Apple Will Fight Order to Unlock San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone

    Apple CEO Tim Cook. (Valery Marchive / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook says his company will oppose a federal order to help the FBI hack into an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino, Calif., shooters because compliance could undermine encryption for millions of other users.

READ: Tim Cook’s “A Message to Our Customers“

The Associated Press reports:

Cook’s response, posted early Wednesday on the company’s website, set the stage for a legal fight between the federal government and Silicon Valley with broad implications for digital privacy and national security.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym had ordered Apple to help the FBI break into an iPhone belonging to Syed Farook, one of the shooters in the Dec. 2 attack that killed 14 people. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, died in a gun battle with police.

The ruling by Pym, a former federal prosecutor, requires Apple to supply software the FBI can load onto Farook’s county-owned work iPhone to bypass a self-destruct feature that 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.

The Obama administration has embraced stronger encryption as a way to keep consumers safe on the Internet but has struggled to find a compelling example to make its case.

Cook called the ruling an example of government overreach and 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.” He said it could undermine encryption by using specialized software to create an essential back door akin to a “master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks.”

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—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.