I’ve held back long enough from talking about Apple, the feds and security. Frankly, I think we’re satiated with news about iPhone security and me writing more on the subject may be superfluous. But this week I heard a quip on the news that spawned me to talk a bit about my take on the subject.
At the tail end of an NPR news show the announcer mentioned that crooks are moving away from prepaid (or burner) phones to iPhones. “Thank you Apple,” a drug dealer said as he talked about Apple’s fight for privacy. News about San Bernardino shifted to Apple.
Apple hasn’t given in to the court order because it would have to undo the security it has worked so hard to create. Customers make purchasing decisions for various reasons, and knowing their data will be secure is certainly one of those reasons. Apple executives aren’t dummies, during the last quarter of 2015 nearly 75 million iPhones were sold, which would clearly decline if they provided the master key.
Many people don’t realize Apple designed the iPhone with unrivaled security. Aside from encrypting data, they provide options to securely erase data in the event an incorrect pass code is entered too many times. As long as the phone is setup for erasure the Find My iPhone app will remotely eradicate all data on the phone.
Apple already took heat for not securing its cloud storage a couple years ago and because of that worked to make their products more secure. Data on phones and computers can be encrypted by the user making it impossible to retrieve without the user’s permission. Apple designed the iPhone as a reliable and secure device making encryption one of the selling features.
If Apple were to provide the master key to its security then anyone interested in unlocking an iPhone could have access to any iPhone data. Like many users, I have much of my personal information stored in my phone’s memory including credit card, banking and who knows what else. If 75 million were sold in 90 days then that’s a lot of personal information that could be illicitly collected leading to the possibility of a major data breach.
Many people don’t realize iPhone information is stashed away in various locations other than the phone itself. Syncing with iTunes buries an image of the phone’s data on the computer’s hard drive. Anyone with the proper software can read the information contained within the compressed files. We use such software at a couple of the stores for retrieving customer files and it’s impressive the data that’s stored within the backups.
Not a day has passed without someone talking to me about the whole Apple iPhone security matter. The latest I heard was something about “dormant cyber pathogens” and the shooter’s phone initializing a cyber attack against the country. If this is the concern then simply turning the phone off is a valid solution without jeopardizing the freedoms of every iPhone user.
My opinion is this case has moved away from figuring out whether the San Bernardino shooters were part of some more elaborate terrorist group. It seems to me the case has now focused on squeezing Apple for its secret master code. Apple will prevail because it holds more of the key than any other group or organization and I’m quite sure that any company that can sell $45 billion in phones in three months is smart enough to delete files.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)