Apple's Stance Highlights a More Confrontational TechIndustry

A) The battle between Apple and lawenforcement officials over unlocking a terrorist's     smartphone is the culmination of a slowturning of the tables between the technology industry and the United Statesgovernment.

B) After revelations by the former National Security Agency contractorEdward J. Snowden in 2013 that the government both cozied up to(讨好）certain tech companies and hackedinto others to gain access to private data on an enormous scale, tech giantsbegan to recognize the United States government as a hostile actor. But if theconfrontation has crystallized in the latest battle, it may already be headingtoward a predictable conclusion: In the long run, the tech companies aredestined to emerge victorious.

C) It may not seem that way at the moment.On the one side, you have the United States governments' mighty legal andsecurity apparatus fighting for data of the most sympathetic sort: the secretsburied in a dead mass murderer's phone. The action stems from a federal courtorder issued on Tuesday requiring Apple to help the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (FBI) to unlock an iPhone used by one of the two attackers whokilled 14 people in San Bernardino, California, in December.

D)In the other corner is the world's mostvaluable company, whose chief executive, Timothy Cook, has said he will appealthe court's order. Apple argues that it is fighting to preserve a principlethat most of us who are addicted to our smartphones can defend: Weaken a singleiPhone so that its contents can be viewed by the American government and yourisk weakening all iPhones for any government intruder, anywhere.

E)There will probably be months of legalconfrontation, and it is not at all clear which side will prevail in court, norin the battle for public opinion and legislative favor. Yet underlying all ofthis is a simple dynamic: Apple, Google, Facebook and other companies hold mostof the cards in this confrontation. They have our data, and their businessesdepend on the global public's collective belief that they will do everythingthey can to protect that data.

F) Any crack in that front could be fatalfor tech companies that must operate worldwide. If Apple is forced to open upan iPhone for an American law enforcement investigation, what is to prevent itfrom doing so for a request from the Russians or the Iranians? If Apple isforced to write code that lets the FBI get into the Phone 5c used by SyedRizwan Farook, the male attacker in the San Bernardino attack, who would beresponsible if some hacker got hold of that code and broke into its otherdevices.

G)Apple's stance on these issues emergedpost-Snowden, when the company started putting in place a series oftechnologies that, by default, make use of encryption(加密)to limit access to people's data. More than that, Apple---and, indifferent ways, other tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter andMicorsoft---- have made their  oppositionto the government's claims a point of corporate pride.

H) Apple's emerging global brand isprivacy; it has staked its corporate reputation, not to mention the investmentof considerable technical and financial resources, on limiting the sort of masssurveillance that was uncovered by Mr. Snowden. So now, for many casesinvolving governmental intrusions into data, once-lonely privacy advocates findthemselves fighting alongside the mast powerful company in the world.

I) "A comparison point is in the 1990sbattles over encryption, said Kurt Opsahl, general counsel of the ElectronicFrontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog group. Then you had a few companiesinvolved but not one of the largest companies in the world coming out with alengthy and impassioned post, like we saw yesterday from Timothy Cook. Itsprofile has really been raised.''

J) Apple and other tech companies holdanother ace: the technical means to keep making their devices more and moreinaccessible. Note that apple's public opposition to the government's requestis itself a hindrance to mass government intrusion. And to get at the contentsof a single iPhone, the government says it needs a court order and apple's helpto write new code; in earlier versions of the iPhone, ones that were createdbefore Apple found religion on(*R f) privacy, the FBI might have been able tobreak into the device by itself.

K) You can expect that noose(束缚) to continue to tighten. Experts said that whether or not Appleloses this specific case, measures that it could put into place in the futurewill almost certainly be able to further limit the government's reach.

L) That is not to say that the outcome ofthe San Bernardino case is insignificant. As apple and several security expertshave argued, an order compelling Apple to write software that gives the FBIaccess to the iPhone in question would establish an unsettling precedent. Theorder essentially asks Apple to hack its own devices, and once it is in place,the precedent could be used to justify law enforcement efforts to get aroundencryption technologies in other investigations far removed from nationalsecurity threats.

M) Once armed with a method for gainingaccess to iPhones, the government could ask to use it proactively(先发制人地),before a suspected terrorist attack--leaving Apple in a bind as to whether tocomply or risk an attack and suffer a public-relations nightmare. This is abrand-new move in the war against encryption, "Mr. Opsahl said. "Wehave had plenty of debates in Congress and the media over whether thegovernment should have a backdoor, and this is an end run(迂回战术) around that-here they come with an order to create that backdoor''

N) Yet it is worth noting that even ifApple ultimately loses this case, it has plenty of technical means to close abackdoor over time."If they are anywhere near worth their salt asengineers, I bet they are rethinking their threat model as we speak, "saidJonathan Zdziarski, a digital expert who studies the iPhone and itsvulnerabilities.

O) One relatively simple fix, Mr. Zdziarskisaid, would be for Apple to modify future versions of the iPhone to require auser to enter a passcode before the phone will accept the sort of modifiedoperating system that the FBI wants Apple to create. That way, Apple could notunilaterally introduce a code that weakens the iPhone-a user would have toconsent to it.

P)"Nothing is 100 percent hacker-proof,"Mr. Zdziarski said, but he pointed out that the judge's order in thiscase required Apple to provide "reasonable security assistance"tounlock Mr. Farook's phone. If Apple alters the security model of future iPhonesso that even its own engineers' reasonable assistance" will not be able tocrack a given device when compelled by the government, a precedent set in thiscase might lose its lasting force. In other words, even if the FBI wins thiscase, in the long run, it loses.

It is a popular belief that techcompanies are committed to protecting their customers private data.

The US government believes that itsaccess to people's iPhones could be used to prevent terrorist attacks.

A federal court asked Apple to help theFBI access data in a terrorist's iPhone.

Privacy advocates now have Applefighting alongside them against government access to personal data.

Snowden revealed that the Americangovernment had tried hard to access private data on a massive scale.

The FBI might have been able to accessprivate data in earlier iPhones without Apple s help.

After the Snowden incident, Apple madeclear its position to counter government intrusion into personal data by meansof encryption.

According to one digital expert, no iPhonecan be entirely free from hacking.

Timothy Cooks long web post has helpedenhance apple's image.

apple's CEO has decided to appeal thefederal court's order to unlock a users iPhone.