, you can do it without breaking encryption, sir, your thoughts.
Sridhar Chityala: I think you’ve laid it out very well, Sreeji. There are two components to this one is the shelter and the Privacy laws and the second is around the end to end encryption and the ability to decrypt, the encryption and provide end-to-end, navigation of the data. So there are two components to it. In the first part, they’re saying that you know, when you have privacy laws, so the government is saying, you are now taking the data of the client or the customer and sending it to a Facebook, which is your principal head office and from there, you are using that as a Marketing vehicle to publish various ads and sell that data without by anonymizing in an aggregate manner. So, you are saying that you are entitled to it, but the government is not entitled to it, where the government the oversight of the people of the destination or the location of the country. So I think that my view is unless some judges reading this wrong way, this is going to fall flat. As far as this end-to-end encryption is concerned in terms of breaking the entire encryption. By the way in the United States FBI and any enforcement agency when it comes to, it can actually issue a subpoena and go after it. Apple fought this at one point of time on a security case, which related to, you know, some terrorists or terrorist groups using this platform to disseminate and send messages across. So that didn’t fly high in the Court and Apple had to concede And open their encryption and the data to be found. So my feeling is that the government is saying, I’m not asking you to decrypt and show me every message that is coming in, but I should have the right to choose. So the way Facebook will argue is you are violating, you know, indiscriminately laws that are for the court to determine. But, to say, I won’t give you access at all again is going to, you know, fly shot in my view because it certainly has not worked in the United States.
Sree Iyer: Banks have sanctioned over Rs 15 Lakh Crores to 28 Crore beneficiaries, that is 280 million beneficiaries in the past six years. So, 280 million works out about one in five Indian citizens, which’s a very impressive number.
Sridhar Chityala: It’s a very huge program that was targeted as part of the financial inclusion program. If you look at, if anybody is aware of the Safari program, that was launched in Kenya, Africa, you found that the first thing was to give everybody a bank account. So we do have an as part of the Jan Dhan Yojana program, you know, everybody has and close to 400 million people have access to bank accounts with the Aadhar as the linking mechanism. The next thing that came out is whether some of these people who are Tradesmen and, you know, workers and agriculturist etc, whether they should be extended a loan. So this program is about the loan and it is quite a massive program, when you put their deposits when you put their bank accounts in conjunction with this program that has been launched and 280 million people have benefited from this. I think there is a ceiling of 10 lakhs maximum of 10 lakhs and broken into three tiers. The objective of pointing out is this mudra program has been reasonably successful in terms of deployment, one needs to assess what the credit quality has been and what the outcome from the repayment of all these loans that’s been dispersed
Sree Iyer: India Express has support for the re-election of Antonio Guterres as UN Secretary-General. Howe has been his performance in your opinion sir.
Sridhar Chityala: UN has been defunct for the past four years under Trump Administration. There’s been nothing that has happened, you know, basically, Trump was stating Nikki Haley was the nominated US ambassador to the United Nations. It was fairly passive is only under Biden, it has resumed, you know, UN is a controversial organization which has not had either reforms or changes, it still remains large behove more bureaucracy but from an Indian Point of View for Dr Jaishankar to go and meet with the Secretary-General, reaffirm is just another diplomatic protocol that he leveraged to the time window. He is actually back this morning. In fact, you went last night back from New York to Washington DC. And his first diplomatic or first high-level meeting is with the Defense Secretary of the United States.
Sree Iyer: Oxygen arrived from Gulf countries and Russia sends more Sputniks to India. So I think the situation now is fairly better in terms of the availability of oxygen and vaccines. We’ve already shared a couple of days back, the roadmap of how many vaccines are going to be manufactured for use in India. So I think the government has got a grip on this, what would you say, sir?
Sridhar Chityala: I think they’re slowly getting the entire value chain, the downstream value chain. One is the upstream value chain which is around the supply and production. The downstream value chain is the distribution and reaches to the patients and healthcare workers and hospitals. Oxygen was one of the big bottlenecks. A combination of industrial, commercial oxygen production, as well as the liquid medical oxygen and imports, has considerably helped India in augmenting both the supply as well as the distribution chain, I think this is probably by default much needed Health Care transformation and reform so that the entire ecosystem reaches the masses that has been found wanting since Independence in India.
Sree Iyer: Energy, India infrastructure programs, Pharma, Solar, Mobile, Auto, and Startup Ecosystems are the future drivers of the 5 trillion economies. Today, there are 56 unicorns valued at close to $285 billion, and this number is likely to be one trillion by 2025 with 150 unicorns. So, the startup ecosystem in India appears to be thriving and appears to be heading considerably north of what it is today. Sir, what are your thoughts?
Sridhar Chityala: I think there are 2 components. One of the segments that seem to have adapted reasonably well and has also been helpful in serving the needs of the covid pandemic is the startup ecosystem. The capital continues to flow in and what I’m hearing from the experts, and that is why I recited these numbers, that today it’s a $285 billion valuation comprising of 56 unicorns. If it gets 250 unicorns by 2025, it will be if not number one or number two in the startup ecosystem, obviously the United States and China compete for the number of unicorns, but the rate at which India is evolving is a very positive sign. And if the valuation is 1 trillion by 2025, it’s a considerable achievement in the private capital formation and the development of the industry. Remember, 1 trillion could be 20% of GDP by way of capital to be infused in a 5 trillion economy. India is not going to be 5 trillion 2025 maybe 4.3 – 4.4 trillion by then, but still, it’s a significant number and it auger is very well.
