Taking a bite at the Apple

“WE FEEL we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the US government.” With those words Tim Cook, head of Apple, the world’s biggest information-technology (IT) company, explained on February 16th why he felt his firm should refuse to comply with an FBI request to break into an iPhone used by Syed Farook, a dead terrorist. Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, who were sympathisers with Islamic State, shot and killed 14 people in California in December, before both were themselves killed by police. The FBI’s request, Mr Cook said, was “chilling”.

Ever since 2013, when Edward Snowden’s leaks pushed privacy and data security into the public eye, America’s IT firms have been locked in battle with their own government. The issue at stake is as old as mass communication: how much power should the authorities have to subvert the means citizens and companies use to keep their private business private?

For Mr Cook to choose the Farook case as the line he will not cross seems, on the face of things, baffling. The phone is government property (Farook was a public employee). The FBI wants help unlocking it because it...Continue reading

Source: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1KNLlTt

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