Apple will fight an order from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to create what Apple is calling a backdoor into iPhone data. In an open letter to customers, Apple CEO Tim Cook explains what the FBI is asking for, and why Apple is refusing.
We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now 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.
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.
The order was issued by a federal judge Tuesday to require Apple to unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters who carried out the December 2 attacks in San Bernardino. According to the Washington Post, the order requires Apple "to disable the feature that wipes the data on the phone after 10 incorrect tries at entering a password." That means, Cook says, that 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."
Once that master key to open one phone's data by brute force is created, what's to stop the government from demanding the company—or any other device manufacturer—use that key on all phones? That's one of the arguments from Kurt Opsahl, deputy executive director and general counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is filing an amicus brief in support of Apple. If Apple can be forced to do it, potentially any software/hardware manufacturer could be forced to put what is essentially malware onto any device.
That's what Christopher Soghoian, the American Civil Liberties Union’s principal technologist, is warning, pointing out that the FBI and NSA should be able to crack this individual phone. "That they're going the legal route suggests they just want to set precedent," he writes.