Assault on the iPhone

The United States Department of Justice announced this Monday, 28 March, that the FBI had at last succeeded in hacking Syed Farook's mobile phone. Farook was one of the perpetrators of the San Bernardino (California) terrorist attack in December 2015 in which 14 people died. And it has done it without Apple's help.

This puts an end, for the moment, to the so-called "iPhone case", in which the courts had to decide whether the US authorities had the right to ask Apple to unlock Farook's phone, which became inaccessible after the FBI's failed attempts to open it.


Opposing positions

The Department of Justice argued that the company was not above the law and the court order only sought to get the company to provide technical assistance to the FBI's investigation by unlocking the iPhone 5c.

Apple, however, feared that this would set a precedent for forcing companies not only to provide their customers' data whenever the authorities ask for them but also to create a "backdoor" (a secret access to encrypted devices) that could be used on all iPhones whenever it was wished. At the core of the debate was the encryption of the IT services used by a large part of the population.


Keys to the case: what the experts say

To what extent can a company refuse to obey the law?

Miquel Peguera, the UOC's expert in Internet law, thinks that "a company cannot refuse to obey the law". What it can do is challenge the order to cooperate, so that the courts always have the final word on the matter. Now the legal debate will be whether the government should tell Apple what vulnerability it has found to unlock the iPhone or whether it can keep it secret.

Can governments force technology companies and software developers to hack their own tools?

States have legal mechanisms for demanding companies' cooperation but always within certain limits laid down by law. A petition such as that made by the Department of Justice was probably excessive. Apple was not just asked to unlock a device but to create a new software that disabled the protection.

Which should prevail, security or the right to privacy?

Peguera warns that "curtailments on individual rights are justified by arguments based on public security. But there must be limits because otherwise, following the same logic, we allow ourselves to be ruled by fear and give carte blanche to governments to spy on private citizens. And not just governments. In this case, the existence of this new software could pose a threat to millions of terminals if it fell into the hands of criminal groups".


Apple's reaction: announce more security measures

Carles Garrigues, the UOC's expert in applications for mobile devices, open-source software and security, explains that the models 5s and 6, which are the versions released after the iPhone 5c (the model of Farook's device) "are built with the new A7 processor, which includes improvements in cryptographic security, which means that, in principle, not even Apple can unlock a telephone".

Therefore, in the expert's opinion, no government or security agency will be able to legally demand that Apple unlock a telephone, simply because Apple will have no way of doing this. What is more, "this type of policy (using weaker cryptographic algorithms or forcing companies to disclose information about their customers) can only intrude on the privacy of well-intentioned users and will have no effect whatsoever on evildoers".


Public opinion is divided

According to a study carried out by the Pew Research Centre, 51% of Americans believed that Apple should unlock the iPhone to help the federal police in their investigations, as opposed to 38% who believed it shouldn't and 11% who weren't sure.

Apple's communication strategy to address the crisis with the FBI has been very simple. The company wrote an open letter in which it explained its position with respect to the affair. A few days later, Tim Cook sent an email to the employees and, lastly, gave an interview to the ABC TV channel.


Keys for understanding the communication

Ferran Lalueza, the UOC's expert in communication, says that Apple has been very clever in its communication management, especially taking into account that initially its stance was not easy to understand or defend and it had more critics than supporters among American public opinion.

Apple:

1. Has stressed solidarity with the victims of the terrorist attack and their families, and the wish to cooperate with justice.
2. Has managed to turn the FBI's petition into a sort of Pandora's box that, if it should prevail, would cause irreparable damage to people's freedom, privacy and even security.
3. Has used metaphors such as cancer or the master key that can open any lock to paint an apocalyptic scenario that would supposedly be brought about by the creation of a software capable of accessing iPhones by the "backdoor".

On the other hand, the FBI and the Department of Justice:

1. Have focused more on the legal battle than on the media battle.
2. They were convinced that the memory of the victims of San Bernardino would be a strong enough argument by itself to win the support of public opinion in this duel between Titans.
3. They have had the current context in their favour, unfortunately marked by a dramatic succession of terrorist acts.

But Lalueza points out some of the keys for understanding the case:

1. Apple could not openly accede to the FBI's petition without seriously endangering its business model, and we should not forget here that the iPhone is its star product and its users store large quantities of highly sensitive information on it.
2. If someone has been capable of overriding the iPhone's encryption to cooperate with the FBI, there will also be someone capable of doing it for much less legitimate reasons, even if Apple is unwilling to acknowledge this.
3. All of this is taking place within a context in which relations between Apple and the Department of Justice are severely strained, after the recent sentence by the Supreme Court against the brand's interests for violating antitrust regulations and conspiring to raise the price of e-books.

Support

While Google, Twitter and Facebook came out in support of Apple, Microsoft's founder Bill Gates, for example, said in The Financial Times that "this is a special case in which the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for something that will be done on a general basis; they are asking for something that will only be done in this particular case".