As you all may have heard, Apple is in a tough situation right now involving the San Bernardino controversy. In December of 2015, 14 people were killed and 22 seriously injured due to a terrorist attack by Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. Both of these men are believed to have been involved with ISIS.
The FBI wants Apple to create software that will unlock Farook's phone. However, Apple is a bit stingy with this idea. Some of the reasons for this hesitation are the encryption could be a danger to peoples' privacy, and that if the phone does get hacked, it is not necessarily going to turn up any evidence. So, the question is whether or not it is worth it to hack the phone of a deceased terrorist, which could threaten millions of citizens with Apple products.
The FBI claims that if Apple writes the software to unlock Farook's phone, that it will only be a one time thing. However, Apple says that that is not possible. Once the software is written, hackers and criminals will have the ability to steal it. Another issue is the fact that Apple would need to spend a lot of time actually creating the software. The software could take two to four weeks to create, including the help of six to 10 engineers.
Obviously, this is a very serious matter. It may seem silly that all this controversy is taking place over a 4-digit passcode. However, it is very serious. If peoples' phones get broken into because Apple writes software to unlock the phone, then Apple's business would go right down the drain. Owners of Apple products all around the world would be suing Apple if their phones got hacked from this software.
However, on the contrary, if Apple does not create the software, we may never be able to figure out what Malik and Farook's connections were with ISIS.
Police Chief Jarrod Burguan of San Bernardino, California says that he does not think that there is anything on the phone.
"I'll be honest with you: I think that there is a reasonably good chance that there is nothing of any value on the phone," Burguan said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is very set on not letting the FBI hack the phone. He cares deeply about the privacy of the citizens.
"I think safety of the public is incredibly important--safety of our kids, safety of our family is very important. The protection of people's data is incredibly important, and so the trade-off here is we know that doing this could expose people to incredible vulnerabilities," Cook said.
As of now, it looks like Apple is unwilling to budge, but I think this argument will last until the FBI gives up on their fight.
