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In order to help readers follow the complex path of a complex debate about both one particular case and the broader implications for fundamental American freedoms, in addition to our two week-by-week summaries of events so far in the Apple-FBI dispute, MacNN has now produced a video, available on YouTube, for those who have five minutes and would like to get caught up on most of the salient details in each side's case for an against creating a backdoor into the iPhone (and other mobile devices).
On the one side stands FBI Director James Comey, who has been a long-standing opponent of any sort of encryption on smartphones or other devices, seeing them as hindrances to law enforcement investigations. Various groups, most notably some of the families of the San Bernardino victims, numerous district attorneys, and some politicians, have lined up with the FBI's arguments that it must force Apple to create a method by which it can then decrypt the contents of smartphones.
On the other side stands Apple and its CEO Tim Cook, which brought the case to national attention by defying a judge's order to provide the FBI with assistance in brute-force attacking a seized work-issued iPhone 5c left behind by one of the San Bernardino gunmen. Apple has said that the only way to further assist the agency at this point -- thanks to some early mishandling by the FBI and San Bernardino County officials -- would be to deliberately weaken the security of the iPhone generally, by creating a tool that would allow the FBI (or other law enforcement officials) access to the device's encrypted contents.
Although there is considerable doubt that the device has any useful information on it at all, the possibility of any scrap of useful data -- no matter how improbable -- has motivated the FBI to make a play for the break-in tool through the courts. Apple has argued that any debate on security and encryption belongs in the US Congress, and Congress appears to agree with that view. Apple is supported in its dispute with the court order by (essentially) all the big tech companies and online service providers, along with at least two of the families of the victims, privacy and civil rights groups, and a slight majority of the public.
Our video focuses on the background leading up to the House Judiciary Committee meeting that saw Director Comey, Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell, and other witnesses put forward their cases as to why they are pursuing the course of actions they are. Check out the video, and let us know what you think.
As with our ebooks, MacNN grants the end user a license to use this video for educational purposes in front of a group of any size. Proper credit must be given, in the form of an URL mentioned by the presenter after the video has aired.
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