The U.S. Department of Justice think’s Apple’s hard public stance on encryption in the San Bernardino shooting case is nothing but a marketing scheme.
The agency said as much in a filing today that implored the court to “[compel] Apple to comply with its order.” It also cites the company’s past cooperation with law-enforcement investigations as evidence that its position has more to do with looking good to its customers than any actual inability to help authorities access the device.
“Based on Apple’s recent public statement and other statements by Apple,” the filing says, “Apple’s current refusal to comply with the Court’s order, despite the technical feasibility of doing so, instead appears to be based on concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy.”
The iPhone 5c at the center of this case belonged to one of the assailants in the San Bernardino mass shooting last year, which killed 14 people and injured 22 others. Authorities believe that it contains information important to the investigation, but they haven’t been able to get past the device’s passcode lock. Tuesday, the court requested that Apple provide a means for investigators to bypass the security feature, but CEO Tim Cook responded with an open letter stating that the company does not intend to comply.
It’s true that Apple has complied with previous requests to unlock phones involved in crimes, but it has designed recent versions of its mobile OS specifically to make that sort of access difficult, if not impossible.
The court has ordered that the company create a firmware version that will allow access to the secured phone, but Apple says that doing so would create a dangerous “backdoor” that could compromise the security of all of its products. The Justice Department’s filing counters this claim by saying that the order does not demand that Apple turn the currently non-existent software over to authorities for future use.
Whether Apple’s position is based on marketing or a firm belief in the importance of personal privacy, the public seems pretty squarely on the company’s side. An organization called Fight for the Future is organizing rallies at Apple Stores nationwide on Tuesday, February 23, a week after the original order, to show fans’ solidarity with Apple’s resistance. Others are showing support via a spate of online petitions that have emerged this week.
Not everyone is in Camp Apple, however. Presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has previously promised to “get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country,” has just called for a boycott until Apple unlocks the phone.
He may have done so from an iPhone, but those are just details.
Via: New York Times
Evan Killham is a freelance writer who lives in Nebraska and isn’t interested in football, so he has plenty of time to play and think about video games. He has written for Bitmob and GamesBeat and sometimes, he even goes outside. But not too often because he’s heard there are bees out there. Occasionally, companies send free units for review. Evan subscribes to Cult of Mac’s Reviews Policy and also does not keep the items he receives for possible coverage.
7 responses to “Justice Department thinks Apple’s defying FBI to look cool”
So they are admitting what they are doing is not only unpopular but rather dickish… ok.
Unlocking the phone and not giving the back doors to the Fbi is so logicsl
Yeah, right. These guys are just looking out for their own needs not thinking of the ramifications. If they open up a backdoor, then hackers will eventually find it and then they have to plug up that backdoor and create a new one. Kind of silly. The funny thing is, the same people that the back door don’t want their own personal device hacked into, otherwise they’d throw a hissy fit against the same company. Unfortunately, they can’t create what they want specifically just for them without exposing it to other parties that they don’t want having access to.
And the FBI is trying to look cool at the expense of Apple, which IS cool. :-)
It doesn’t work that way.
I think the FBI would want to use technology in their own environment that was hacker proof and if someone breached it, they’d get pissed.
I don’t think Apple can make everyone happy all of the time and it’s now a battle that I think the masses are either going to win or going to lose and if Apple is forced to create a back door, then Microsoft, Google, etc. also have to have a similar backdoor and then people won’t have secure devices regardless of the mfg.
And then some security company will try to sell us some other security software/device to plug up the backdoor. Anyone have those little SecureID key fobs that generate a new passcode every so many minutes to get a secure VPN connection? I’ve used those before.
I Don’t think this makes Apple look “cool” either. I think it makes them look straight-up BAD ASS! This is why i respect Apple.
If Apple complies:
1. Will it stop terrorism, or even significantly slow it down? Probably no.
2. Will it stop terrorists from setting up alternative hack-proof encryption methods? Probably no.
3. Will it increase the risk of cybertheft for hundreds of millions of people? Probably yes.
4. Will it put dissidents in despotic countries at greater risk of persecution? Probably yes.
Seems like a no-brainer.
You are drinking the Apple Kool-Aid.
Apple has sealed off backdoors like this before — recent example being the jump from IOS7 to IOS8.
What makes you think they can’t seal it off again?? Stupid people are stupid.
Apple needs to get off its ass. It’s obviously just grandstanding for public appeal — at the expense of potentially more people getting shot by terrorists in the future.
Any “backdoor” they create now can be easily “sealed up” just by releasing a new version of IOS. Isn’t that exactly what they did going from IOS7 to IOS8?
Please Apple, we are not stupid. Well, the Apple Sheep are. But the rest of us aren’t.