Case Study: The New Crypto Wars: The Dispute over Apple’s iPhone

Encryption technology in the United States has a long and involved history that has often pitted Silicon Valley against the federal government in Washington, D.C. In the latest chapter of this history Apple found itself entangled in an intense controversy centered on its very popular iPhone. At issue was the employment of hyper-strong device encryption that tightly locked the data stored on the iPhone. In the aftermath of a terrorist attack in 2015 in San Bernardino the FBI and Apple squared off in a public battle over encryption.

The San Bernardino shooting was another tragic incident where innocent people were senselessly killed at the hands of terrorists. Armed with an assault rifle, Mr. Syed Farook, a county health inspector, killed 14 people and wounded 22 others. Farook was assisted in the lethal attack by his wife. The couple was killed a short time later in a shootout with police.

One piece of crucial evidence was one of the assailant’s iPhones. Since that phone ran the iOS 9 operating system, it was protected by unbreakable encryption, and its contents could not be accessed by the FBI as part of its investigation into these horrific shootings. Apple could not comply with the FBI’s request, backed by a federal warrant, for access to the phone since the company did not retain the master key to this data. The FBI then requested that Apple create new software that would simply overcome the phone’s built-in hyper security. The FBI did not ask Apple to construct a master key. Rather, it sought an alternative operating system software for this one phone that would allow them to break into this locked device. Among other things, this software would disable a feature that erases data stored on the phone after 10 unsuccessful password attempts. But Apple refused because it was concerned that such software, which bluntly overrode the iOS 9, could be stolen or somehow fall into the wrong hands.

One year earlier, in the fall of 2014, the company had announced that this new encryption architecture would be built into the iOS 8, the iPhone’s operating system, along with all subsequent versions of that operating system (OS). The 256-bit AES algorithm would prevent anyone other than the iPhone user from accessing the data stored on that phone. Hence all the important data on a user’s smartphone—photos, messages, contacts, reminders, call history—are now locked up with unbreakable encryption by default. Decryption is seamlessly linked to the user’s password. Only the user would be able to access the iPhone’s contents, unless his or her passcode has been compromised. Apple indicated that it would not retain a master key to unlock the contents of any user’s phone or provide any sort of “backdoor access” to these data. Without the user’s password and cooperation, law enforcement officials would have no means of accessing any information locked on the smartphone.

Similarly, Facebook has introduced a 256-bit end-to-end encryption technology for its WhatsApp text messaging service to secure messages in transit from one smartphone or mobile device to another. WhatsApp has adopted the open-source software Text Secure, which scrambles messages with a cryptographic key that only the user can access and never leaves his or her device. The result is unbreakable encryption for hundreds of millions of phones and tablets that have WhatsApp installed. Moreover, Facebook, following the precedent set by Apple, will not store a master key to unscramble these data

Law enforcement officials in the United States, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), have expressed great dismay over this further evolution of the crypto wars. The FBI wants Apple and Google (the maker of the Android OS for smartphones) to design a smartphone system so that police and federal authorities (with a court order) can access information stored on that phone without any compromise in security. Former FBI Director James Comey insisted that the FBI needs access to suspects’ iPhones and WhatsApp messages. Also, according to Comey, encrypted smartphone apps help terrorist organizations recruit and allow “bad people. . .to communicate with impunity.” Full disk encryption, he argued, materially limits law enforcement’s capacity to efficiently investigate crimes and terrorist acts.

Companies like Apple, however, have ignored these government warnings, arguing that the protection of user privacy is of paramount importance. They are strongly opposed to building any version of an encryption backdoor. Apple CEO, Tim Cook, remains convinced that strong encryption without backdoor access is the only suitable way to protect the privacy of Apple’s customers: “I don’t know a way to protect people without encryption. . . .[and] you can’t have a backdoor that’s only for the good guys.”

Civil libertarians have generally applauded Apple’s decision. According to Wired, “Apple has come to the right place. It’s a basic axiom of information security that ‘data at rest’ should be encrypted. Apple should be lauded for reaching that state with the iPhone.” Google’s decision to follow suit by incorporating this full device encryption architecture in the Android operating system also pleased civil libertarians who have long called for strong crypto to protect user privacy. On the other hand, the Washington Post has argued for a “secure golden key” that would enable police to decrypt a smartphone with a warrant. Others citing national security arguments contend that this “Clipper chip” approach is both suitable and necessary.

In the midst of this debate, one thing is certain: the dispute about unbreakable encryption has been revived with a new fury and a renewed intensity.

Question:

A pivotal question is whether it would be possible to develop some type of emergency access system for consumer devices with strong encryption that did not pose privacy and information security risks?

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