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I won't cost 50 million dollars to comment out a few lines of code and recompile the OS. That reporter has no idea what they're talking about.



To be fair, neither do you.


Sure I do. I've been a professional programmer for almost 20 years. I have a pretty good idea about what sorts of things are hard to do and what sorts of things are easy to do. The FBI's requests are very easy. 50M is ~200 man years of work. That number is insane.


Have you ever worked some place that requires a security clearance?

Well, for Apple to develop this software, they would insist on it being developed in a locked down facility that doesn't currently exist (what Apple has is in use). I think they have said it's only about $100,000 of developer time (so maybe 2-3 months of work), but the infrastructure that would be necessary for the work to be done in a way that doesn't risk any leaks is expensive.


Can you make up some more facts about Apple's real estate situation and software methodology?





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