Apple Encryption

Project 4: Apple Writeup

In the digital world today there is an ever-present struggle between privacy and protection. American citizens value their privacy more and more with each coming generation. But, on the other hand, Americans also value their safety and they expect their government to protect them from harm. Unfortunately, privacy and protection do not go hand in hand. More privacy means less protection and more protection means less privacy. Each invasion of individual privacy must be carefully justified with increased protection of the nation. There is a constant balancing act between the two; it is never clear-cut and is highly controversial. This privacy, protection dichotomy was thrust into the spot light during the current administration. The Edward Snowden scandal sent sock waves through the nation and ultimately put American Citizens at odds with their own government. As a whole, the government places a premium on protection while its citizens seem to want to hold onto more of their privacy. What the government sees as an honorable attempt to ensure national security, individual citizens see as an unjustified violation of their right to privacy. This difference of values results in a struggle between the citizens and the government and Apple’s recent iOS 8 update is a result of the struggle. The update is a win for consumers and lose for the government. iOS 8 takes protecting consumers privacy to a precedent level while simultaneously impeding on federal investigators’ abilities’ to conduct forensic investigations on phones and collect user data hence negatively affecting their ability to protect the country. there is an increased level of encryption, and there is increased ability for users to use private search engines.

With iOS 8, Apple is no longer able to bypass passwords on devices. Prior to the release of iOS 8, Apple was able to provide government agencies with data from seized iPhones (Dormehel). As long as the agency provided Apple...