Apple motion to deny FBI to be backed by Google, Microsoft
Source: Apple motion to deny FBI to be backed by Google, Microsoft
Source: Apple motion to deny FBI to be backed by Google, Microsoft
3 Comments
Good for him. I have a perfectly fine Tin Can and string setup – an Android phone.
As a technologist, I am appalled at Apple’s behavior in this terrorism case. Apple is lying up one side and down the other. For example, Tim Cook claims this will create a back door for all iPhones. This is false – the modified code will only exist inside of whatever secure facility Apple chooses to use, and Apple will never give it to the FBI and is free to discard it as soon as it has served its purpose. He claims it will set a precedent that will allow China to do the same thing, as if the Chinese dictators care at all about US precedent, and as if he hasn’t already furnished his phones to Chinese secret police for “security audits” and banned apps that the Chinese government considers objectionable because they allow dissent. Tim Cook is no defender of freedom or privacy, except when it makes him money.
Also, this whole thing involves an older iPhone model (5) that is already quite hackable by determined governments. Would Cook prefer that the FBI hire a cellphone forensics firm to do this, and let the world know how weak is that security?
Internet privacy advocates allow no limiting principle, but in the real world, we always have to make trade-offs between privacy and security. This is a very clear case of that – the FBI merely wants the data, to which it is entitled by the phone’s owner, from a cell phone that a dead and deadly terrorist may have used to communicate with other, as yet to be discovered future killers.
Thanks for your comment, John. The point I was trying to make is that now that Google has backed Apple in this case, is an Android phone any better?
It’s a highly charged case, with strong arguments on both sides…which is exactly the wrong scenario for a rush to judgment, in my humble opinion. Frankly, I’m leaning toward Apple’s position, but we’ll see how it plays out in the courts where things like this should rightfully be decided.