I have sympathy for Apple's position but when they resort to hyperbole they seriously undermine that goodwill.
The "if we make this software, criminals will get their hands on it" argument is absurd. Does Apple have no faith in their own security? The FBI has at no point suggested the modified firmware would ever leave Apple's possession.
Does Apple have a problem with theft of internal code that I am not aware of?
Further, I'm just waiting for someone to transpose the argument, for example: "Apple says guns shouldn't be manufactured for any reason because they could kill someone" or "Apple says cars are unsafe and should be banned because people are killed in accidents."
facepalm
EDIT: Behaving like a bad actor even if you believe your cause is just still makes you a bad actor, albeit one with good intentions. If they want to win the argument they should stick to realistic positions and leave the manure shovelling to "those other people".
Yeah for this level of a crack, you're talking about the CIA/NSA (not to mention other countries) embedding people as spies inside of Apple to 'acquire' the hacked version. Illegal as shit but they would do it anyway.
Once Apple does it for the USA, what's stopping from the UAE and China to request the same?
If a government can compel to break into your own device, what will happen later on when you close those backdoors? What's stopping the governments from demanding you leave a backdoor by pointing "hey but you could do it before"?
I'd wager that FBI and the other 3-letters want to unlock phones themselves; they don't want Apple to know what they're doing. Soon every agency and county police department has that software.
The "if we make this software, criminals will get their hands on it" argument is absurd. Does Apple have no faith in their own security? The FBI has at no point suggested the modified firmware would ever leave Apple's possession.
Does Apple have a problem with theft of internal code that I am not aware of?
Further, I'm just waiting for someone to transpose the argument, for example: "Apple says guns shouldn't be manufactured for any reason because they could kill someone" or "Apple says cars are unsafe and should be banned because people are killed in accidents."
facepalm
EDIT: Behaving like a bad actor even if you believe your cause is just still makes you a bad actor, albeit one with good intentions. If they want to win the argument they should stick to realistic positions and leave the manure shovelling to "those other people".