Coverage: Apple refuses to use backdoor encryption

Apple CEO Tim Cook refuses to give into demands placed on him by a U.S. magistrate to help the F.B.I. break into an encrypted iPhone 5c that belonged to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attacks, saying such a measure would expose Apple customers to a potential data breach.

Cook posted his response to the decision on the company’s website.

Tami Abdollah and Eric Tucker of the Associated Press had the day’s news:

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook says his company will fight a federal magistrate’s order to hack its users in connection with the investigation of the San Bernardino shootings, asserting that would undermine encryption by creating a backdoor that could potentially be used on other future devices.

Cook’s ferocious response, posted early Wednesday on the company’s website, came after an order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym that Apple Inc. help the Obama administration break into an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in the December attack.

The first-of-its-kind ruling was a significant victory for the Justice Department in a technology policy debate that pits digital privacy against national security interests.

Noting the order from federal Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in California, Cook said “this moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.” He argued that the order “has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.”

Pym’s order to Apple to help the FBI hack into an encrypted iPhone belonging Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino, California shooters, set the stage for a legal fight between the federal government and Silicon Valley. The ruling by Pym, a former federal prosecutor, requires Apple to supply highly specialized software the FBI can load onto the county-owned work iPhone to bypass a self-destruct feature, which erases the phone’s data after too many unsuccessful attempts to unlock it. The FBI wants to be able to try different combinations in rapid sequence until it finds the right one.

Jon Russell of TechCrunch laid out Cook’s argument against creating a backdoor:

Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that the company will appeal a California judge’s order to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the terrorists involved in the San Bernardino shooting. Following the request, Cook argued, would “threaten the security of our customers.”

The device in question — an iPhone 5c — belonged to Syed Farook, who, alongside his wife, carried out a mass shooting during a training event at the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, where he worked, last December. Farook and his wife were later killed by police in a shootout.

Authorities want access to data on the phone and are seeking Apple’s help to crack the passcode (PDF) by creating software which, when loaded onto the device, would circumvent the security system. That’s because, beyond the passcode itself, Apple’s security measures include an ‘auto-erase function’ which, if activated by a user, will erase all data on a device if the passcode is entered incorrectly 10 times.

In a letter to Apple customers, Cook said Apple has provided “data that’s in our possession” but it will not develop a “backdoor” for its software:

We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

Katie Benner and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times explained the legal issues at hand:

The legal issues are complicated. They involve statutory interpretation, rather than constitutional rights, and they could end up before the Supreme Court.

As Apple noted, the F.B.I., instead of asking Congress to pass legislation resolving the encryption fight, has proposed what appears to be a novel reading of the All Writs Act of 1789.

The law lets judges “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”

The government says the law gives broad latitude to judges to require “third parties” to execute court orders. It has cited, among other cases, a 1977 ruling requiring phone companies to help set up a pen register, a device that records all numbers called from a particular phone line.

Apple, in turn, argues that the scope of the act has strict limits. In 2005, a federal magistrate judge rejected the argument that the law could be used to compel a telecommunications provider to allow real-time tracking of a cellphone without a search warrant.

Marc J. Zwillinger, a lawyer for Apple, wrote in a letter for a related case in October that the All Writs Act could not be interpreted to “force a company to take possession of a device outside of its possession or control and perform services on that device, particularly where the company does not perform such services as part of its business and there may be alternative means of obtaining the requested information available to the government.”

The government says it does not have those alternative means.

Mr. Cook’s statement called the government’s demands “chilling.”