WHAT LAW ENFORCEMENT CAN DO
Forcing tech companies to engineer backdoors
into their security systems would almost
certainly require an act of Congress. Legislators,
however, have never come close to agreeing on
what such a law should look like.
But there are alternatives. Four years ago, the
Justice Department took the extraordinary
step of asking a federal judge to force Apple
to break its own encryption system. The
legal move involved an iPhone used by
the perpetrator of a December 2015 mass
shooting in San Bernardino, California.
Apple acknowledged that it could create the
software the feds wanted, but warned that
it would be a bad idea. The software could
be stolen by hackers and used against other
iPhones, the company warned, and might
also lead to similar demands from repressive
governments around the world.
The FBI ultimately dropped the case shortly
before it was to go to trial, saying a “third
party” had found another way of getting into
the phone. It never disclosed who that party
was; there is an entire industry of shadowy
companies such as the Israeli firm Cellebrite
that discover or pay for information on flaws
in encryption systems. These firms then
develop tools to essentially create their
own backdoors.
Such companies do significant business
with governments and law enforcement.
Companies like Apple, meanwhile, do their
best to close such loopholes as soon as they
learn about them.