Sree Iyer: Now, let’s take a look at Global News. Hamas surges sadly but the Palestinian problems persist, what are your thoughts on this? This whole freakish with rocket-launching close to 3000, then 20% of the rockets are falling on Hamas’s side and that was leading to a lot of deaths and they were trying to paint that as being caused by Israel. All this stuff, what has Hamas achieved, and more importantly, what have the Palestinians achieved?
Sridhar Chityala: There is a very interesting way we can watch this. Hamas has benefited because the ceasefire seizes the bombings, preserves whatever the existing infrastructure that has been untouched by the Israeli efforts by way of bombing and all the kinds of persistent efforts that Israel put on to put out all these rockets that were coming out. So clearly the Hamas seems to be benefiting by virtue of this ceasefire. Not only that, there is a significant amount of capital or money that is flowing into the Palestinian territories. This begs the question, how much of it is going to Hamas versus how much of it is going to Palestinians? The Biden Administration has allocated a specific amount of capital towards the rebuilding of Gaza. Now, that begs the question, when you rebuild Gaza, are you rebuilding the Hamas infrastructure or are you building for Palestinians? By the way, this not the first time this has happened. Again, Palestinians are going to be found neglected and you find other periphery people benefiting and they are probably going to remain where they are. This has been the issue for the past, 30, 40, 50 years.
Sree Iyer: Secretary of State Blinken turns to an effective partner Egypt to calm Mideast, then he travelled to Jordan to meet King Abdullah also many other constituents, he is on a complete Palestinian mission. But now he is back in the United States and he will be meeting as we said before Dr Subramanian Jaishankar, isn’t it sir?
Sridhar Chityala: Yes, and he is expected to be back by today. It is believed that Egyptian President Al-Sisi played a significant role in the ceasefire and helped negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Israelis also have a proximate relationship with Egypt. So, naturally, he is visiting there to figure out whether there is continued monitoring by the Egyptians to make sure that there is no further trouble brewing. Now, obviously, there’s a significant amount of Palestinians in Jordan, quite a number of people work in Jordan. In fact, there is a belief that more Palestinians are in Jordan than in Palestine itself, which sometimes creates problems for the Jordanians. So he is definitely meeting King Abdullah who is still an influential figure in quelling the storms that arise in that part of the world. So he’s completing his diplomatic mission – Israel, Egypt, also Palestinian representatives, in fact, we didn’t present it for the sake of… Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, when Antony Blinken was speaking, he was referring to him as secretary Clinton. So he is still in the world of Hillary Clinton, while Anthony Blinken was making the presentation until the officials have Palestinians corrected him. So he did meet the Palestinians, he did have this session. There was a public session and then, of course, he completed his mission by going to Egypt and he will be in Jordan and returning back to the United States
Sree Iyer: Belarusian leader defends his action to divert the plane. We talked about this yesterday. Biden says that the Nord Storm pipeline ban would have hurt European relations. So this is a one-line headline but I think there is a lot of subtexts here. Could you please share your thoughts on this?
Sridhar Chityala: My thoughts are Biden has been under pressure on a number of initiatives. Cartoons have appeared in US Publications, not in the left-leaning, left-wing publications. They don’t publish any of these things. Everything is hunky-dory even if it is wrong. This famous cartoon, which maybe we’ll put up in the text that goes out with the presentation, is you find president Biden standing next to Keystone Pipeline, which shows pipe is closed, there’s no oil. Then on the other side, you have Vladimir Putin, Nord Storm 2 is open and gas is flowing into Europe. But we still talk about climate accord. So, the byline here is that there’s been a lot of treasure. It seems like Germany and parts of Europe have played a significant role, which is without this gas there is no heat and the summer season has not set in. It is the most inappropriate time for you to cut off supply, we have also covered in a number of DGI shows that Russians have been having problems with Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany, Italy, and quite a few other countries including the UK. So this may be the underlying pressure from some of the EU Nations to Biden and to say, you take care of your climate accord in the United States, you take care of your gas pipelines in the United States, we can’t be here without gas. That seems to be the underlying tone and he doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of EU. That seems to be the overarching message here Sreeji and you can add… I know you have some insights as well.
Sree Iyer: Well, you know, this was very interesting. I came to know of it through a family friend and this person had to come back from Europe because there was just no hot water for days on end in Poland and this becomes a little difficult. If you are born in the US and grown up here, you’re used to taking a shower every day, which many Europeans don’t do. I’m not seeing anything right or wrong. This is just a habit. That’s a habit-forming thing. Therefore, there are things like this, which seem like a spigot that people can turn on and turn off to cause a lot of pain. Also, viewers, if you have a Netflix account there is a show called ‘Occupied’ that talks about Norway, and a story very, very similar to this plays out. It’s a political thriller if you like political thrillers, do watch that. I’m not being paid by Netflix to say this. I just like some shows, not all of them, and I’m just establishing an additional perspective on this topic.
