Personal information and the security that prevents it from being released into the world is something most people do not go around concerning themselves with day to day, however it is something that can cause quite a fiasco when organizations or individuals in power try to take that security away. Back in December of 2015, there was a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of fourteen innocent citizens in San Bernardino, California. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found a iPhone on the crime scene that later turned out to be the shooter’s, the problem is that the phone required a “simple” four digit passcode to open it. The government then asked the makers of the phone; Apple Inc. to create a program “working like a master key” to unlock the iPhone and gain access to the information on the phone, however Apple quickly refused due to the potential catastrophe that could have been caused by the program. This rejection set off an extensive legal and moral debate as to if the company should unlock the phone and help our national security with the investigation of the attack, or not unlock the phone and defend the security and information of millions of citizens. Apple refusing to give the Government the program to unlock the iPhone was a responsible decision, because the security system took ages to develop, it saved the security of any active phone today, the FBI did not habe the ability legal rights for a program, and they did not need such a universal tool for one phone.

Ever since 1933 there has been someone who has wanted to hack into devices no matter how big or small. The first occasion was during a congressional oversight hearing on the integrity of telephone networks when “a security researcher used an analog phone to broadcast the conference to any device in a nearby room”. There were no laws regrading the use of such technology at the time, and the only repercussion of this act was “Congress outlawed the sale of new radio scanners capable of intercepting cellular signals”; it was not until later that laws came into effect. In 1997 laws were passed, “banning the sale of scanning equipment capable of intercepting cellular signals”, however that did not stop people from trying, making cell phone and cyber security a relevant issue throughout the development of such technology. People have always wanted to, and always will find was to modify electronic devices both for better or worse. When Steve Jobs created Apple he wanted the company to “think different," and something that was different was never releasing anything that would compromise the hard work of the employees, or the value of the phone. Apple has spent the last decade developing their security systems making it the most advanced software to date, and representatives of Apple even said, “The Founders would be appalled if they gave away years of work in a flash”. While a four digit passcode may not seem that difficult to guess, it has up to ten-thousand combinations and a six digit passcode has up to 2.17 billion different combinations making it very difficult to try and guess. Along with these combinations there are other features such as time delays for too many incorrect guesses and even a feature that would erase all the data on the device after ten failed attempts. The code writers for the company never even created such a program for themselves saying, ”Only the phone knows what the passcode is, and there’s no way to get around that," they purposefully never created this program to protect their own work and make sure that it would not be misused. Years of hard work and dedication that protected an enourmous ammount of information would have been worth nothing if a master key was created.

First it is best to understand what the program was capable of and why it called master key. The program would have acted like any other application on somebodys desktop however would have had acess to everything. If you didnt have the phone in youre possesion you would not be able to unlock it be able to see anthing that phone has done involving the internet or celluar data, such as text, photo messages, phone calls, along with anything in apps that had been sent or recived and even your fingerprint from the scanner. However that is without the phone, if you did have the phone and were able to connect it to the computer with the application it allows that and more. Minus immeaditly bypassing the passcode if the phone was plugged into the computer you could pull any history that interacted with the memory card that was sent or not, as well as being able to total control the phone after. Total control such as being able to turn on the camera and microphone not only on the phone itself but also any device connected to the phone such as the microphone in a bluetooth speaker without the user knowing.  While “‘creeping’ on someone on the internet is a leagal verson of spying, the ability to do what the program can is illegal”, and a complete invasion of privacy  In a perfect world the program would stay in the right hands and never be misused, however whistle blowers such as Edward Snowdan proved that even in the government control information can be stolen.

Edward Snowden did this thing

There are over 700 million iPhones and about 300 million other Apple devices such as laptops, tablets, and smart watches active today, which works out to be 43% of all the devices in the world being an Apple product. Each phone has the ability to hold at least sixteen gigabytes of information, which is enough space to store anything you could ever want to know about someone along with a decent amount of info on their friends or family which is tied into that data. If a program like this was to fall into the wrong hands and or be misused it would take somebody a total of five minuets to have all the data from the phone in their possession, giving them the ability to know almost everything about you and even spy you. Nowadays many if not all devices from the same company are connected sharing information between each other for the convenience of the user. Several other companies such as, “Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Intel," all understood the potential dangers and were even at risk themselves if this program got into the wrong hands. After the security system has been bypassed whoever is in control of the program cannot only control anything on the phone but anything connected to the phone. Meaning someone who is on the other side of the world could turn on the cellphones microphone or the microphone in a speaker that is connected to the phone via bluetooth without the users permission or even them knowing. Relying on our phone to store information is very convenient however if this one program was created millions of gigabytes of data would be released all over the world wide web for anyone to look up. The government understood what could have become of this entity, however they were still very persistant about trying to aquire this key.

The US government and FBI are two very professional organizations who felt entitled to have legal corporation from Apple, which is a reason why they became so defensive when the company refused. Apple felt that the government was attacking and trying to take away their power the way they approached the situation. The FBI is asking for this program with the help of the All Writs Act of 1789, which is a legitimate law that covers this issue, however, they were found to be, “stretching the law far wider than the Constitution and the lawmakers have intended for it to go," asking for something “unreasonable and unlawful”. For example, “Congress has never authorized judges to compel innocent third parties to provide decryption services to the FBI”, but when it comes to a a multi-million dollar company that produces just under half of the world’s devices the Government swiftly requested the program. Although it was for evidence involved in a terroristic case the government and FBI should not be given the program due to their lack of respect of the power, and that they only needed to unlock a single iPhone.

Even though the program was never created the inevitable outcome of unlocking the phone was accomplished. The government funded an undisclosed third party to work on this case and figure out a way into the device. Nobody knows how long it took them, but we do know that the method they used only works on the 5C, the model of the shooters. Unlocking the phone proved two things, the first was that no matter how secure a company can make their systems it will still be hacked into, and that a program was unnecessary to create. 

Security is a made up wall that keeps all of your personal information inside. In todays world that wall is getting weaker and smaller everyday because of cases like this, and though it would have helped the investigation to unlock this one phone the negative outcomes would have been disastrous. Compromises are made wether we like it or not sometimes with and without our choice, and it is nice that Apple defended the public and fought for our privacy. 
