The Backdoor: Apple and the FBI

On Monday, February 29, the fight between Apple and the FBI over the iPhone is the most important technology story in the world, and the fight is about a single phone and a single principle. The FBI wants Apple to build a version of iOS that would let it unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino attackers; Apple says the software the FBI demands would be a backdoor into every iPhone ever made. The confrontation is the February 2016 story, and the story is the lesson: the leaders who refuse to build the wrong thing, even under pressure, are the leaders who keep the trust that matters.

The Backdoor is the subject of this article: how the case began, what the court ordered, what Tim Cook said in response, and what the argument means for the future of encryption. The order was issued on February 16, the letter followed within a day, and the debate has been building ever since. This is the story of the backdoor, and the story is about the moment the security of software became a matter of principle.

1. The Phone

The story begins with a phone, and the phone belonged to a killer. Syed Farook was one of the two attackers who killed fourteen people in San Bernardino, California, in December 2015, and after the attack the FBI recovered an iPhone 5c issued to him by his employer. The phone was locked, and the FBI wanted to read what was on it: contacts, messages, and data that might reveal who had helped plan the attack.

The phone was a piece of evidence, and the evidence was locked by the very technology that had made it secure. The iPhone was protected by a passcode, and the phone was designed to wipe itself after ten failed attempts. The FBI could not guess the passcode, and it could not break the encryption. The only way into the phone, the FBI concluded, was to ask Apple to build a tool to open it. The phone was the beginning of the story, and the phone was the hardest part.

2. The Order

The order came from a federal magistrate judge in California, Sheri Pym, on February 16, 2016. The order directed Apple to assist the FBI by creating a special version of iOS that would disable the passcode limits and the auto-erase feature, allowing the government to try passcodes until it found the right one. The legal basis was the All Writs Act, a statute from 1789 that lets courts issue orders necessary to carry out their judgments.

The order was unprecedented, and the novelty was the problem. The government had never before compelled a company to build software specifically to defeat its own security. The order asked Apple to write code, and the code was not for a single phone in the usual sense: it was a tool that could be applied to any iPhone. The order was the government's answer to the encryption problem, and the answer was a demand for a key.

3. The Letter

The response came from Tim Cook, and the response was a letter to Apple's customers. Cook wrote that the FBI's demand was "an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers," and that the software the government wanted would be a backdoor: a master key that could open any iPhone, not just the one in San Bernardino. He said Apple had already helped the government with the data it could provide, and that the company would not build the tool.

The letter was a public declaration, and the declaration was carefully argued. Cook acknowledged the horror of the attack and the sympathy for the victims, and he refused the demand anyway. He framed the issue as a choice between security and security: the security of the phone against criminals and the security of every phone against the possibility of abuse. The letter was the moment the fight became public, and the moment the company staked its position.

4. The Principle

The principle at the heart of the fight is the difference between a key and a backdoor. Apple said it would comply with court orders to provide data it actually has, like the contents of an iCloud account, and the distinction mattered. The company drew the line at building software that did not exist: a version of iOS that could bypass its own protections. The line was the principle, and the principle was that a tool designed to break one phone is a tool designed to break every phone.

The principle had a technical foundation. The tool the FBI requested, once built, would exist as a piece of Apple's code, and the code could be stolen, leaked, or demanded again. The security of hundreds of millions of iPhones would depend on the secrecy of a single tool, and the history of security showed that secrets of that size do not stay secret. The principle was not a legal technicality; it was an engineering judgment about what can be kept safe.

5. The Support

The support for Apple came from across the technology industry, and the support was unusually public. The chief executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, posted that forcing the backdoor would be a troubling precedent. The leaders of WhatsApp, Twitter, and Microsoft spoke in similar terms, and the technology industry lined up behind the company it had often criticized. The support was a sign that the issue was bigger than one company.

The support also came from the public, and the public was divided in an instructive way. Polls showed the country split, with majorities sympathetic to both sides of the argument: people wanted the FBI to catch terrorists, and people did not want the government to have a master key to their phones. The split was the honest reflection of a real dilemma, and the dilemma was the reason the fight mattered. The support was the context, and the context was the debate.

6. The Opposition

The opposition came from the government, and the government's argument was also serious. The FBI director, James Comey, warned of "going dark," the growing number of communications the government cannot read, even with a warrant. The government argued that the court order was narrow, that it applied to one phone, and that the company should help the investigation of a mass murder. The argument was not unreasonable, and the unreasonableness was not the point.

The government's position had a weakness, and the weakness was the precedent. The order was for one phone, and the next order could be for a hundred phones, and the tool would be the same. The government said the tool would be kept safe, and the history of the security industry said that tools with that much power do not stay in one place. The opposition was the other side of a genuine dilemma, and the dilemma was the story.

7. The Hearing

The legal battle was heading toward a hearing, and the hearing was set for next month. A federal judge had scheduled arguments for March 22, and the arguments would test the scope of the All Writs Act in the age of encryption. The hearing was the next act in a fight that had already become a national conversation, and the conversation was changing how Americans thought about their phones.

The hearing was also a deadline for a settlement. Both sides knew that a court decision would set a precedent, and both sides had reasons to avoid the precedent: the government did not want a ruling against the order, and Apple did not want a ruling that a company can be forced to weaken its own security. The hearing was the countdown, and the countdown was the tension. The hearing was the future of the fight, and the future was approaching.

8. The Lesson

The lesson of the fight is about leadership under pressure, and the lesson is about refusing to do the wrong thing even when the pressure is enormous. Tim Cook faced a demand backed by the full force of the federal government, in the name of a mass murder investigation, and he refused because the refusal was right. The refusal was not political and it was not legal; it was a statement about what the company would and would not build.

The lesson for every engineer and every leader is that the request is not the same as the requirement. The FBI asked for a tool to open one phone, and the tool was a backdoor into every phone, and the difference between the two was the whole argument. The leaders who can see the difference, and who can say no to the version of the request that matters, are the leaders who keep the trust that their customers put in them. The fight is the February 2016 story, and the story is the lesson: the backdoor is never just one door, and the principle is the product. The engineers inside every company will face a version of this test, and the test is usually smaller and quieter: a request to cut a corner, to weaken a default, to ship the thing that should not exist. The companies that train their people to name the principle before the pressure arrives are the companies that hold the line when the pressure comes.

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