It is being reported that Apple is working extremely hard internally on building an iPhone that nobody can hack into. Attention has recently been lavished onto Apple in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting in California, with law enforcement agencies applying pressure on the company to create a new version of iOS that introduces a backdoor to bypass security. This latest report suggests that Apple is responding to the security storm by trying to build an even more secure device and ecosystem that would make it impossible to break into iPhones, even for Apple. In other words, this would effectively make FBI’s current requests useless.
It’s been widely reported over the last few weeks that the FBI wants Apple to build an entirely separate version of iOS without all of Apple’s usual securities in place that could then be installed onto the iPhone 5c belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters in order to extract required data from it for investigation purposes. As it stands right now, it’s possible for Apple to update the firmware on the device to a newer, less secure, version of iOS as FBI has demanded. Apple has never created such a software, and they don’t want to either, but it can be done if being forced, like in this case.
Tim Cook and Apple clearly feel compelled by the recent happenings to look deeper into actually trying to make the iPhone impenetrable. If the report is accurate, then this could essentially make it impossible to gain access to any iPhone, even with the full cooperation of Apple. It seems that the potential for domestic and foreign government agencies to be able to gain access to iOS is sobering enough thought for Apple to act accordingly and stop it from happening, even against the will of the federal courts.
Apple’s CEO – Tim Cook – has been extremely vocal and public on his thoughts relating to the San Bernardino situation. After publishing a FAQ page for customers and an email to employees that tackled some of the more burning issues about this case, Cook has recently spoken to ABC’s David Muir to explain his and Apple’s stance on the subject. As part of the interview, Cook didn’t mince his words, choosing to call the potential new version of iOS used to gain access to iPhones the “software equivalent of cancer”.
(Source: The New York Times)
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