Re: Ticking Timebomb Scenario
The circumstances of the case aren't really the issue. It doesn't matter what is at stake in terms of saving lives or protecting people, it's a matter of the precedent set about what a court can and cannot demand a company do.
Even if it were the case that complying with this order save a million lives, it would still be questionable to comply with it because it's accepting that the court has the authority to order them to do something which might actually be technically impossible.
Assume for the moment that the device actually _can't_ be forced open, then what? Imagine that the encryption key is stored in a small block of Read Write memory on a chip that's otherwise Read only - the only way to get at it is to compromise the ROM part - which means you'll have to replace the chip, because the software on that chip can't be rewritten. Replace the chip and you lose the key, which puts you back where you started.
Apple would simply not be able to comply with that order, but if they comply with this one they're accepting that were such a case to arise the court would have the authority to compel them to do so - and what would that mean? It makes no sense that the court can order them to do something that they physically can't, but if they accept that they built the device and are therefore responsible for getting data off the device - which would seem to be the key premise in this case - they'd have to accept the same responsibility for this hypothetical future device.
The obvious conclusion to be drawn from that is that such a device would be illegal to build, and that's taking us into a place that we really shouldn't go.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
