The Encryption Fight We Knew Was Coming Is Here—and Apple Appears Ready
17th February 2016
Yesterday a judge sided with the FBI, ordering Apple to not exactly create a back door to bypass its encryption, but pretty damn close. The judge has ordered Apple to assist the FBI by making it possible to bypass or deactivate the auto-erase function that deletes the contents of the phone after too many failed password attempts; to allow the FBI to electronically submit passcodes rather than manually; and to eliminate any delays in the system between password attempts. The demands are clearly designed so that the FBI would be able to try to brute force the password by attempting every possible number combination. (You can read the full order and some technical analysis at Techdirt here).
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What Cook doesn’t say but should be extremely obvious is that even if Apple creates only one of these devices for the government, the feds will most certainly try to backwards-engineer the tool to figure out how to replicate it. We have seen every single surveillance authorization given to the federal government abused and expanded to snoop on citizens for inappropriate reasons and without due process. There’s no reason to believe the same thing won’t happen here and that the justification for breaking encryption won’t be defined downward from “terrorist who killed 14 people” to “suspected drug dealer” or what the FBI defines as a domestic “extremist.”
If history tells us anything, it is that, when it comes to the ‘slippery slope’ argument, every government employee comes dipped in butter and ready to roll.
The Devil roams about the world like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith.