The FBI and police officials say they need to decrypt secure communications to fight crime. But they have other options, and modern threats make clear the importance of strong encryption.
The technical consensus is clear: Adding ‘backdoors’ to encryption algorithms weakens everyone’s security. So what are the police and intelligence agencies to do?
The FBI has a history of abusing search warrants to illegally read Americans’ emails. Did the agency just do it again, in the highest of all high-profile situations?
We don’t expect our own government to hack our email – but it’s happening, in secret, and if current court cases go badly, we may never know how often.
Bad guys or law enforcement could hack into our networked gadgets to spy on everything we do – and it’s not clear how a laptop’s video camera or an Amazon Echo fits within wiretapping laws.
Apple’s refusal to back down in its fight with the FBI is a sharp reversal from just a few years ago when it was the government urging tech companies to do more to protect consumer privacy.