​Apple to Oppose Order to Help FBI Unlock Phone Belonging to Terrorists

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that his company will resist a U.S. judge's order to access encrypted data hidden on a cellphone that belonged to the terrorist couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last year. Cook said that such a move would undermine encryption by creating a backdoor that could potentially be used on other future devices. "In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession," Cook said. The tech industry and the White House have long been at odds over how much access government agencies should be given to private phone data. Recently, Comey, Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch and other national security leaders met with representatives from Google, Apple and Facebook to try and find common ground that would help investigators gain critical information about possible terror plots without compromising the privacy of the companies' customers. The order, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in Riverside, California, does not ask Apple to break the phone's encryption but rather to disable the feature that wipes the data on the phone after 10 incorrect tries at entering a password. That way, the government can try to crack the password using “brute force” — attempting tens of millions of combinations without risking the deletion of the data. Apple says it has cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the investigation, complying with valid search warrants and subpoenas. The company says the government now effectively wants it to create a new version of its iPhone software that bypasses important security measures.