In December of 2015, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California. Authorities believe the two attackers were influenced by violent jihadist ideology. Both Farook and Malik were killed later that day in a gunfight with the authorities. Upon searching their house, law enforcement confiscated Farook’s corporate owned iPhone (Brown, 2016, p. 8). However, when the FBI tried to unlock this iPhone, they discovered that the security system in place on it would erase everything on the phone if more than ten unsuccessful attempts to open it occur. As a result, the Department of Justice asked Apple to help them gain access to the phone’s data (Sydell & Wertheimer, 2016). …show more content…
Hackers have been threatening people’s personal and private information for years, and companies like Apple have been aggressively developing and implementing better ways to keep digital information securer. If the government successfully forces this backdoor open, hackers are sure to find a way into it which will threaten millions of people’s security. It will expose digital communication to identity theft, hackers, and government agencies overreaching their legal boundaries. Dan Costa (2016) in PC Magazine stated, “Thanks to Edward Snowden, we also have ample evidence that the United States government maximizes every opportunity to intercept communications in the name of national security” (p.6). Also, this is in direct violation of the 4th Amendment, which states that people have the right to be secure against unlawful seizures of houses, papers, and effects. According to an expert on human rights with the United Nations, David Kaye, a report for the United Nation’s Rights Council released in 2015 showed, “…encryption and online anonymity advance freedom of opinion and expression” (Kary and Pettersson, 2016). What is significant about this report is that it included the input from other countries, including Cuba, Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Sweden, Turkey, Germany, Ireland, and the United States. All of their input was taken into
Apple’s iPhones are incredibly hard to hack, that the FBI can't even get in it themselves! Annoyingly, iPhone users are in trouble because the FBI is trying to get Apple to unlock an iPhone. Frighteningly, there are extremists that use iPhones to store their information in them, and if the FBI gets their hands on them, all iPhone users will be in trouble. The problem is that they don't have the right to break into somebody’s iPhone, and Apple doesn't have the information about the gunman in their database. Unfortunately, It seems the only way the FBI will get the information of lawbreakers is if they hack into their iPhones. Apple has to allow the FBI to unlock iPhones, because, they can use the information from
The NSA performed an unlawful invasion of privacy by using web encryption. Technologist, Christopher Soghoian, states that the NSA used supercomputers to gain access to encryption that provides online privacy and security. “The encryption technologies that the NSA has exploited to enable its secret dragnet surveillance are the same technologies that protect our most sensitive information, including medical records, financial transactions and commercial secrets” (qtd. in Winter). Christopher’s explanation of the encryption technologies describes how anyone could be affected by this surveillance. This is considered unlawful because the NSA hacked technologies that protect our private information. This affects the security of the nation knowing that it is possible for someone to gain access to information that people have once though were private to them. This is not the first time that the NSA has tried to gain access to private information. In fact, “For the past decade, NSA has led an aggressive multipronged effort to break widely used internet encryption technologies”
In December of 2015, 14 people were killed and more than 20 people were injured in one of California’s most deadly shootings in recent history. A couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, opened fire in a conference center in San Bernardino. The two were later killed in a shootout with the police. Their case didn’t end there. The FBI searched their house, in which they found much evidence to back that this was a terrorist plot. But a crucial piece of evidence which they found was Syed Farook’s iPhone 5C. In today’s society, phones contain more information about ourselves than even we can remember. Emails, messages, notes, bank details and much more can be found on our phone. So when the FBI was able to get hold of Farook’s phone, they were more than content. But there was one more hurdle in front of them: encryption. Since we have so much information on our devices today, we have to have some form of protection against people who want to steal our personal information, scammers hackers and many. Apple has done this by encrypting almost every piece of user’s private information on their devices. The FBI wants a way around this encryption so that they can retrieve important information on Farook’s iPhone. They want Apple to create a shortcut that would allow them to bypass all of the security on Farook’s phone, but Apple is refusing saying that they want to protect their user’s privacy. Is the FBI forcing Apple to create a
On the evening of February 17, 2016, the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters was found. The phone was still in working condition but could not be accessed because of security measures that could potentially wipe all the data on it. A reporter from the New York Times, Mike Isaac, informs on the situation in depth, writing how, being a potentially huge piece of evidence, the court demanded that the company that made the phone, Apple, create a means to either bypass or remove the encryption on it so the FBI could access the phone’s contents. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has refused to do this, stating that “No reasonable person would find [it] acceptable” to create a technique that threatens the security of others.
This justifies the previous claims that internet protection should be included in the penumbra of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. A few years ago, a former employee of both the CIA and NSA, Edward Snowden, became a whistleblower as he leaked information pertaining to the illicit activities of the NSA. One of the NSA programs that Snowden informed the public on was called XKeyscore, which allowed members of the NSA to ""search through enormous databases of emails, online chats, and browsing histories of targets,"" (Business Insider). The government having the ability to investigate the internet content of ordinary citizens, in any fashion similar to that of XKeyscore, is unjust and denies American citizens their rights. The uproaring havoc of the public following the Snowden leaks reflects how Americans today, as a whole, feel about their internet content being watched by the government. Recently, the possibility of the FCC removing net neutrality concerned many citizens, afraid they were possibly going to lose their internet privileges. While this does not directly correlate to monitoring the internet, it goes to show that many Americans do not wish to have a reduction in their internet
On December 2, 2015, Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook committed an act of terror, killing 14 people and injuring an additional 21 people. The couple was later linked to the terror group ISIS, prompting the FBI to attempt to gather information from Farook’s employer issued phone. The FBI pursued the US District Court of Los Angeles, which subsequently issued an order asserting Apple must provide “reasonable technical assistance” in unlocking the phone by providing three manners of assistance: allowing the government to enter more than 10 passcodes without the phone’s data being wiped, enabling automated entries rather than manual entries, and ridding of the gradually increasing delay system that occurs when multiple wrong
On December 2, 2015, Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik walked into a federal building and killed 14 people and injured 22. The couple fled in an SUV and later got into a shootout with police officers and was killed in their vehicle. I don’t want to take away anything from the victims of this horrible tragedy, but this set the stage for the huge battle between a tech giant in Apple and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). During the FBI investigation, it was discovered that the male suspect Rizwan Farook had in his possession a locked IPhone-5C running the iOS 7 operating system. The FBI quickly discovered that this phone would be very difficult to unlock, so they decided to turn to Apple for help in solving this issue.
