Gemalto is also a major supplier of US Government Common Access Cards (CAC's).

And would the same trade-sanctions be applied to France, Russia, China, North Korea, Canada, South Korea, Germany, Spain, Iran, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Australia, Egypt, Israel, Syria, and the Federated States of Micronesia? (ok, took some liberties on that last one).

Oh, let us not be delusional here. New SIM Cards with new keys will be available with the new Galaxy S6 and new iPhone 6s's. Problem solved.

Whether or not the use of this technology is a violation of Constitutional Rights is really up to a Judge to determine. And as for "the people need to know", that's really pointless. The people are powerless to prevent the use of such technologies if their elected officials aren't doing anything to prevent the use of such technologies. The nature of globally connected communications in this era leaves open the avenue for exploitation of technology across vast distances. Cell phone intercepts, such as the ones in the article, firmware exploits such as the ones published last week, and any other manner of exploits are going to define the new normal. Unless laws are passed (and with the Patriot Act, I have sever doubts) that prohibit not only average citizens from engaging in these activities, but law enforcement as well, then we just need to suck it up and deal with it. For professionals in our field though, this does present us an opportunity to review our standards and identify logical risks associated with them and then to redefine them to take privacy and security in mind. Encryption designers need to up the bar and create stronger and more secure algorithms. Right now, there are only a small handful of manufacturers looking at this level (black phone?) but even they aren't digging deep enough.

And today, Microsoft release 12 patches, three of which allow for full system administrator remote level access with no interactivity from the user needed.

Bit curious about the Apple SIM cards used in ipad air 2, are those MSL or Domestic SIM locked, and if so, what would be the point if they work with multiple providers?

Didn't I have a calculator or some other kind of gadget that transmitted by red LED when I was a kid? Wasn't it a Furby?

The advantages to Encryption and defense-in-depth strategies is they are based on the triad of information assurance, one key of that is "non-repudiation". The "downside" to non-repudiation is the ability to connect the dots come litigation time. Interesting that they mention that the SSH sessions used key based authentication when the opposing attorneys claimed that anyone can name their systems "frosty" and use the login name "frosty". My question is, did the key on the laptop that was supposedly logged in as "frosty" also correlate to the key on the server? If so, the "anyone" list just got a lot smaller.

Man there are a lot of future implant recipients waiting out there...

Has anyone considered looking at this from a Second amendment perspective? If we are not to pass laws prohibiting the right to bear arms in order to establish a proper militia, has it not been considered that the command and control of said militia would also be as equally important? If so, then would it not be fair to assume that military grade encryption standards (read: non-exportable encryption) would by nature also be protected weapons systems? Granted, I know that arms exports has a litany of laws and the average Joe American can't just walk down the street buy an over the shoulder rocket launcher, but one would think that the ability to communicate securely for defensive purposes would in and of itself constitute protection under the Second Amendment? Or am I just reaching here?

So, what do we think? Will the Chinese Government use this opportunity to provide valuable input to Apple on security vulnerabilities that they discover to help better secure Apple products? Or will they squirrel away the things they discover to their Intel agencies? My bet's on the latter.

But that's the NSA's job. It's posted in their mission statement on their public website. And news flash. If you think that whatever country you're in isn't doing the same damn thing... Then you're delusional.

... declared itself to be legal ...

I love how we use this phrase as if to imply that the government has somehow changed the rules on it's own without the consent or will of the people. All of these changes stem from the Patriot Act that followed September 11th. Which was voted into law by the Representatives that we elected. How many people actually read the Patriot Act? How many people chose to attend the House and Senate sessions where the nuances of the act were debated? How many people actually wrote to their legislators in opposition of the act? How many people actually chose to vote against the law makers that made this legal? The US is not a surveillance state that declared itself legal. The US is a Republic that grants the authority to pass laws into the legislators that we elect. Those law makers represent us. If we're not happy with the work they're doing we can do a number of things, first and foremost we can kick them out of office, next, we can choose to run ourselves and work to change the system, and third, we can actively protest our grievances. If people don't like the way it works, then it's incumbent on them to work to change that system.

The problem is when someone like Senator McCarthy comes along and decides that some group of people (Communists) are a threat to our society and need to be systematically monitored, imprisoned, etc... Question is, how will the protections by the Church commission come into play in this broadened surveillance scheme?

With the increasingly violent actions of some of the radical offshoots of Islam like ISIS and BOKO HARAM, how long do you think it will be before we have Senators asking for ISIS to be kept in check? And what if that look for ISIS extends to inside the US? Then what?