Re: Hyperbole
@chris 17,
"How do you remove the knowledge learnt from engineers heads? The ability to do as the Fbi ask does not exist"
You can't, and it's already there. On reading the newspapers some coder somewhere in Apple's employ has already involuntarily thought it through. And for all intents and purposes it does exist, it simply hasn't been typed in yet.
Apple have their source code and their own signing keys. They can make any change they like and have any iPhone anywhere on the planet accept it. That's the whole purpose of signing keys. The source code changes are almost certainly trivial, something like:
if (PINRetries > 10) {
wipe_phone();
}
Becomes:
if ((serialnum != <Farook's phone serial number>) && (PINRetires > 10)) {
wipe_phone();
}
No matter what side of the debate one is on, we have to recognise that it can be done.
@Richard 12,
"And the other hundred or so requests currently pending? And the millions of requests this would unleash? And the fact that every other country in the world would immediately demand the same ability?"
It is important to acknowledge that whether or not Apple do this for the FBI is irrelevant to the rest of the world. The rest of the world does not need to wait for Apple to satisfy the FBI's request. They can, within whatever the local legal framework permits, apply varying degrees of pressure on Apple and their business in that country. Unfortunately in some countries that pressure may be applied for reasons not generally compatible with a harmonious and peaceful democratic society.
As you implicitly acknowledging everyone now knows it can happen. It is public knowledge. It may (and almost certainly will in some counties) as you say result in millions of requests flooding in. If Apple really, really, didn't want to become the focus of that then it was in their best interests to keep every hint of the possibility as quiet as possible.
However the relationship between the FBI and Apple (and the whole tech industry) has clearly broken down to the extent that the FBI decided to go public. That was never going to be in Apple's interest, and who knows, it may have been wiser to have caved in whilst it was still a private matter. The FBI have clearly wrong-footed Apple in this dispute; Apple clearly did not anticipate it becoming a public matter.
Don't for one moment think that I consider the FBI, politicians or anyone else to be angels in all this. The FBI are acting crazily with FBI vs. MS and their Irish data centre. Politicians in the US and elsewhere have failed to lead and inspire a proper public debate about just how high tech industry should, for the benefit of society as a whole, interact with law enforcement. This whole thing may (and I sincerely hope not) result in a significant increase in successful terrorist plots, a decrease in successful criminal prosecutions, etc. This kind of thing is what happens when lazy politicians fail to properly consider changes in industry and society.