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Apple has been ordered by a US court to help FBI investigators unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters which they said contained crucial information.
The iPhone 5C is for Syed Rizwan Farook, the gunman who, together
with his wife Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and injured 22 when they
opened fire on a social services agency in California last year but
Farook and Malik were both killed in a shootout with police.
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In a statement issued and signed by Apple CEO, Tim Cook said building
a backdoor to access encrypted data on the iPhone of San Bernardino
gunman Syed Farook would be “too dangerous to create”.
“The United States government has demanded that Apple takes an
unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We
oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at
hand,” he said.
“We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to
expose its customers to a greater risk of attack. Criminals and bad
actors will still encrypt, using tools that are readily available to
them,” he noted.
Since September 2014, data on most Apple devices such as text
messages and photographs have been encrypted by default, the BBC
reports.
It means if a device is locked, only the passcode can be used to
access the data. If 10 incorrect attempts at the code are made, the
device will automatically erase all of its data.
Apple said even its own staff cannot access the data, a move the company made following the Edward Snowden revelations into government surveillance.
What FBI wants from Apple:
Firstly, it wants the company to alter Farook’s iPhone so that
investigators can make unlimited attempts at the passcode without the
risk of erasing the data.
Secondly, it wants Apple to help implement a way to rapidly try
different passcode combinations, to save tapping in each one manually.
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