This case highlights the new technology that creates “tension between two values we all treasure: privacy and safety”.
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Tim Cook said that as individuals and as a company Apple has no sympathy for terrorists and in the event of terrorist incidents, it works with authorities to pursue justice for the victims.
Federal agents have been trying to gain access to the iPhone since Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and injured dozens in the shooting attack on December 2. Had the password not been reset, Apple officials said, they may have been able to trigger an automatic iCloud backup, which could have yielded additional information from the device without the need for its passcode.
While the case is now set for a court hearing, the battle over privacy versus national security interests is also playing out in the public relations sphere.
In a statement today, Bill Gates has explained that this case is an exception, and Apple should actually assist the FBI in its attempt to break into the iPhone that might contain critical information for the investigation. “It is about the victims and justice”, Comey wrote. “We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land”, he wrote.
Cook’s message to employees had “Thank you for your support”, in the subject line. But Apple said such a move would establish a risky precedent and introduce undue risk into the iPhone’s security.
He ends the letter by saying that customers trust Apple to keep their data, which is an increasingly important part of their lives, safe.
“I do believe there are sets of safeguards where the government shouldn’t have to be completely blind”, Gates said in an interview on “Bloomberg GO ” Tuesday morning. This would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use technology to rapidly and repeatedly test numbers. “Of course, Apple would do our best to protect that key, but in a world where all of our data is under constant threat, it would be relentlessly attacked by hackers and cybercriminals”.
In a long open letter released last week, Apple boss Tim Cook said the only way to bypass the security mechanisms protecting its mobile devices was to create a dangerously insecure version of iOS, the operating system which powers iPhones and iPads.
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The protests organized by the Internet rights group Fight for the Future are scheduled to occur Tuesday outside Apple stores in the U.S., the U.K., Hong Kong and Germany.
