14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg defends Apple in the dispute against the FBI and the US government and explains that, although a backdoor might seem to be the right way to block terrorist attacks, searching for alternatives should be everyone’s priority.
According to a recent court ruling, Apple must help the FBI develop custom software that could eventually allow investigators to break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists.
The Cupertino-based firm, however, opposed the order and refused to build such software, with company CEO Tim Cook explaining that putting backdoors on its devices would only create additional risks for all users.
“The government needs our help”
Zuckerberg said pretty much the same thing on the sidelines of the MWC 2016 in Barcelona, explaining that Apple shouldn’t be forced to turn to backdoors in this case. He added, however, that tech companies must help authorities stop terrorist attacks, but he suggested that alternative ways must be found.
“If we have opportunities to basically work with the government to make sure there are not terrorist attacks, obviously we are going to take those opportunities. I don’t think that requiring back doors to encryption is either going to be an effective thing to increase security or is really the right thing to do. We are pretty sympathetic to Tim and Apple,” he was quoted as saying.
“At the same time we feel we have a really big responsibility running this big networking community to help prevent terrorism and different types of attacks.”
In a recent statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook has reiterated that the company doesn’t have any plans to develop software that could unlock the iPhone used by the terrorists and asked the government to back down and instead start discussions to establish a list of alternatives that could be used in this and future cases.
The government, on the other hand, still believes that Apple must hack this phone, and more recently, it appears that Microsoft founder Bill Gates thinks the same.