John Oliver took on the mammoth task of explaining encryption and the fight between Apple and the FBI during Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight.”
Oliver often tackles difficult subjects on his show, from payday lenders to abortion. But the encryption issue is more technically complicated, while “fundamental” to our lives, he said.
The HBO host framed the conversation about encryption around the FBI vs. Apple case. Later this month, a federal judge will decide whether Apple will be compelled to create software that would allow government access to encrypted information on the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.
Many, including Oliver, say the security risks are just too great for Apple to give the FBI access.
“Think of the government as your dad,” Oliver said. “If he asks you to help him with his iPhone, be careful, because if you do it once, you’re going to be doing it 14 times a day.”
Watch below:
This guy is so fricking brilliant, and he has a great show. He did a great job of explaining this huge dilemma. In addition, how really dumb we are for trusting our lives to our IPhones. It makes me feel better every day that I only use my phone as a phone and nothing else.
Instead of the Dad analogy, try this. Suppose Apple owned half the buildings and houses in the country. Then they would be really busy responding to properly issued–court orders-- search warrants for these buildings and houses. Does it make sense that they should be exempt from court ordered searches just because they are so big and it would keep them busy doing so?
Once again, a comedian explains a complicated issue more calmly and completely than just about any “news” outfit out there.
I love him. The man is brilliant and he did a great job of explaining it
Except, using your analogy, Apple doesn’t own those homes. They are the builder of those homes and part of their business model of why consumers purchase those homes is the security those homes provide to their owners. The FBI has the capability of getting into those homes already, they don’t need Apple’s assistance in this regard. The Feds can just send their SWAT team in and break in by brute force if need be.
But James Comey is exploiting the San Bernandino tragedy by using this as a test case to expand the surveillance capabilities of the FBI. If they can convince the court that Apple must help them make their secure home blueprint easily accessible to them by a backdoor, they can insure this happens for all future homes made as well. This ends up weakening everyone’s security since those backdoors are exploitable by criminals that want access to those homes too.
The future of smartphones demands the utmost security of the consumer being able to hold financial, banking, and medical records on their phone where, for instance, instead of using an ATM card, your phone can be used to pay for transactions. It’s a disservice to everyone to have your phone more exploitable by criminal elements. Because if your phone is backdoored, it will get exploited.