After Farook and Malik were killed following their crimes, an intense legal battle broke out between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Apple. The FBI wanted the technology giant to unlock Farook’s iPhone, believing that it might contain vital information related to why he and his wife committed the act of major terrorism. Apple refused, realizing that doing so would violate the safety and privacy of their millions of customers. The situation only got more serious when a federal magistrate ordered Apple to unlock the iPhone. Interestingly, there were many cases to similar to this in the past, but none achieved near as much notoriety as this had at its climax. Part of that is because it also involves terrorism; many hope that it also
As you are aware, on December 2, 2015 a terrorist attack took place at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California in which 14 civilians were killed and 22 others were seriously injured. On February 9, 2016 the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) announced that it was unable to unlock one of the mobile phones they recovered, an Apple I-phone issued by the county of San Bernardino to the shooter Syed Rizwan Farook due to its advanced security features. (Volz, Dustin; Hosenball, Mark (February 9, 2016). "FBI director says investigators unable to unlock San Bernardino shooter 's phone content". Reuters). The FBI requested from Apple Inc., a multinational technology giant, that they create a new version of the phone’s operating system that could be installed and run in the phone’s random access memory to disable certain security features. This would effectively create a back door into the I-phone. Apple turned down the FBI’s request due to a security concern. Thus began a fight between the United States Government and Apple Inc. over breaking encryption and government intrusion. The clash reflects wider debates in the United States and elsewhere over security measures used by companies to protect users of devices such as smartphones — and how much leverage authorities should have to gain
Digital privacy concerns, which have been a major issue in our country since 2001, increasingly violate our basic human rights as global citizens. The growing amount of government surveillance has manifested in the enactment of acts such as SOPA and CISPA. Although their intent on stopping digital piracy and attacks were clear, both were immediately met with harsh criticism; they allowed big corporations to violate our privacy rights by sharing our personal information with both other companies and the government. Our President, although publicly expressing his acknowledgement of the issue, failed to discuss an array of other pressing dilemmas regulated by the recently exposed National Security Agency (NSA), especially those involving
In today’s society, technology has become one of the most used and most sought after developments of the millennium. In a recent case the FBI petitioned for Apple to unlock the phone of Syed Farook, the man responsible for shooting and killing 14 people in San Bernardino, California. The FBI believed Apple should create a new software that would not erase the data from iPhones after ten failed attempts to unlock the phone. Apple replied that they had a responsibility and an obligation to protect the privacy of their customers. Supporters of Apple 's response have argued, creating a new software was not a wise decision. In the past, government agencies have been known for their abuse of power. Had Apple chosen to create a master key for this particular case, there would be no limit to government invasion of privacy. In the end Apple could have potentially lost costumers by changing the protection of their cellular products. The issue has already been raised that creating software to access one locked device could potentially open the door for hackers to invade millions of other people’s devices. I agree that Apple should not create a new software to unlock the phone because once a master lock is created there are no limitations to who or how the coding can be used.
In the recent year and a half, citizens of almost every nation were exposed to information regarding the mass surveillance used by many governments to spy on their citizens. This information, released by Edward Snowden, confirms the long held theory that mass amounts of data regarding the personal habits and communications of individuals were being collected and stored. This revelation has given rise to a serious new debate: just how many civil liberties and rights should citizens allow their government to ignore in the name of “security”?
March 29th, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation targeted a phone that was linked to the San Bernardino attacks in California. (Three armed men opened fire upon a center for people with developmental disabilities, killing fourteen and injuring seventeen). The FBI asked Apple for their help to unlock the phone for them to investigate. Apple said absolutely not, because it would give the government a master key or backdoor to any Iphone.
The case between the company Apple and the FBI was caused by tragic event, the FBI needed an iPhone unlocked from a know shooter of a mass shooting in California. Syed Farook worked as an environmental health specialist for the San Bernardino County in California. Farook went to a Christmas party that was hosted by his job, he later shot and killed 14 and injured 22. The probable motive to Farook rampage was told on social media belong to his wife Tashfeen Malik. Malik stated that she didn 't think a Muslim should be forced to participate in a non-Muslim holiday event. After the shooting Farook and Malik was later killed by police during a standoff. When law enforcement search Farook and his property they discovered his iPhone. The FBI
Last year in December, a horrid act of terrorism transpired in San Bernardino: multiple lives lost. The government and FBI have frantically been trying to sort through the event to understand the crime. In a letter to Apple's customers, Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, addresses the issue over the FBI trying to force Apple to create a software to unlock an iPhone “recovered during the investigation”(Cook). Apple does not have a software or way to get into the phone at the time, but surely could create one, yet they should not. Unlocking the iPhone would potentially open a backdoor, and as Cook explained, “Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge” (Cook). Though this specific phone could allow the government to access critical information that could help to solve the San Bernardino case, it would also, undoubtedly, create many problems if the software got into the wrong hands.