In the news

Apple has been in the news this week because of iPhone security.  As noted by Katie Benner of the New York Times, Attorney General William Barr stated that he needed Apple’s help to access information on an iPhone used by a gunman at a Pensacola, FL naval station last month.  Barr wants Apple to come up with a way that the government can always access an iPhone, even if it is locked.  And President Trump tweeted that Apple needs to comply.  Back in 2016, I wrote about similar requests by the FBI under the Obama administration in connection with a gunman in San Bernadino, CA.  When you see news stories like this, I urge you to consider the following:  this is all nonsense.

First, the government doesn’t really need Apple’s assistance.  This is all a show.  Independent forensic companies have been looking for and coming up with ways to hack into the iPhone (and other technology) for a long time.  Every year, Apple improves iPhone security to make this harder, although even with the newest iPhone 11 Pro, Thomas Brewster of Forbes reports that the government has used a device called GrayKey to hack into the device.  In the Pensacola shooting case, the iPhone models are an iPhone 5 and iPhone 7, which were released in 2012 and 2016.  Governments and forensic companies have had ways to hack into these older phones for a while.  The government is picking cases with bad facts — such as mass shootings — to get more sympathy, but the government has other ways to access data on these devices.  Maybe the government wants to avoid paying smart forensic companies and instead have Apple do this for free, but there is a reason that these services are expensive.  They should be expensive.  We don’t want it to be cheap and easy to circumvent security.

Second, the government wants you to ignore that there is a cat-and-mouse game going on here, and that this is a good thing.  It should work that way.  Apple comes up with new ways to protect the iPhone.  Then smart hackers find exploits.  And then it continues.  Again and again.  As a result, the iPhone remains as secure as possible for all of the legitimate reasons that people have a right to keep their information private, whether it be confidential legal communications, medical information, or the list of potential present ideas for your spouse.  If Apple has to stop making the iPhone more secure so that it can instead create a back door into the iPhone, it is pure fantasy to assume that only “good guys” will be able to use the back door.  Malicious hackers always find a way to exploit these sorts of openings, but with Apple required to keep it open so that the FBI can use it, Apple won’t be able to fix the back door that it was required to create.  Plus, if Apple makes the back door available to the U.S. government, then you can bet that every other government will demand access as well.  Even if you have 100% trust in all agents of the U.S. government, do you feel the same way about the agents of every other government in the world?  And even if access could somehow be limited to only “good” governments — whatever that means — there are countless examples of information leaking from agencies like the NSA and CIA that are supposed to be the best at keeping secrets.  It is critical for it to remain Apple’s job to continually improve security, even as hackers continue to find ways to undermine that and the cat-and-mouse game continues.

Third, agencies like the FBI and Department of Justice have access to countless ways to investigate that did not exist years ago.  Yes, I want them to solve cases, but they don’t need to have unlimited resources, such as being able to force companies like Apple to build back doors into the iPhone.  I’m sure that many of us would be “safer” if we lived in a complete police state, but at what cost?  It is a good thing to encourage the investigation of crimes, but at some point, the investigators can go too far.

Fourth, even if Apple did create back doors in the iPhone in response to these government demands, then the bad guys would just start using something else.  If you ban guns, only criminals will have guns.  If you force Apple to make the iPhone insecure, then only criminals will have secure phones.

Privacy and secrecy have important and legitimate roles in our society.  It is a good thing to have companies like Apple doing their best to improve security on the devices used by their customers, even if there will never be a device that is 100% secure from hacking.  So when you hear someone from the government complain about Apple refusing to make their own devices insecure, regardless of which political party is in power, please consider the implications of what they are asking for.  Okay, my rant is over, let’s get on to the rest of the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks offers his own take on the request for Apple to create a back door into the iPhone.
• Kurt Wagner of Bloomberg profiles the General Counsel at Twitter, Vijaya Gadde.
• Glenn Fleishman explains, in an article for TidBITS, why cell phones do not give you cancer.
• Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac reports that, according to estimates, Apple’s AirPods are so popular that Apple received 71% of wireless headphone revenue in 2019.
• If you use GoodNotes to take handwritten notes on your iPad, version 5.4 was released this week which adds the ability to automatically keep a PDF backup of your notes on Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive.
• If you own an Apple battery case for the iPhone XS, XS Max, or XR, Apple is now replacing some of the cases because of issues that may cause the battery to stop charging, as reported by Josh Centers of TidBITS.
• Tim Hardwick of MacRumors reports that Apple is now offering less money when you trade in certain models of the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and other devices.
• Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reports on a new HomeKit-enabled smart plug from Belkin that is very small and thus takes up very little space in an outlet.
• How impressive have iPhone sales been over the last decade?  Jason Snell of Six Colors shows it in charts — especially the last chart.
• According to an article by Kofo Lasaki of a local CBS affiliate, a woman in Virginia Beach, VA reported that the iPhone’s SOS feature called 911 and saved her from an attempted sexual assault.
• Zac Hall of 9to5 reports that an Apple Watch automatically called 911 and helped a person who was hit by a car while riding a bike during a morning commute.
• Marius Masalar wrote an extensive review of the AirPods Pro for The Sweet Setup.
• Shawn King of The Loop shared a great one:  open Safari on your iPhone, type “How big is a wolf” so that you do a Google search for that phrase, tap the top entry, and then tap on the link to View in 3D.  Very cool.
• And finally, Apple hired artists to create posters to promote some of its Apple TV+ shows, and Apple created some neat videos to show how the artists used an iPad and Apple Pencil to do so.  Click here for the video associated with the show Dickinson, and click here or watch below to see that video associated with For All Mankind — which is currently my favorite show on Apple TV+, but I also really enjoyed The Morning Show (especially the last few episodes of Season 1).  I’ve just started watching Dickinson.