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Should FBI Force Apple to Hack Its Own Phones?

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

In the final Republican presidential primary debate before Super Tuesday, all five of the candidates took the FBI's side in the bureau's dispute with Apple over a terrorist's cellphone that the feds want to decrypt. But do the candidates really know what they're supporting?

The comments they gave, crackling with applause lines, caused me to agree with my millennial son's observation, "If you want to know how iPhones work, don't turn to a politician."

At issue is an Apple iPhone that was used by Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The FBI, which is investigating the case, has a warrant for the information on this phone, but they can't read it.

Its data is locked and encrypted behind a password that Apple says is designed to be too complex even for Apple to crack.

Apple has cooperated with the FBI in providing all the phone's data that was on a cloud server.

 

But Apple can't crack the encryption on the phone itself without inventing a new operating system, they say.

So, guess what? The FBI obtained a court order that goes where no court order ever has gone before. It orders Apple to invent that new system.

And that's just fine with the Grand Old Party's presidential candidates.

"Apple initially came out saying we're being ordered to create a backdoor to an encryption device," Sen. Marco Rubio said. "That is not accurate."

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(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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