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Fed Demands Apple Build in Backdoors – Tim Cook Says ‘No’!

John P.

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If you haven’t heard yet, Apple CEO Tim Cook is making headlines related to his refusal to help the US Government make the world a more dangerous place.

“But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone…. We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack.”

I think Edward Snowden summed things up nicely:

The Government’s Position

  • The government is actually arguing that people are TOO safe.
  • The encryption we’re all using is good enough that it can not be broken.
  • They want manufacturers to build in back doors – just like the Chinese Government.
  • ANY backdoor weakens security for ANY system.
  • They are asking people to just “trust” that they won’t use it unless you’re a suspected terrorist. But nobody does.

Problems with this logic:

  • You don’t have to be found guilty in a court of law in order to have this backdoor used against you. In fact, they want it prior to any conviction. In essence they will spy on anyone, at any time they want.
  • Even if Apple built in a back door to their encryption, it’s quite simple to use a third party app with its own encryption to circumvent the security hole.
  • Criminals will instantly convert to that method. The 20 year old PGP will do just fine…
  • Any back door will be exploited. Period.

Another Way to Look At It

Lets suppose the locks on our home’s front doors became so secure that NO ONE could penetrate them. Now 100% of the public is perfectly safe at home! But some criminals also have homes, and they are now safe as well.

Now imagine the government said, “Even though there are 1 billion people benefiting from the security of these locks, we want to make them weaker so we can get in whenever we want to.”

How would you feel about that? And when, at any time throughout history, did making everyone weaker somehow also make them safer?

Comments

  3. Only in the US can any person trumpet the right to bear arms and defend their property to the death in one breath, while demanding that all citizens bend over and submit to a body cavity search of their hard drives in the next. You guys are crazy. :)

  4. You are 100 on this one sir!!! It’s insane because this back door if built can easily be abused by the same (or another) agency charged with protecting us. I have to say, I wouldn’t be totally shocked if this “back door” didn’t already exist via an “agent engineer” and Apple’s public stance is “Never”.