Recently Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been ordered to help the San Bernardino PD in the arrest of a known killer by helping the PD hack their suspects iPhone, something about which they have both moral and business dilemmas.
As you can imagine every IT company such as Apple takes the security of their customers very seriously, and they do not want to disclose sensitive customer information in fear they may lose their trust and in turn, the customers themselves.
Apple must be according to the ruling on Tuesday supply the FBI with all the information related to the case and its prime suspect Syed Farook by bypassing their encryption within five days.
Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, are the murderers of 14 different people, all of whose live were taken on December 2nd in San Bernardino, California before they were gunned down after a stand down with the police.
The police want the information on the phone itself because it may lead them to whoever helped the suspects, however up until now Apple has declined to support directly due to their company policy, but as we all know, no system exists for the court of law.
Before Apple was ordered to help the government had a lot of trouble in cracking the advanced encryption on the phone and asked Apple for help only as a last resort. However Apple could not be persuaded voluntarily so drastic actions had to be undertaken after all justice for 14 lives are at stake.
This case only serves to increase the drama between the tech companies and law enforcement agencies, who are claiming that the advanced encryption only serves to help terrorist organisations in their communication. The encryption works so that only the sender and the recipient know what was sent to them and it becomes incredibly difficult for anyone outside the circle of communication to learn from their correspondence. But this increase in encryption is a direct result of the realization that the US government has been issuing advanced surveillance techniques to their own citizens, and this has led to a sort of subtle paranoia that companies want to exploit by marketing their advanced encryption.
With this case and the recent other international attacks, many people are wondering if these tech companies have a moral obligation to help the authorities in any way they can with catching these criminals who prey on the lives of the innocent. However, Apple and many others claim that allowing the government easy access to their phone networks means that the terrorists themselves will also be allowed easy access to them as well, something which neither parties want.
“Since the terrorist attack in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, that took the lives of 14 innocent Americans and shattered the lives of numerous families, my office and our law enforcement partners have worked tirelessly to exhaust every investigative lead in the case,” said Aileen Decker, one of the many US attorneys who are involved in this case and many like these.
