Despite Apple (AAPL – Get Report) co-founder Steve Jobs having wanted to have a “thermonuclear war” with Alphabet (GOOGL – Get Report) Google for its Android operating system, there’s one thing the companies can agree on: privacy. Prior to his death in 2011, Jobs made claims that he would go “thermonuclear war” on the issue, as he detested Android. “While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products”, said CEO Tim Cook in a letter to customers.
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Facebook is the latest Silicon Valley company to stand with Apple, which is fighting an order to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. In a series of tweets, Pichai said that although Google gives “law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders”, it is “wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices and data”, which could set a “troubling precendent”.
Before Pichai commented on the issue, Snowden was critical of Google’s silence.
This is the most important tech case in a decade.
“Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them”, Cook wrote in a letter published on the company’s website. “Ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect”.
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The government says the help is only needed on this one device. Cook’s response came after a federal judge ordered Apple to provide investigators access to Farook’s iPhone after the company “declined to provide” it voluntarily.
