Apple Fights For Privacy
The San Bernardino case is quite fresh in everyone’s memory. The case involved shooter Syed Farook from San Bernardino whose Apple smartphone
was not accessible because the FBI had failed to unlock it. Farook and his wife had open fired at an occasion for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health and were killed in a shootout with the police force.
The FBI was trying to tap into their smartphones for any clues about any links that they might have with other terrorist organisations. A U.S. Federal Judge passed a verdict asking Apple to complement the investigational procedures in any way possible.
But, Apple didn’t let in. Unwilling to give in to the demands of the FBI, Tim Cook announced in a message that such measures would undermine the respect the company had for user privacy, and “would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.”
Voices In The Ether
Sundar Pichai was among the few to raise a dignified voice in support of Apple, and recently Steve Wozniak in an interview that he gave to CNBC said candidly that he was against any ‘backdoors’ that could hamper the security of the phone. He said that Apple’s worth as a tech giant was based on the simple foundation of trust and said that trust meant in believing someone completely, something that Apple’s users had done so for all these years.
He went on to remark, that one can’t trust anyone who is in power and that – “It’s like believing the authority and police wherever they go. Generally, when they write the rules, they’re right when they’re wrong.” Wozniak went on to elaborate on the misuse of the word terrorism that was being used to manipulate insecurities and fears of the people. He thought that the case involved shooting and could be termed as ‘murder’ but not ‘terrorism’. He justified himself by saying – “You know what is terrorism? It’s just a deeper crime.”
He voices the same fears that Tim Cook did in his letter. As a co-founder of Apple, he said that if Apple changed the encryption for iOS once, then it could be manipulated by the wrong minds to satisfy wrong intentions. In support of the users of Apple, he said that he didn’t want “companies playing tricks behind” him “in the background”.
However he wasn’t very optimistic as to whether Apple would win this fight in the courts – his hunch told him that it be a ‘Yes’ but he seemed uncertain – “But I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, if I were there I might fight it quite vigilantly.”
