I do not believe that companies should be forced, or even consent, to put backdoors into their products, for a number of reasons. The greatest among these is the folly of attempting to create a secure system with a backdoor. It is, by definition, impossible to have a completely secure system that also contains a backdoor. This is because the backdoor can theoretically be accessed by anyone that knows the code or sequence that triggers this. This would usually be the one the backdoor was designed for, say a government entity. But there is also nothing stopping nefarious powers, such as enemies of the state and oppressive regimes, from finding and using the same backdoor for their own ends. This also extends to government-approved or enabled encryption standards, which allow an entity to snoop on the plaintext. It is impossible to create a truly secure code that can be easily decoded by a third party, regardless of intentions. Therefore, the weakening of security, while perhaps useful in specific cases such as this, is ultimately a gained vulnerability in our technology that can be exploited by any third party with sufficient knowledge and resources.
The second concern that I hold is that this requirement is far beyond the reasonable reach of the government. For one, it is forcing a public entity to put its own time and resources into creating this back door, for which they will not receive any help or remuneration from the government. This sets a dangerous precedent of putting the burden on public companies to assist when the government requests it. While Apple can of course probably deal with this expense without any repercussions, other smaller companies may not be as financially blessed. I also worry about the precedent that this would have for future cases of private information access. Not only has it been shown that such software can be created, but it would be a simple matter to point a judge in the direction of this case, and thus force Apple to use the backdoor software again and again, despite the FBI’s claims that this will be a one time occurrence.
Ultimately, I believe that Apple has a responsibility to protect its users, not to track them and prevent them form misuses of the products they create. I do not believe that the company should put its customers at risk of various crimes such as spying and identity theft simply to prevent another crime. This strikes me as a lateral transaction. To those claiming that people should not be worried because they “have nothing to hide,” I would ask them to review history. No one has anything to hide until the time is right. The United States was founded by men who had plenty to hide from the British government, even though they did not have much to hide prior to that. It is for this reason that they included such protections in the constitution, to help protect citizens in future events. The relinquishing of liberty for an increased sense of security is a scary proposition to weigh.
kosercseethics 