By Kris Tanaka
SecureWorld Media
Let's review what happened this week.
First, the U.S. government orders Apple to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to help authorities hack a cell phone belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attack last year.
Next, Apple releases a message to the public, opposing the order, calling for a public discussion about the battle between security and privacy and the implications that extend far beyond the legal case at hand.
Then, the flood gates opened. Yes - there was a lot of discussion.
Just to name a few stories - there are a lot more.
And then...today...things get even more interesting.
The FBI may not have to wait for the legal wheels to stop spinning -- at least not in the future. They may be able to circumvent the encryption roadblock by bypassing Apple's TouchID fingerpint authentication, using copies of people's fingerprints. It gets even easier when the subject is dead since you don't have any legal standing to assert a 4th Amendment privacy violation. So prying your phone out of your cold, dead hands could be a reality in the future if the feds want to use your fingerprint to unlock your phone. But that won't work in the San Bernardino case. The phone in question was an iPhone 5C, which doesn't include the fingerprint technology.
Wait...that's not all.
Libertarian presidential candidate and former antivirus developer John McAfee tossed his hat - and maybe even a shoe - into the growing conflict.
McAfee is offering to decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone for the FBI, free of charge, using social engineering. McAfee said it will take only three weeks to complete the task.
Oh, one more thing. If McAfee can't break the iPhone crypto, he said he will eat a shoe on live TV.
Will things get even crazier? Who knows.
The important thing to remember is there is a very serious discussion taking place amidst the circus - the quest to find the right balance between security and privacy. Hopefully everyone will put the fingers and the shoes aside to focus on the real issues at hand.
