[NewsPoster]

Microsoft co-founder and former CEO is walking back comments he made earlier regarding the Apple versus FBI dispute, and now says that his views were "oversimplified," and that he does not support the FBI's position in the encryption battle with Apple over the contents of a work-issued iPhone left behind by the San Bernardino gunman, US-born Syed Farook. Gates told Bloomberg that what he meant in his original remarks is that a debate on the right compromise between security and privacy should be had.

In his original remarks given to the Financial Times -- which Gates does not dispute he said -- he is quoted as responding to the question of "Would you support a backdoor into Microsoft phones, Google phones, Apple phones as a general principle" with the answer "Nobody's talking about a backdoor, so that's not the right question. This is a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They're not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case," a clear endorsement of the misleading statement by FBI Director James Comey that has since been discredited as untrue.

Gates clarifies earlier remarks

Apple itself, in its information page on the controversy, makes it clear that the FBI request is, in fact, a demand for a permanent backdoor, in the form of a compromised OS version that can defeat attempts to brute-force the passcode that protects the contents. It even directly addresses the statement by Comey -- now exposed ironically by the Department of Justice and the NY Attorney General in admitting they would go to court to use any tool Apple developed to unlock hundreds of seized iPhones in routine criminal cases -- that the FBI intends to force Apple's compliance on a one-time only basis.

Could Apple build this operating system just once, for this iPhone, and never use it again?

The digital world is very different from the physical world. In the physical world you can destroy something and it's gone. But in the digital world, the technique, once created, could be used over and over again, on any number of devices ... In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks. Of course, Apple would do our best to protect that key, but in a world where all of our data is under constant threat, it would be relentlessly attacked by hackers and cybercriminals. As recent attacks on the IRS systems and countless other data breaches have shown, no one is immune to cyberattacks.

Again, we strongly believe the only way to guarantee that such a powerful tool isn't abused and doesn't fall into the wrong hands is to never create it.

Gates' new comments still outline that he believes "safeguards" could be put in place to prevent abuse or escape of the compromised OS, but he now more strongly emphasizes a point he made in the original interview: that it will be up to the courts to decide if Apple should comply with the order, and that a discussion should be had over the right balance between security and privacy.

His "clarified" view is more in line with the mild expressions of support from Microsoft itself via CEO Satya Nadella, who has not commented directly but retweeted a statement from the Reform Government Surveillance (RGS) group, of which MS is a member. Statements from Twitter and Facebook have offered much more full-throated support for Cook's position, while Google has remained curiously silent behind some vague general support.

"I do believe that with the right safeguards, there are cases where the government, on our behalf, like stopping terrorism, which could get worse in the future, that that is valuable," Gates said. "But striking that balance -- clearly the government has taken information historically and used it in ways we didn't expect, going all the way back to say the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover."

"You don't want to just take the minute after a terrorist event and swing that direction, nor do you want to in general completely swing away from government access when you get some abuse being revealed," Gates said in his latest statement on the matter. "You want to strike that balance that the United States leads in setting example."

[Steve Wilkinson]

The "right balance between security and privacy" is that there is none.

[PJL500]

@Steve W True; or more to the point (maybe) the right balance is maximum privacy for maximum security.

[thinkman]

It seems that in the last year or two, "walking back" statements made has become de rigueur! In some cases, perhaps like this one, it is isn't really walking back a statement, but clarifying it by adding context.