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In 2015 there was a shooting in San Bernardino (California), 14 people died and 21 were wounded as a result of this attack. The police killed Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik directly after the attack. The FBI investigated the attack as an act of terrorism. Authorities found two mobile phones nearby the attackers’ home. Important to note is that the phones were crushed in a trash bin, so it is likely that this were the phones of the attackers. The FBI was ready to extract data from the phones for further investigation, but this became more difficult than they expected. (BBC, 2015)

The FBI took the first step and asked Apple to unlock the Phone of Syed Rizwan Farook, but Apple refused. The reason for this is that the phones of Apple are designed so that even the manufacturer could not access them once encrypted. Next to this, the FBI presented the phone as a special case of national security, but even that didn’t help. Finally the FBI paid money to a third party firm (FBI didn’t reveal the identity of the firm) for software that gave the FBI access to the phone (Locklear, 2017). This year it became clear that the FBI pays $900,000 to this company for access to the phone (Ingraham, 2017).

Encryption is a huge problem for FBI investigations, the FBI have been unable to get access to nearly 7,000 mobile devices for extracting data from the mobile devices. This was in a time period of 11 months this year. Alan Woodward (cyber-security expert at the University of Surrey) says encryption is here to stay, he stated the following: “Encryption that frustrates forensic investigations will be a fact of life from now on for law enforcement agencies” (BBC, 2017).         There is a trade-off between cyber-security and investigative hacking, the FBI director stated the following about this trade-off: “I get it, there’s a balance that needs to be struck between encryption and the importance of giving us the tools we need to keep the public safe” (BBC, 2017).

I understand the opinion of the FBI, but in my opinion it should be problematic when Apple for example has not an encryption system like this. It then became a lot easier for everyone to hack phones and the privacy of everyone isn’t then secured as it is at this moment. Do you agree with my opinion or do you think that some cases of the FBI have priority?

 

References:

BBC. (2015). San Bernardino shooting: What we know so far. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34993344

BBC. (2017). FBI failed to access 7,000 encrypted mobile devices. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41721354

Ingraham, N. (2017). Senator confirms FBI paid $900,000 to unlock San Bernardino iPhone. Retrieved from https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/08/fbi-paid-900000-to-unlock-san-bernardino-iphone/

Locklear, M. (2017). FBI tried and failed to unlock 7,000 encrypted devices. Retrieved from https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/23/fbi-failed-unlock-7-000-encrypted-devices/

5/5 (1)

Of course everyone probably have heard of the in September announced new iPhones, namely iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. These new models of iPhone as always have great new features, for example wireless inductive charging. Unfortunately for the iPhone X you have to be patient for a while (release on November 3), but the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are already available (release date September 22). There are also rumors about a new model of Samsung (Samsung Galaxy S9), but Samsung hasn’t give an official presentation. Monday (Oct 16) there was the presentation of Huawei, the third biggest smartphone company with a market share of almost 10%. In comparison, the market share of Apple on the smartphone market is 12,1%. In Munich Huawei present their newest model, the Huawei Mate 10.

They present two versions, namely the normal Huawei Mate 10 and the Huawei Mate 10 Pro. In this blog only the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is highlighted. Of course this phone has a fingerprint scanner, this is placed on the back of the phone. Also interesting is the enormous battery capacity, the battery capacity is 4.000 mAh. This battery capacity is significantly bigger than that of the Iphone X (2716 mAh). The Pro also is water resistant, you can take it underwater for 30 minutes up to 1,5 meter. Impressive also is the internal storage of 128 GB and 6 GB of RAM.

The most interesting part of the Phone is the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), interestingly it is the first AI smartphone. The phone is powered by the Kirin 970 chip, this chip comes with a Neural Processing Unit(NPU) for AI. The combination with machine learning via the NPU makes the Kirin 970 25 times faster and 50 percent more efficient than a regular chip. Huawei promises that the so-called augmented reality apps will wasting less battery.

The NPU can offer a smarter software experience, for example when you are playing a game and you get a notification, the phone will suggest split-screen mode. Even cooler are the options with the camera, the camera recognize objects in real time. This allows the camera to tune photos to certain presets. In my opinion this is a great first step for the future, hopefully they can develop this.

Huawei want to be the biggest in five years and in the field of technology I think they made a great first step with the implementation of AI. For now I should choose for the new iPhone instead of the new Huawei, because I think the new iPhone for now have more great features to offer. Also this AI is in the beginning phase and in the near future the AI will have to prove how good it really works. I think it is fair to say that Huawei did a great job with this phone (especially the internal storage and RAM is impressive) and it is interesting to follow of Huawei indeed will be the biggest in five years from now. What do you think, is it possible to beat Apple and Samsung for Huawei in the coming years?

The video in this link gives more details about the Huawei Mate 10 and the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and also show the AI options of the camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8qvDHnWQOE

Interested in the new Huawei phone? The Huawei Mate 10 Pro is available on November 23 in the Netherlands for a price of €799.

References:

Gondhia, N. (2017). Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro hands-on! Retrieved from https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-mate-10-pro-review-807465/

De Looper, C. (2017). Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro are here with some strange differences. Retrieved from https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/huawei-mate-10-news/

Rahanmetan, C. (2017). Huawei Mate 10 Lite en Mate 10 Pro officieel: nieuw tijdperk voor Huawei. Retrieved from https://androidworld.nl/nieuws/huawei-mate-10-pro-officieel/

Wiggers, K. (2017). iPhone X vs. iPhone 8 vs. iPhone 8 Plus: What are the differences? Retrieved from https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/iphone-x-vs-iphone-8-vs-iphone-8-plus/

Woudt, J. (2017). Nog vijf jaar en dan wil Huawei de grootste zijn. Retrieved from https://fd.nl/ondernemen/1222764/nog-vijf-jaar-en-dan-wil-huawei-de-grootste-zijn