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Even as India is debating whether anti-India sloganeering in a university campus is a bigger threat to the nation or some lawyers beating up students and journalists in a court premise, allegedly with police inaction is a bigger threat to freedom and democracy, the United States is going through its own debate, albeit a little more hi-tech than this.
The debate started when Apple CEO Tim Cook released a letter to the public, called A Message to Our Customer, earlier this week in which he minced no words to make it clear that it is an opposition to an order issued by the Government, calling it a step that “threatens the security of our customers.”
The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.
This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.
This essentially brings back the encryption debate. In the last few years, law enforcement agencies have been complaining that things are “going dark” for them—a phrase that tey use to describe not being able to access consumer data because of heavy encryption. A recent Harvard study on the subject concluded that end to end encryption is against the business interest of companies and the fear of enforcement agencies are a bit far-fetched.
But the recent developments have brought the issue to the forefront. Many in legal and research fraternity say that this fight is just a real-life manifestation of a theoretical debate that has been going for some time.
The whole issue started when the FBI could not unlock the iPhone of a killed attacker in San Bernardino, California and wanted Apple to help. Apple was reportedly resisting but a Federal magistrate, “at the Justice Department’s request, ordered Apple to bypass security functions on the phone,” reported The New York Times.
The Tim Cook letter is a response to that order. Apart from Apple deciding to fight it out in the court, the letter has taken the debate to the public.
“For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business,” Cook said in the letter.
Acknowledging that they respect FBI and are strongly against terrorism, the letter, however, is direct when it comes to what it is fighting againt”
“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,” he wrote
“Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.
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. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control,” he added.
The government, on the other hand, has denied such allegation. "They are not asking Apple to redesign its product or to create a new backdoor to one of their products," White House spokesman has been reported as saying. "They're simply asking for something that would have an impact on this one device."
"Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge," Cook countered.
“The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe,” he had said in the letter.
Calling it a dangerous precedent, Cook made it clear that Apple wants to take this debate broader, beyond this case.
“The implications of the government’s demands are chilling,” he said. “If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge,” he said.
“Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government,” he added.
Googlei, Facebook, Twitter and others in the tech community joined the debate, largely supporting Cook’s position.
“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,” Facebook said in a statement, adding, of course, after condemning terrorism.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO said he stands with Tim Cook and thanked him for his leadership.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai, in a five tweet response, which has been described as “weak” by the observers, called the order a “troubling precedent” and said he was “looking forward to thoughtful and open discussion on this important issue.”
"We must not allow this dangerous precedent to be set. Today our freedom and our liberty is at stake," said WhatsApp chief Jan Koum.
The most interesting and challenging response came from John McAfee. He called the order "a disarmament of our already ancient cybersecurity and cyberdefense systems" and said he and his team could decrypt the information on the iPhone in three weeks, eliminating the need for Apple to create a so-called back door, reported LA Times.
As the battlelines are drawn, the fallout could have implications for the entire world, as most of the tech companies are based in the US.
Here is a link to the full letter of Tim Cook.
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