I Support What Apple Did

On 2^nd December 2016, a married couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, were involved in a rampage shooting in San Bernardino, California that left 14 people dead and 22 others nursing serious injuries. The two opened fire on a group of nearly 80 of Farook’s co-workers. The two believed terrorists were using an Apple phone, which compelled the FBI to engross in a heated confrontation with the Tech giant Apple Company demanding to mine data from the iPhone used by the couple in the attack. According to Daily Mail news article of 2016, a federal judge in California ordered Apple Inc. to assist the federal agents to hack into the locked iPhone of the deceased perpetrator of the 2016’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino. However, Apple denied the ruling basing their reason from the stand that it would require the company to develop a less-secure version of the iPhone operating system that would, therefore, threaten all customers’ privacy and security if it falls into unauthorized personnel.

The public clash between Apple Inc. and the U.S. Department of Justice over access to a dead terrorist’s locked iPhone has smartphone owners conflicted about whether the never-ending battle against terrorism is worth subjecting their devices to privacy and security vulnerabilities, as dictated by the Daily Mail news article of 2016. The clash tend to reflect wider debates in the United States and elsewhere over security measures used by companies to protect users of devices such as smartphones – and how much leverage authorities should have to gain special access. U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who sat on the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, said he was still grappling with the issues of where to draw the line between protecting the citizens’ privacy and public safety interests. In Maine, varied opinions emerged as to whether Apple should comply with the court order or resist it. Many said they could see merit on both sides of the argument.

In my opinion, I support Apple’s denial of the ruling in allowing the Department of Justice and the FBI agents crack the passcode on one particular phone that may contain information. Because what stands in this ruling, would entail that the Apple wouldn’t just be breaking the phones’ encryption system, but rather disable the feature that wipes the data on the phone after 10 incorrect tries at entering a password. Disabling such a feature would, therefore, mean that any unauthorized persons can crack the password using brute force – attempting tens of millions of combinations without risking the deletion of data (Crossman, Matthew, & Hong Liu, 2016, p. 4). Data that would be encrypted once the feature is created includes contacts, photos, and critical communications.

However, the new software to enable easier hacking could possibly destroy consumer confidence in their digital privacy, force companies to relocate overseas and crash the U.S. information technology industry. To me, such creation is deeply threatening because any security-disabling software once developed, could be exploited for despicable reasons which would even to some extent increase the rate of cyberterrorism. Even the trade organization do not take sides on issues that regard government policy on the Apple case. You know why? Creating such a software, as much as it is considered substantial to FBI investigations, it would create a ‘master key’ that could be used to unlock other encrypted mobile devices. The master key creation could not only be used for appropriate cases but rather the inappropriate ones, therefore, weakening iPhone security in regards to users’ privacy and safety.