In a Monday blog post on business networking site LinkedIn, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam laid out the carrier’s case for “strong encryption with no ‘back doors.’”
According to McAdam, giving the government a secret key to access private information “would degrade security and privacy for millions of users.”
McAdam said Verizon believes the policy issues in question in the current case between Apple and the FBI should be addressed by Congress, but noted Verizon “oppose(s) any solution that would place direct technical access in the hands of law enforcement.” Instead, McAdam argued, such tools should remain in the hands of providers and manufacturers.
McAdam framed his argument in the context of a world that has become – and will continue to be – increasingly and unavoidably mobile.
“Billions of customers around the world have opted for the unprecedented convenience and control that having a smartphone gives them, and with the growth of the Internet of Things we’re about to see connectivity permeate our lives even more deeply,” McAdam wrote. “In return for living more and more of their lives online, users demand that the private information they keep on these powerful devices remain just that – private.”
McAdam’s comments Monday expanded upon comments he made to Reuters last week in which he voiced support for encryption but said the issue needs to be taken up by lawmakers.
Apple v. FBI
The post comes in the wake of a ruling from a U.S. magistrate ordering Apple to help investigators at the FBI infiltrate an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California shooters. Specifically, the FBI is asking Apple to create software for the device that will allow investigators to bypass a self-destruct feature that erases the phone’s data after too many incorrect lock-code guesses.
Though the FBI has said the tool it is seeking would only be used once on this device only, Apple has contended the agency is seeking a “master key” it considers “too dangerous to create.”
At the end of last week, Apple asked the magistrate to vacate her order telling the company to help the FBI.
On Monday, a New York judge ruling on a different case in which law enforcement officials were seeking to access the contents of an iPhone for a drug investigation sided with Apple. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein said in his ruling that in seeking to compel Apple’s compliance through the 1789 All Writs Act, government officials are stretching an old law “to produce impermissibly absurd results.”
Though not binding, Orenstein’s ruling came just ahead of a congressional hearing on the California case that is scheduled to take place today.
For and against
Though law enforcement officials, the victims’ families and some members of the public have said they’re seeking justice and accused Apple of waging a marketing and public relations battle, several large tech companies and experts have come forward to support Apple.
Facebook in particular has said that though it condemns terrorism, acquiescence to the government’s demands would set a “chilling precedent and obstruct companies’ efforts to secure their products.”
Flashpoint chief scientist Lance James has pointed out, however, that the FBI is attempting to preserve the integrity of both the device and the investigation in going straight to Apple.
“It has been brought up that many people feel that FBI shouldn’t ask Apple to do this; why not get the NSA or hackers to do it,” James said. “But this poses a bigger problem – evidence tampering and unpredictable damage to the evidence itself. Since the phone is evidence, the FBI doesn’t want to break it or exploit it and ruin the evidence and chain of custody process.”
“So in this case the FBI seems to be viewing this as a normal request to ask of Apple, because it’s analogous to having the landlord open the door to the deceased’s apartment rather than kicking it in and destroying evidence or compromising a crime scene,” he continued.
Yet others, like Apple’s Tim Cook, SnoopWall CEO Gary Miliefsky and McAdam have said creating or even hinting at the existence of such a key could open Pandora’s box for hackers who will want to take advantage of such a “back door” into iOS devices.
“Securing your personal information and the safety of these critical infrastructure elements will be paramount to the successful integration and operation of our society,” McAdam wrote. “Indiscriminate access to any of those systems could wreak havoc on our society and put millions of lives at risk.”
While it waits for a decision from the courts – and possibly Congress – Apple is hedging its bets for the future of its device security with the hire of Frederic Jacobs, the developer behind the encrypted messaging app used by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Jacobs said he will be working with Apple’s CoreOS security team this summer.
