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TimCook

One of the arguments the Justice Department has deployed in its bid to force Apple to bypass security protections on the iPhone is that there's no precedent being set in the case. In a blog mail to the website Lawfare, James Comey, manager of the FBI, wrote: "The San Bernardino litigation isn't about trying to fix a precedent or send whatever kind of message. It is about the victims and justice."

I have no doubt that Manager Comey and other FBI agents sincerely believe that breaking into this particular iPhone is a thing of justice. The FBI'due south claims that this isn't about precedent, yet, fall apartment when you consider that the organization has submitted 12 additional claims nether the All Writs Act that would force Apple to unlock other devices in diverse cases that have absolutely zero to do with terrorism.

Apple-Cases

The list of cases runs the gamut, from devices running iOS 4.ii.ane, to hardware with iOS 9.i. All of these cases involve the All Writs Human activity, just none of the details take been made public however. It's been reported that Apple asked to accept the San Bernardino battle sealed also, but that the DOJ moved to make information technology public.

The power of precedent

The FBI's claim that information technology isn't trying to set precedent for using the All Writs Human action to hogtie Apple tree to unlock devices falls apart when you consider the number of times the organization has already asked Apple to unlock its hardware in cases that have absolutely naught to exercise with terrorism. The government agency has played up its office in fighting terrorism and dismissed Apple's attempts to secure its own hardware as cypher more than than a marketing strategy, as though consumer and corporate concerns on this front were meaningless. In the aftermath of the Snowden leaks, we know this isn't truthful — the NSA (which shares data with the FBI) tapped Google's international data centre linkages equally part of a deliberate effort to gain covert access to the company, even though it already had the legal authority to force Google to turn over information on any user it could proper noun.

Some have argued that requiring Apple to bypass its own security standards is analogous to requiring the company to open a safe. Merely the security implications of forcing a company to hack its own devices go beyond unlocking a unmarried physical device. It's piece of cake to run into why the FBI chose to become public with a test case involving a horrific attack on innocent people, simply the 12 other cases floating in the ether put the lie to the idea that this is a erstwhile or unusual affair.

The All Writs Human action that's being used to compel Apple's cooperation is not a precisely worded statute that purports to protect device security or lays out the exact circumstances in which companies tin be required to break their own device security to aid police enforcement. If concrete law existed on this topic in the first place, the FBI wouldn't exist relying on a 1789 statute to force Apple to comply.

Security expert Bruce Schneier writes:

[T]he hacked software the court and the FBI wants Apple to provide would exist general. It would work on any phone of the same model. Information technology has to.

Make no fault; this is what a backdoor looks similar. This is an existing vulnerability in iPhone security that could exist exploited past anyone…

What the FBI wants to do would make us less secure, even though it's in the name of keeping united states of america safe from damage. Powerful governments, democratic and totalitarian akin, want access to user information for both law enforcement and social control. We cannot build a backdoor that simply works for a particular blazon of government, or simply in the presence of a detail courtroom social club.

Either everyone gets security or no one does. Either everyone gets admission or no i does. The electric current case is about a single iPhone 5c, but the precedent it sets will apply to all smartphones, computers, cars and everything the Internet of Things promises. The danger is that the court's demands will pave the way to the FBI forcing Apple tree and others to reduce the security levels of their smart phones and computers, likewise every bit the security of cars, medical devices, homes, and everything else that will soon be computerized.

Schneier'southward piece doesn't accost the fact that nosotros now know Apple has been hit with 12 other requests for data on various iPhone's. If the judgment stands, dozens of requests volition become hundreds. If Apple protests that this has become too much for it to deal with, the regime volition undoubtedly offer to perform the forensic analysis itself. Eventually, some or all of the software volition likely leak or the techniques to perform the process will be reverse-engineered.

Apple's defence confronting the All Writs Human activity will challenge all iii aspects of the ruling. The visitor volition contend that it is too far removed from the device to exist required to render aid, that the request is overly burdensome, and that its help is not necessary for the FBI to conduct a criminal investigation given that data is preserved on other devices.