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Apple Denies Allowing NSA to Spy on iPhones

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Apple on Tuesday strongly denied knowledge of an alleged National Security Agency program that allows the government to penetrate and spy on iPhones.

“Apple has never worked with the NSA to create a backdoor in any of our products, including iPhone. Additionally, we have been unaware of this alleged NSA program targeting our products,” the company said in a statement.

Apple’s denial follows a string of reports in Der Spiegel about the NSA’s highly classified hacking arm, called Tailored Access Operations. That unit has worked, according to the German magazine, to exploit weaknesses in Microsoft’s Windows, Cisco’s routers and Apple’s iPhones — the latter through a program codenamed DROPOUTJEEP, which may have allowed the NSA to tap into older versions of the device’s operating system. Separately, a security researcher this week raised questions that Apple may have assisted the NSA.

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Apple Publishes Report Revealing US Govt Info Requests Exceed All Other Countries Combined

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Photo Credit: Aly Song /ReutersApple has published its first report revealing the number and type of requests for information about users and devices from governments around the world, showing the US dominating the requests.

The report (pdf), published on the company’s website on Tuesday, complained about US restrictions on what it could reveal and promised customers that Apple did its best to protect personal data.

“We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers,” the company said. “We protect personal conversations by providing end-to-end encryption over iMessage and FaceTime. We do not store location data, Maps searches, or Siri requests in any identifiable form.”

Of 31 countries listed, the US outweighed all other governments combined in seeking information about more than 2,000 accounts, followed by Britain with 141, Spain with 104 and Germany with 93. Canada, China and Norway each made six requests.

Apple complained that US restrictions prevented it from disclosing the precise number of national security orders and number of accounts affected by such orders. Figures for the US were given within ranges of 1,000. It said: “We strongly oppose this gag order, and Apple has made the case for relief from these restrictions in meetings and discussions with the White House, the US attorney general, congressional leaders and the courts.”

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Ex-Apple CEO Sculley: Rollout Reflects Broken Government

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Photo Credit: gtsantos/flickrFormer Apple CEO John Sculley says it would be great if the Obamacare rollout fiasco led to a realization that the private sector works better than government. But he isn’t holding his breath.

“I think this huge belly-flop of the president’s most important program is really a great lesson for all of us of just how broken government is,” Sculley said Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”

The White House tried initially comparing what it termed “glitches” in the HealthCare.gov website to issues with Apple products that it quickly fixes. That explanation has been panned by mainstream media outlets and even liberal supporters of the Affordable Care Act as it’s become clear the government knew about the problems even before the site was launched.

Government thinks about special interests, not about customers, Sculley told Cavuto. When he worked for Apple, the rule was to start with “clear thinking,” then constantly simplify, he said.

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Workers’ Rights ‘Flouted’ at Apple iPhone Factory in China

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The new cheaper iPhone that Apple will unveil to a global audience on Tuesday is being produced under illegal and abusive conditions in Chinese factories owned by one of America’s largest manufacturing businesses, investigators have claimed.

Workers are asked to stand for 12-hour shifts with just two 30-minute breaks, six days a week, the non-profit organisation China Labor Watch has claimed. Staff are allegedly working without adequate protective equipment, at risk from chemicals, noise and lasers, for an average of 69 hours a week. Apple has a self-imposed limit of 60 working hours a week.

The problems were uncovered at a plant in Wuxi, near Shanghai, where Apple’s first low-cost handset, dubbed the iPhone 5C, is being produced. The plant is owned by Florida-based Jabil Circuit, a US company with 60 plants in 33 countries including Scotland, and a turnover of $17bn (£11bn) a year. Jabil said it had uncovered problems last month and was taking immediate steps to investigate the allegations. Apple said its experts were “already on site” to look into the claims.

“It is the duty of national governments to regulate the conduct of their companies abroad,” China Labor Watch argued. “The US government also shares in the responsibility for labour abuses committed by US companies manufacturing in China.”

Jabil has 30,000 employees at Wuxi, where cases for the colourful iPhone 5C are being . The majority are hired indirectly through employment agencies, the investigators claim. Local laws set a limit of 30% agency workers in any company’s workforce to prevent the exploitation of staff.

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Apple, Google and AT&T Meet Obama to Discuss NSA Surveillance Concerns

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Photo Credit: APBarack Obama hosted a summit on government surveillance and digital privacy attended by Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Google vice-president Vint Cerf and the boss of US telecoms network AT&T on Thursday.

The US president attended in person, sources told the Politico blog, as did other technology company executives. Additional attendees included representatives of the Center for Democracy and Technology and Gigi Sohn, leader of internet campaign group Public Knowledge.

The meeting was apparently prompted by growing concerns among US technology companies that revelations from the Guardian and others about the extent and depth of surveillance by the National Security Agency, and the companies’ obligation to allow access to data under secret court rules, could be damaging their reputation and commercial interests abroad.

The gathering followed a closed-doors meeting earlier this week with Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough and general counsel Kathy Ruemmler at the White House.

On the agenda at Tuesday’s meeting were the surveillance activities of the NSA, commercial privacy issues and the online tracking of consumers.

