Did Australia Poke a Hole in Your Phone’s Security?
https://nyti.ms/2Ho5LGN

Very mixed opinions about this. Obviously, apple didn't create a special phone for Australia, so the capability is lying dormant in all iphones.

In the case of the San Bernardino man, I can easily see why being able to unlock his phone would provide highly relevant information. Is it enough to compromise privacy? I guess I'm of the opinion that if you are using a smart phone as more than a paperweight, large portions of your privacy are already compromised. If someone wants to go through my phone and look at the gajillions of inane texts I send/receive from my kids, and photos of dogs and food, I'm not feeling particularly violated.

But yes, slippery slope and all that.

Anxiously awaiting Bernard's copycat thread.

The novelty here (if any) is forcing a private company to build a master key to the safe they sell. That is concerning.

From the personal privacy side it seems like a common but mistaken intuition that people should have a device that cannot be searched by the authorities with any warrant.

No one has this intuition with physical space. Imagine: ‘well, we think Dahlmer’s our guy but he’s declared his basement to be his personal space so we can’t go in there, even with a warrant.’

Encryption is a private act.

One can encrypt by using standard algorithm with a private secret digital key or by scribling glyphs on a physical piece of paper and store that piece of paper in the basement (to make it relevant to jon's basement parallel).

You can go into the basement with a warrant and get that piece of paper with cryptic glyphs, but not warrant can physically compel an individual to decrypt the glyphs. (Legally, in the US the individual is protected by the Fifth Amendment from being compelled to decrypt the glyphs.)

The above applies to a phone, a private device.

Probably different when you try to apply that Australian law to entire networks and entire databases owned or operated by large organizations (think governments, telecoms/ISPs, banks, NGOs, multinational enterprises).

Practically, probably no other international organizations, NGOs, and government organizations will buy Australian tech if you know the Australian government will always have the keys to your systems.