Apple is sticking to its guns and will win. The US Justice Department is actually trying to force Apple to develop code to keep a cell phone from deleting data. They are not asking for software that will undo the encryption. That phone belonged to a terrorist and it is hard to believe Apple would not want to help get whatever is on that phone into the government's hand. They just don't want to write code to do it that could be used in other incidents.
In a previous post [https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9033304048882784982#editor/target=post;postID=309923511951363080;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=12;src=postname ] I mentioned what should be obvious in this case. The National Security and Law Enforcement communities are supposed to stay ahead of terrorists and criminals. They get money from our government to do that, but it certainly looks like they are not doing very well at it. That isn't Apple's, Google, or Microsoft's fault and they should not be forced to write code to undo a security feature that protects a phone from being erased.
Encryption is used in many more places than just cell phones and I see this as a precedent for those who encrypt hard disks, flash drives, and telephones. It is not Apple's job to develop software that will undo security it intentionally put on those devices for our protection. If they are forced to do it, there will be many more cases like this, all allowing the government to force vendors to undo security features that they could undo themselves. Justice can hire a few cyber experts and get them to write code that will do what they want to do. If that can't be done, then raise the banners and call for celebration: Apple finally has a bullet-proof system. Anyone believing that, hold up your hand.
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