Apple’s Going To Make Its Phones Even Harder To Hack

In what's quickly becoming one of the biggest privacy debates in recent years, Apple is reportedly working to make its phones even tougher to hack so that no one, not even Apple itself, has the ability to retrieve the data inside. "What's at stake here is, can the government compel Apple to write software that we believe would make hundreds of millions of customers vulnerable around the world, including the U.S., and also trample civil liberties," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday. Last week, a federal judge ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock the phone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, CA attack that killed more than two dozen people. Apple, which had aided the FBI until this point (for example, providing them access to the iCloud data of Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone 5C), drew a line: To give the FBI access to the content inside the locked phone would set a dangerous precedent. Cook posted an open letter on the company's website explaining the issue at hand, and Apple's stance. Now, The New York Times reports that Apple is working to build new security measures that would make it impossible for the FBI (or anyone, for that matter) to hack into locked iPhones using the decryption technique currently being debated in the San Bernardino case. For Apple, standing up for individuals' rights to data privacy is both an issue of personal rights for Americans, and a marketing issue. What good is storing data on your phone if anyone and everyone can access it at any time? Apple says it will continue to push against orders to decrypt private data stored on a locked device unless Congress steps in and decides otherwise.