President Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on Apple to unlock two iPhones used by an Islamic terrorist suspect in a shooting at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in December. Basically, Trump demands iPhone backdoors:
We are helping Apple all of the time on TRADE and so many other issues, and yet they refuse to unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements. They will have to step up to the plate and help our great Country, NOW! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. — President Trump, January 14, 2020
We are helping Apple all of the time on TRADE and so many other issues, and yet they refuse to unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements. They will have to step up to the plate and help our great Country, NOW! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2020
Daniel Howley for Yahoo Finance:
The issue, however, is far more complicated than Apple simply unlocking the suspected shooter’s iPhones. That’s because creating a so-called “backdoor” for a single iPhone instantly opens every other iPhone on Earth to the risk of attack… Because every iPhone runs on Apple’s iOS software. And if Apple were to attempt to unlock the phones used by Alshamrani, the company would have to purposely break iOS, creating a way to access all data stored on the devices.
But since the iPhones used by Alshamrani are, more or less, the same as those owned by you or me, any exploit Apple creates to unlock his phones, would work just as well on our phones.
“It’s similar to, you know, why don’t we just make it so that every single combination lock in the world that’s made, the police have a combination they can input to get themselves into any lock,” explained Justin Cappos, professor of computer science and engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. “And why don’t they have that? Because as soon as criminals figure out how to use that, then you’re in trouble.”
MacDailyNews Take: President Trump demands iPhone backdoors, but that would risk the privacy and security of every iPhone user. If Apple created an iPhone backdoor nobody would buy iPhones. Hopefully, common sense will prevail.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Why don’t these genius politicians next attempt to legislate in purple unicorns? They’re equally as plentiful as secure backdoors. – MacDailyNews, October 3, 2018
This is not about this phone. This is about the future. And so I do see it as a precedent that should not be done in this country or in any country. This is about civil liberties and is about people’s abilities to protect themselves. If we take encryption away… the only people that would be affected are the good people, not the bad people. Apple doesn’t own encryption. Encryption is readily available in every country in the world, as a matter of fact, the U.S. government sponsors and funds encryption in many cases. And so, if we limit it in some way, the people that we’ll hurt are the good people, not the bad people; they will find it anyway. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, February 2016
