The Apple vs. FBI controversy going on right now is quite a techno-political drama. At the core of it is a topic that isn’t so simple — encryption — and it’s all unfolding very rapidly, from so many corners of the Internet.
Some people have come up with a snarky shorthand for the case: FBiOS, a portmanteau of FBI and iOS that represents the version of the Apple operating system that would meet the needs of the FBI. Unfortunately, that encapsulation hides the complexity of it all.
The case may have staggering implications. It affects Apple, currently the most valuable company in the world, and it could change the relationship between millions of people and their iPhones: trusted smartphone or a potential government surveillance tool?
To help you stay on top of the story, we’ve put together a breakdown of the important players in the case and the things they’ve done so far. We’ll update this post as events unfold, so you’ll never miss a beat.
Tuesday, February 16
The issue came alive as Reuters reported that U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the U.S. District Court’s Central District of California ordered Apple to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unlock the Apple 5c owned by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two killers in the San Bernardino mass shooting in December.The news came a week after FBI director James Comey had told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the FBI still had the phone and that it was encrypted, according to USA Today.
One of the key areas where the FBI sought help was getting around the iPhone’s authentication scheme of becoming disabled after a certain number of incorrect passcodes have been entered, according to Reuters.
Wednesday, February 17
Apple chief executive Tim Cook came out swinging in response the court order. He issued a letter on the Apple homepage entitled “A Message to Our Customers.” The FBI had asked Apple “to build a backdoor to the iPhone,” Cook wrote.The rhetoric was ominous. Cook’s use of the word “backdoor” harked back to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s leaked documents describing the NSA’s apparent backdoors into Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft services. All those companies denied the allegations immediately after the initial report of the NSA’s PRISM program. “We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order,” Apple said in a statement.
In the case of the San Bernardino shooter, as Cook wrote in his letter, the FBI was actually trying to make Apple create a new version of iOS. It would have allowed for millions of passcodes to be attempted, such that encryption could be circumvented — and then run the new OS on the now deceased Farook’s iPhone, Cook wrote.
“The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor,” Cook wrote. “And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.”
Cook ended the letter by clearly conveying that Apple would not comply with the judge’s order. “Ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect,” he wrote.
President Obama was surprisingly silent on the whole issue. But White House spokesperson Josh Earnest did tell reporters that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was in fact “not asking Apple to redesign its product or to create a new backdoor” despite what Cook wrote in his letter, Reuters reported. What Obama did personally do on February 17, as the UPI reported, was name former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and former IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano as the chair and vice chair, respectively, of a new Commission on Enhancing Cybersecurity.
Jan Koum, chief executive of Facebook-owned WhatsApp, took to Facebook to show his support for Apple and Cook.
It took about 15 hours, but finally Google chief executive Sundar Pichai came to Apple’s side in a five-tweet comment. “We build secure products to keep your information safe and we give law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders,” he wrote. “…But that’s wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent.”
Later that same day, the industry group Reform Government Surveillance — which comprises AOL, Apple, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo — published a statement saying that “technology companies should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users’ information secure.”
Some politicians began to rally behind the FBI in its call for Apple to help it decrypt the phone. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), for instance, told CNN that in case Apple doesn’t comply with the FBI’s request, she and Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) are “prepared to put forward a law which would essentially require that.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) issued a statement saying that, “Regrettably, the position Tim Cook and Apple have taken shows that they are unwilling to compromise and that legislation is likely the only way to resolve this issue.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) took Apple’s side. “Companies should comply with warrants to the extent they are able to do so, but no company should be forced to deliberately weaken its products,” he wrote in a statement.
Thursday, February 18
Twitter cofounder and chief executive Jack Dorsey tweeted out his support for Apple and Cook.Facebook showed its support for Apple in a statement that it provided to VentureBeat:
We condemn terrorism and have total solidarity with victims of terror. Those who seek to praise, promote, or plan terrorist acts have no place on our services. We also appreciate the difficult and essential work of law enforcement to keep people safe. When we receive lawful requests from these authorities we comply. However, we will continue to fight aggressively against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems. These demands would create a chilling precedent and obstruct companies’ efforts to secure their products.Even Michael Hayden, formerly director of the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), came down on the side of Apple, The Week pointed out. Hayden is “America is simply more secure with unbreakable end-to-end encryption,” he told Wall Street Journal editor John Bussey on February 17.
John McAfee, the founder of antivirus software company McAfee Software and a Libertarian presidential candidate, publicly made an offer to decrypt the iPhone 5c in question, free of charge.
But Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both avoided siding with either Apple or the FBI in the case. Clinton described the controversy as a “difficult dilemma,” while Sanders said he was on “both” sides, according to the The Intercept.
Friday, February 19
The case became more interesting as DOJ attorneys filed a motion (PDF) to compel Apple to comply with the FBI’s orders. The attorneys argued that Apple’s unwillingness to work with the FBI “appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy,” as Reuters reported.The attorneys pointed to a 1977 Supreme Court case pitting the U.S. against the New York Telephone Co. “The conviction that private citizens have a duty to provide assistance to law enforcement officials when it is required is by no means foreign to our traditions,” the justices noted in a footnote to its ruling.
“Apple is not above the law in that regard, and it is perfectly capable of advising consumers that compliance with a discrete and limited court order founded on probable cause is an obligation of a responsible member of the community,” the DOJ attorneys wrote in their filing. “It does not mean the end of privacy.”
Meanwhile, in court, Judge Pym disclosed in a filing that Apple had sought relief to make its formal opposition to the order and now has until February 26.
And Apple disclosed in its own filing that it was bringing in prominent information security attorney Marc Zwillinger to represent it. Also representing Apple are Nicola Hanna, Eric Vandevelde, Theodore Boutrous Jr., and Theodore Olson (a private counsel to former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush).
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump entered the Apple-FBI debate by encouraging people to boycott Apple.
And Comey and Cook were called to testify in front of the House’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, as Re/code reported.
Source: Venture Beat
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