Encryption is like a ribbon. If you put it around a hard drive, whoever gets that hard drive can’t read what’s on it unless it is untied or cut. Cutting represents hacking. Untying the ribbon represents putting in the correct password. Only the person who tied the ribbon knows how to untie it (unless they’ve shared their fingerprint or passcode).
Cutting ribbons is hard, as many real hackers will tell you. The juiciest information is secured with the hardest ribbons to cut. Apple sees customers’ information as worthy of unbreakable ribbons, so they have made it hard for people to cut them. They have made their hard drives and ribbons in such a way that not even they can untie or cut their customers’ ribbons. If you hand Apple an iPhone, they will not be able to get into it.
Apple can’t get into a device they made because they want their customers to feel secure in owning their products. It’s tolerable if Apple can cut the ribbon, as long as they’re the only ones. But the best option is to provide no ribbon-cutting technique, and this is what they have done: provided customers maximum privacy. But the FBI is threatening this privacy.
The FBI has recently demanded that Apple create a version of iOS that would allow any iPhone to be broken into very quickly. The order was made as the FBI attempts to retrieve information from the iPhone of dead San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook[KM1] . The only person who knew how to untie the ribbon on his phone’s hard drive is now dead.
If you’ve ever had a friend wrongly guess your iPhone’s password enough times, they’re familiar with the FBI’s struggle. After enough attempts, the screen locks for one minute, and if you guess wrong after that, it locks for five minutes. The intervals keep increasing, and some iPhones give the option to owners to erase all the data on the phone after enough wrong guesses.
Because of these safety mechanisms, the FBI cannot break into the iPhone without Apple’s help, so they’ve compelled Apple to compromise their customers’ privacy by making a ribbon-cutting machine.
There are many things wrong with forcing Apple to build such a machine. This machine could end up in the wrong hands (an easy reality to imagine in this age of cyberwarfare and state-sanctioned hacking), the government could abuse the use of such a machine (as it historically has done in similar situations), and according to legal experts, it is unconstitutional.
Critics from the technology and legal spheres are skeptical of the FBI’s request. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international nonprofit digital rights group, is at the intersection of these worlds. They said about the situation, “Code is speech, and forcing Apple to push back-doored updates would constitute ‘compelled speech’ in violation of the First Amendment.” The EFF also believes that Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights can be invoked in the legal defense that Apple will invoke in court.
The FBI’s role in this story is that of intelligence agency investigating a terrorist. On a deeper level, they represent the powers in the government and the country at large that value security over privacy. This is usually the role played by the NSA, but they aren’t the ones prosecuting this federal case.
This battle over Americans’ rights to owning safe devices is particularly important to students. We will be stuck for years to come with the decisions that are being made now about how secure our electronic information can be. Who gets to see it? Just us? Just us and our Big Brother?
The FBI has claimed that the case they are bringing against Apple is not meant to set precedent. They want to coerce just this U.S. technology company into building tools that the government can use to obtain the information of its citizens. They claim that they are not out to coerce every U.S. company in this way, just Apple.
However, depending on the way this case is decided, American technology companies could be susceptible to government orders to write software for the government. They will have to make tools that can break the software they’ve made for their customers.
If this case is ruled in Apple’s favor, however, we can be assured safety in buying products from companies like Apple who provide customers with truly secure products. It will establish a precedence of security, and we will remain free to live with as much privacy as we want.
The FBI wants to paint a picture that their case against Apple has no bearing on our rights moving forward. It’s just this once, they’ll only break into this one terrorist’s phone. But legal analysts are speaking, and they want you to know that this case will affect you for the rest of your life.
This story truly begins on September 11, 2001. This was a day hundreds of Americans lost their lives at the hands of terrorism. It also began the slow death of Americans’ right to privacy at the hands of fear in response to terrorism. I can think of certain Presidential candidates who are playing into the hands of this fear, and we responded with a knee-jerk after 9/11 by giving up our privacy rights so willingly.
The FBI is playing the role of paranoid security buff, stuck in a 2001 mindset. Apple is playing the role of defender of the constitutional right to privacy. They represent the faction of the country that still values privacy over security. They are the power fighting for a diminishing virtue, facing extremism by expanding rights rather than shrinking them.
In its case against the FBI, Americans can’t afford for Apple to lose. A loss for Apple will be a loss for privacy rights as long as our generation lives.