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Senate Investigators: Apple Sheltered $44 Billion from Taxes

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Photo Credit: ReutersSenate investigators accuse Apple of wiring together a complicated system to shield billions of dollars in international profits from both U.S. and foreign tax collectors.

A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 — a characterization Apple flatly rejects.

The bipartisan Senate probe also charges for the first time that Apple’s long established foreign entities, based in Ireland, don’t actually have tax-resident status there or anywhere else. The company conducts most of its international business in the European country to take advantage of lower tax rates, according to the congressional report.

Despite the findings, lawmakers behind the inquiry did not describe Apple’s tax conduct as illegal — but they sharply rebuked the Cupertino, California-based tech heavyweight on Monday for its tactics.

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Apple Deluged by Federal Demands to Decrypt iPhones

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Apple receives so many police demands to decrypt seized iPhones that it has created a “waiting list” to handle the deluge of requests, CNET has learned.

Court documents show that federal agents were so stymied by the encrypted iPhone 4S of a Kentucky man accused of distributing crack cocaine that they turned to Apple for decryption help last year.

An agent at the ATF, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “contacted Apple to obtain assistance in unlocking the device,” U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell wrote in a recent opinion. But, she wrote, the ATF was “placed on a waiting list by the company.”

A search warrant affidavit prepared by ATF agent Rob Maynard says that, for nearly three months last summer, he “attempted to locate a local, state, or federal law enforcement agency with the forensic capabilities to unlock” an iPhone 4S. But after each police agency responded by saying they “did not have the forensic capability,” Maynard resorted to asking Cupertino.

Because the waiting list had grown so long, there would be at least a 7-week delay, Maynard says he was told by Joann Chang, a legal specialist in Apple’s litigation group. It’s unclear how long the process took, but it appears to have been at least four months.

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Russian Orthodox Demand that Apple Remove “Offensive” Logo, Replace with Cross

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Christians from Russia’s Orthodox community are demanding that the country’s Apple division remove the famous half-bitten apple logo from its products and replace it with a cross, because they find the apple image offensive to their beliefs.

In popular culture, an apple is often used to represent the fruit that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge when tempted by the devil, as found in Genesis 3 in the Bible – although the exact type of fruit is not mentioned in Scripture.

Still, conservative Christians in Russia have insisted that the logo should be removed and replaced with a cross, Xbitlabs.com reported from a translated article from Interfax news agency.

The Russian conservatives may get their way and force Apple to change its logo because of new laws being proposed in the country’s parliament on blasphemy and insults targeting religious, spiritual, or national values. It is expected that President Vladimir Putin will back the laws, especially since the Russian Orthodox Church heavily supported him during his election campaign in 2012. Besides replacing the logo, conservatives may even stop Apple product sales in Russia if they manage to convict the company of committing anti-religious deeds.

Apple’s iconic symbol has been in use in one form or another for over 35 years. The first bitten apple silhouette was introduced in 1976, and has undergone a number of design changes to reach its current glass-themed logo, which was introduced in 2003.

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Apple Supplier Foxconn Faces Massive Worker Riot in China

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A large-scale incident involving some 2,000 Foxconn Technology Group factory workers has forced the closure of one of the tech supplier’s plants in China, the company confirmed Monday.

The company described the incident as a “personal dispute between several employees” that escalated to include thousands of people. Some 40 people were taken to the hospital, and “a number” of individuals were arrested. According to the statement from Foxconn, local police were in control of the situation by 3 a.m., some four hours after the dispute began.

The incident, which a worker at the scene described as a “riot,” took place in Taiyuan, a city in central China. Foxconn employs 79,000 workers at the facility. Production at the plant has been halted, but Foxconn said in a second statement that the factory will resume activity on Tuesday.

Foxconn, which supplies parts to Apple and other manufacturers, has drawn harsh criticism for its labor policies. A spate of suicides at the company’s factories in 2010 garnered media coverage of alleged harsh working conditions, including unsafe facilities and illegal amounts of overtime.

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Jury Awards $1 Billion to Apple in Samsung Patent Case

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Photo credit: from_ko

The nine jurors in the case, who faced the daunting task of answering more than 700 questions on sometimes highly technical matters, returned a verdict after just three days of deliberations at a federal courthouse in San Jose, Calif. They found that Samsung infringed on a series of Apple’s patents on mobile devices, awarding Apple more than $1 billion in damages.

That is not a big financial blow to Samsung, one of the world’s largest electronics companies. But the decision could essentially force it and other smartphone makers to redesign their products to be less Apple-like, or risk further legal defeats.

Consumers could end up with some welcome diversity in phone and tablet design — or they may be stuck with devices that manufacturers have clumsily revamped to avoid crossing Apple.

Samsung said it would ask the court to overturn the verdict and, if that is unsuccessful, appeal to a higher court.

The jury found that various Samsung products violated Apple patents covering things like the “bounce back” effect when a user scrolls to the end of a list on the iPhone and iPad, and the pinch-to-zoom gesture that users make when they want to magnify an image. Samsung was also found to have infringed Apple patents covering the physical design of the iPhone.

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