(TL;DR at the end.) With the recent news about Apple Inc’s CEO Tim Cook making the decision to oppose a California judge’s order, we figured this would be a good topic to review. The order issued by the judge was to aid the FBI in breaking into Syed Farook’s company iPhone, which is owned by San Bernardino County. Syed Farook and his wife committed one of the worst acts of terrorism on US soil, when they killed 14 people in San Bernardino. Whenever I think about a political problem, I view it from two standpoints; Libertarian and Idealism. I use this most commonly in my “equal pay for different genders preforming the same work” argument; private companies should have total control over who they pay, but….. they shouldn’t be inconsiderable sexists. Considering those two views for this argument result in the same output, Apple should continue to stand behind their decision. Here’s why:

Apple may not even be able to crack the encryption. Because the iPhone encryption is based off of a user generated password or PIN, “Apple would not have the technical ability to do what the government requests—take possession of a password protected device from the government and extract unencrypted user data from that device for the government,” because “Among the security features in iOS 8 is a feature that prevents anyone without the device’s passcode from accessing the device’s encrypted data. This includes Apple.”

Apple could be at fault if something went wrong. The iPhone is protected with 3 layers of security. The first is, after 10 failed passcode attempts, the hard drive is erased. The second is that there is a mandatory wait time between failed passcode attempts. The third is that the passcode must be entered manually, so it cannot be brute forced. If something were to go wrong, and the hard drive was erased, Apple could be at fault.

Apple would have to develop a new version of iOS. In a letter released by Apple, Tim Cook said that “[The FBI] have asked [them] to build a backdoor to the iPhone” and more, “the FBI wants [them] to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features.” Not only would this require time and money, it would become universal, meaning, with the right tools, anyone could unlock an iPhone in their physical possession, similar to a master key.

These are the reasons I stand behind Apple’s decision. Although, many people would disagree with me. Judging on information taken from a poll on 2/18/2016, 66% of voters said that Apple should unlock the iPhone, but, the fact of the matter is that Apple is a company that doesn’t want to put millions of customers at risk, and even yet, they may not be able to.

TL;DR: Apple should stand behind their decision to oppose the court’s decision. Apple may not be able to crack the encryption, if they tried and failed, Apple could be at fault, and finally, a new version of iOS would have to be developed, and it would cost Apple time and money. Apple is a private company that does not wish to exploit their customers.

Sources