The FBI against Apple, that is, Washington against Silicon Valley: the conflict between the nation’s security and the privacy of citizens is blatantly riesploso. The Ministry of Justice has asked the court to order the company to Cupertino to force the encrypted code of the Islamic terrorist cell in San Bernardino Syed Farook, but when the magistrate Sheri Pym, along with the FBI instance, has issued the injunction to collaborate, the CEO Tim Cook said no with a “letter to our customers’ extremely hard.
” the government has asked us to do an unprecedented step, which we warning endangers the safety of users. We are opposed to this injunction, since it would have much wider ramifications than the case. The implications of the request chills, “Cook warned,” because the government could extend its intrusion into privacy “, up to request that Apple build a monitoring software to intercept messages, enter the health or personal financial data, controlling the movements, all without the knowledge of the owner.
“encryption is a crucial aspect of the no-stro craft, because we are convinced that it is the only way to ensure information security,” says Cook.
“We have even decided to store this data outside our same access capabilities, convinced that the content of your iPhone does not concern us.” Cook added that when “the FBI asked us to deliver the best of our knowledge, we have provided them. Today, however, the government has asked us something that we do not have, something that presents a high risk for us: we were asked to install a back door to our iPhone, a new version of the operating system to bypass some important security features to be able to install it on the iPhone recovered in the investigation. “
This time America is not in front of the abstract scenery of Big Brother government, pilloried by Edward Snowden with its collection of surveys of millions of phone calls block, but who had no access to any private content and were designed to search for useful links to prevent future Islamic conspiracies. The case in question is very concrete, and it concerns a single iPhone 5, the one used by the killer, and his wife of 14 innocent last December 2.
Since then the FBI is in possession of the phone, and access to messages and any other “” guarded secret is of obvious importance to reconstruct the network of relationships Farook. The Ministry of Justice had immediately obtained permission to enter the data by the legal owner of the phone, the County California of which was dependent on the murderess, but digital barrier to entry concocted by Apple has worked very well.
the FBI director James Comey had complained that the encrypted code was a major obstacle for law enforcement that “are digital instruments that can not be opened when a sentencing judge that there is a legal substantiation, to open them ». And federal prosecutors later explained to the judge Sheri, at a hearing at which Apple could not participate, and that brought the injunction, that investigators can not access the cell of Farookperché not know the access code and the Apple She does not cooperate. Now, the refusal of the company to respect the verdict opens a legal dispute by not foreseeable outlets. Apple could be fined. Or forced to surrender. Cook’s thesis is that if Apple were to create an ad hoc software to crack the mobile phone of Farook, this invention would be the genie is out of the bottle and can not return. But this time it is the phone of a terrorist did the bloodiest massacre in the US after September 11.
New York The right and duty of a State to protect by all means its citizens against right to these same citizens not to see their own personal data, including those related to health and private businesses, rummaged through by the government and, potentially, also from anyone else. Or, if you prefer, the risk that the key antiprivacy which should be built by Apple to allow the FBI to investigate terrorists of the San Bernardino massacre claimed to be a day (or stolen) by dictatorial regimes to make it a far worse use against the risk that the giants of Silicon Valley (Apple and Google in the first place) deny investigators access to valuable encrypted data to fight terrorists and common criminals not to defend a sacrosanct principle, but to protect a wealthy business: that of data security.
at first glance the case exploded yesterday with Apple’s decision to reject the order of the federal judge in Los Angeles that the FBI agrees to provide all necessary assistance to decrypt the data in the iPhone contents of one of the bombers of the San Bernardino massacre is the unacceptable rebellion of a private company to the sovereign powers of the State, to defend citizens against external and internal threats, has not only the monopoly of force but also that of a spy who, if necessary, may violate the boundaries of privacy. And Apple, as other groups in Silicon Valley, in the past accepted compromises with dictatorships rather than lose access to important markets, certainly can not stand as the ultimate guarantor of citizens’ rights.
deepening an issue that has very complex technical aspects and political implications, falter initial certainties. From a legal point of view it is easy to predict that the dispute – fueled by the fact that the magistrate, to justify his order, he had to resort to a law of 1789, the year of the French revolution – will end up before the Supreme Court: an organ that has a very long decision times.
from a technical point of view, however, the most delicate issue dasciogliere is the nature of the intervention requested by the judiciary. “We demand a solution to be used only in this case, not a back door (ie a” back door “of unlimited access),” assures the judge Sheri Pym that, in issuing its order, has also granted to the company Tim Cook some leeway: it may reject the request if the judiciary is able to demonstrate that it is too expensive or if it fails to propose an alternative solution to achieve the same result.
in its reply, however, Tim Cook is exposed in the first person with a letter to Apple customers in which not only rejects the request of the judge and does not offer an alternative solution, but argues that what is required is exactly what the government denies wanting: a backdoor that gives access to all iPhone, not a single apparecchio.Si is a door through which tomorrow could pass other federal powers to other investigations and that, if stolen by hackers (event not unlikely given what is happening in this field) threatens to fall into the hands of anyone the most personal information (voice, photos, contacts, health, financial, tax) that each of us stores in its smartphones.
The point is that in 2014, after the Snowden case Apple introduced a crypt tage system that you can break even. To overcome this block now the magistrate asks the company to produce a parallel software to sabotage the security mechanisms devised by the engineers at Apple, starting from self-destruction of the memory in case of an attack on the access codes: “It’s like in the physical world I were asked to produce the equivalent of a key that can open hundreds of millions of locks, “said Tim Cook.
a delicate question destined to divide public opinion (half with Apple and half with the government, according to opinion polls since performed here) and politics: the judge had to exhume a law 225 years ago because the Congress on this matter can not legislate. Just a look at the threads of these days to understand why: at a recent Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders gave vague answers to a specific question on this node. And yesterday, on the other front, while Donald Trump said he was for once agree with the government and condemned the Apple rebellion, the American Enter- prize Institute, the ideological right-wing think tank, has come a certificate of solidarity setting “libertarian” by Tim Cook.
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