largest corporation, said Alex Brummer in
the Daily Mail. And it seems to have become
so puffed up that it now openly defies
governments “not only on tax, but on
matters of national security”. The FBI has
requested that Apple help unlock an iPhone
that belonged to the terrorist Syed Rizwan
Farook, who, with his wife, killed 14 people
in San Bernardino, California, last December.
The FBI is understandably “desperate” to
collect information about Farook’s associates
and communications. But last week Apple’s
chief executive, Tim Cook, refused to comply
with a federal court order demanding that the
phone be opened, arguing that it would
compromise the security of all iPhone users:
he called it a “chilling” example of
government “over-reach”. Cook’s
“obduracy” in the face of the terrorist threat
makes no sense. Is he really suggesting that opening one dead
killer’s phone would compromise every single iPhone?
“Considered in isolation, the request seems fairly benign,” said
Julian Sanchez in Time. The phone is locked with a four-digit
passcode. FBI computers could churn through all the
combinations – if the phone weren’t designed to wipe its
memory after ten wrong guesses. So the Bureau wants Apple to
develop a customised version of its iOS operating system,
allowing an unlimited number of passcode guesses – and sign it
with Apple’s secret key, so that Farook’s phone will accept it as
a legitimate software update. This is what Apple calls “a back
door to the iPhone”. And it’s potentially
terrifying. Once the firm has been forced to
make a skeleton key, it will get “a flood of
similar requests” from governments round the
world. Officials would inevitably gain access
to such secret keys, enabling them to hack
into our phones, computers and smart TVs.
And were these tools to get into the hands of
criminals, the result would be mayhem. Apple
is being asked to make its own phones much
more vulnerable, said The New York Times.
This is a “dangerous precedent”. The firm
was right to resist.
But it’s not Apple’s job to decide, said William
J. Bratton in the same paper. For more than
200 years, US law enforcement has been able
to obtain search warrants, where there is
probable cause. “Complying with court
orders is not creating a back door; in a
democracy, that’s a front door.” Until 17 months ago, Apple
held a “master key” that opened phones to comply with court
orders. Now, thanks to Edward Snowden’s revelations about
government snooping, it refuses – even in murder cases. The
long-term problem is that Apple, Google, WhatsApp and so on
can now design devices and apps “unbreakable even by their
creators”, said William W. Holman Jr in The Wall Street
Journal. When Apple is forced to yield, it will say that the latest
iPhones are totally “impenetrable”. This is the future: privacy
trumps law enforcement. For tech firms, this case is a lesson.
“As long as a company leaves itself a means to get access to
user data, it can expect the law to come knocking.”
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