The saying goes, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” If you’re as desperate for answers as the United States government is in the aftermath of last year’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, those measures apparently include creating a tool that could theoretically unlock any iPhone on the planet.
That’s the message Apple CEO Tim Cook has put out in an unprecedented open letter on the tech giant’s website. In it, he claims that in the search for data relating to the shooters, the FBI have pressured the company into constructing an exploit to circumvent their encryption technology.
Even in the face of an event as tragic and seemingly senseless as the shooting – which left 14 dead and many more injured – Apple is refusing to retool their operating system, saying “building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor.”
“And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.”
Although a Californian judge has backed the FBI’s move, Cook claims “the government is asking Apple to hack our own users,” which would “undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers – including tens of millions of American citizens – from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals.”
Moreover, he claims the if government kept that key for later use, it could theoretically intercept an even larger portion of data sent and received from iPhones.
So here we are, ladies and gentlemen – the ideological battle between the right to privacy and the right to justice is only ramping up. We’ll update this story as it develops.
Source: Apple / CNN.
Photo: ChinaFotoPress / Getty.