So let’s move on to the next topic. Key Scientists say that it is not safe to hold Tokyo Olympics. Most likely it’s going to be cancelled, right? Probably, it is going to be rescheduled again at a later date.
Sridhar Chityala: It should. Certainly looks like it’s going to be cancelled. Tokyo is on high alert. The United States has issued a travel advisory, which is not to travel to Tokyo Olympics. And I think less than 3% of the population is vaccinated. They have hired the security forces to vaccinate the nation at the rate of 1 million per day. Japan is 126 million. If you discount x number of children and so on, you still have 80 million people and I just don’t think they have the time window to get this done and also they’re still in a heightened state of alert. So it’s a wise decision to cancel the Olympics.
Sree Iyer: China losses Europe, as Xi’s hotline diplomacy backfires. Taiwan accuses China of blocking its deal with BioNTech. Taiwan, Korea, Japan contemplate homegrown vaccines. So again, China is playing a big bully, sir.
Sridhar Chityala: Yes, indeed. I just want all of our audiences to actually look at global mainstream media, global publications. And when you look at Global publications, you will not hear about the United States, you will not hear about Europe, but you find often two countries that are presented in two opposite ends of the spectrum. One is India and the other is China.
When you look at China, China is the culpable culprit that is escaping the wrath of the world, on covid, which has paralyzed the world. Number one. Number two, they’ve been successfully using this navigation shifting the focus on the Brazil variant, South African variant, Indian variant, etc. You have a big issue on Uyghur for which the world is asking for sanctions. Number three. You have big problems around stealing the technology and issues privacy, and intellectual property violations. Then you have problems around democratic principles in Hong Kong where democracy has been suspended with a ubiquitous takeover of the Hong Kong legal process, and the legislative system. Then you look at the daily incursions and trouble that happens in the South China Sea threatening the sovereignty of Taiwan. and all the nine-dot Nations around the South China Sea be it the Philippines, be it Indonesia, be it Malaysia, be it Vietnam, and also incursions, into Senkaku islands, near Japan. Then you have trouble in the Ladakh region or the Himalayan Kingdom and the final nail in the coffin is the EU rejecting after initial acceptance. Again, we have covered that the EU did accept China’s investment proposal in the DGI program. Then, the Uyghur issue came in and China said, it will basically reciprocate with similar sanctions on some of the EU Nations and key officials. So EU, summarily now has cancelled the investment proposal, putting Xi Jinping in the most difficult and most embarrassing situation.
Australia as the trading partner is not in acceptance, Japan as the trading partner is not in acceptance. The US is not in alignment. EU is not in alignment. Yet, the nation that gets the worst end of the stick as though it doesn’t have reach is India. So you require a huge amount of money and penetration into a vast Empire to control the narrative and the agenda. And that exactly is the one-sentence here, which is ‘China loses Europe as Xi’s Hardline policy backfires.’ There’s a significance. July 1st is the Communist Party Congress annual event. It’s going to be interesting to see how Xi Jinping comes out of it.
Sree Iyer: Now in Markets, Amazon to buy MGM Studio behind James Bond and Shark Tank for $8.45 billion. I think we mentioned this a few days ago so it has come true, sir. As always, the oracle of PGurus has spoken and got it right.
Sridhar Chityala: Well, the deal was very much cooking so I don’t want to claim great citation, but I’m very happy that it has happened. I think, I’m a James Bond fan and I’m a Goldfinger guy, so therefore, I’m happy that Amazon has got it. I get a chance to see all my programs here now, so I’m very happy about Amazon’s acquisition of MGM Studios. And then, of course, the shark tank is very widely watched in the United States. I do see it occasionally because some very innovative ideas and concepts are presented in Shark Tank, so I’m really happy that that transaction is closed.
Sree Iyer: Yes, indeed, I love James Bond, also. I like to always think of myself as, the name is Iyer, Sree Iyer. But anyway, these are all dreams in one’s own mind.
I think markets today were tepid with reopening of stocks, helping just the Standard & Poor. But by and large, it was just a sideways movement.
And I think with that, our DGI, For today comes to an end. We’ll see you again tomorrow bright and early. Sridharji, namaskar and see you tomorrow, sir.
Sridhar Chityala: Namaskar. And I want to conclude with one important observation. Yesterday, the 26th of May marks the completion of 125 years of the Dow index. When, in Wall Street, they started with about 12 stocks people used to run around and see what is the bidding, and what is the offer price. And three times in a day, they will mark this, it will be in a paper and these fellows will run around the Wall Street and distribute as to what the prevailing prices for the stocks being traded-in. And then the index was born with various weights and so on and so forth. It’s a remarkable history but just want to say the 125th anniversary of Dow and it’s still going strong.
Sree Iyer: Thank you very much. I’ll see you tomorrow. Namaskar.
Sridhar Chityala: Namaskar, have a wonderful day and have a wonderful evening.
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