From the readings and in your opinion, should technology companies implement backdoors in their products for the benefit of the government? Are companies like Apple ethically responsible for protecting the privacy of their users or are they ethically responsible for helping to prevent violent or harmful activities that their platforms may enable? How are these two conflicting goals to be balanced in a world of free-flowing communication and extreme terrorism?
If you are against government backdoors, how do you response to conerns of national security? Isn’t save lives or protecting our nation worth a little less individual privacy. How do you counter the argument: If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear?
Before reading anything about Apple and the backdoors that the government is requesting, I had not thought much about this issue. In fact, I thought that Apple had probably already implanted some sort of hack that could help people out if their information was lost or something. However, now after reading the article sent out from Apple, amongst the other readings on the website I believe that Apple is doing the correct thing in not creating code that is a backdoor into their product.
Of course Apple is placed in a difficult situation when trying to balance the privacy of their customers with the harmful acts their devices can aid. However, I believe that Apple has more of an ethical duty toward protecting their customer’s privacy because while it is their specific product that was helping commit a violent crime, it was not their intended use of the product. If the terrorist wasn’t using an iPhone he would have used an Android or some other similar type of phone. Once a person buys an iPhone, I am not sure how much responsibility Apple should take if that person does something negative using the phone. It is hard though. We live in a world where a lot of our speech is protected and we can instantaneously be in touch with other people. How are we supposed to protect ourselves? The N.S.A. believed that one of the best ways was to spy on everyone and tap into their Internet and phones. Clearly I think that is overstepping the bounds, but the US does need to come up with a way to protect ourselves in this world of free-flowing communication without intruding on the people’s privacy.
At one time the public might have agreed that saving and protecting lives is worth a little less individual privacy, however the government went about doing this secretly and therefore the American people lost trust in them. One of the main reasons according to the article, “Inside the FBI’s encryption battle with Apple” that Apple created such a tough encryption on their phone was because Snowden released the documents and the American people felt violated. Apple wanted to give back to them what they deserved. They wanted to provide the people with reassurance that their data would be private. Ever since then, the FBI has been looking for a case to make their point and turn around the encryption placed on these phones. Finally, the San Bernardino case allows the FBI to make their argument. The FBI is not requesting for Apple to turn off the encryption they are just requesting that Apple makes it easier for the agents to guess the password as many times as they wanted and to turn off the wait time when too many wrong guesses occur. The FBI wants special privileges for this once case only. “US officials on Wednesday stressed that their request for Apple is only limited to Farook’s phone. ‘The judge’s order and our request in this case do not require Apple to redesign its products, to disable encryption or to open content on the phone’” (Inside the FBI’s encryption battle with Apple). It sounds really good, but one needs to think about the consequences of creating such a code. Two such consequences that “Inside the FBI’s encryption battle with Apple” notes is that “Apple said that it would be impossible to limit the technology to this case. Once Apple built such an investigative tool, any iPhone’s security system – even the most modern ones – could be weakened by it.” And “Apple’s lawyers are concerned that if a judge validates the FBI’s use of the All Writs Act in this case, it will give the government sweeping authority to dictate how Silicon Valley builds products in the future.” The government has gone about it all-wrong and is not allowing the public to regain any trust in them. They keep doing things behind our backs that make us distrust them more. They need to be forthcoming about their plans and desires. Maybe if this happened people would not be as protective of their information. I don’t think people are wanting to hide their information because they genuinely have stuff to hide, I think they are wanting to hide it because they feel like they were wronged or violated by the government. It is almost as if the American population is acting like a stubborn teenager, not wanting to give up their privacy just because something bad happened to them.
However, as of now I think that Apple is doing the correct thing. I think that the FBI does not realize the magnitude of their ask and the negative consequences that could come from the backdoor they are asking to create.
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