The Camel's Nose

In response to this article: https://dailysignal.com/2016/02/17/apple-fight-with-fbi-raises-questions-about-balancing-national-security-with-privacy/ - I wrote the author:

Here's an important correction to your article of today: the judge's "order compelling Apple to develop a program that would reverse encryption on its iPhones" as you wrote, does not "reverse encryption" or create a "backdoor" on all its iPhones, nor even all of that particular model of iPhones.

Here's specifically what was ordered: Apple software engineers can craft a custom update to only that one iPhone by its serial number. Only Apple has the security signature necessary to send software updates to its products, so no other entity such as U.S. or foreign security agencies, criminal groups, hackers, etc. could use this custom update if they somehow got their hands on it. To ensure that no outside agency acquires this update, it would never leave Apple's premises.

This custom update, secondly, would be crafted so that it can only be run in "local" mode, i.e. when connected to that particular iPhone by a USB cable, not transmitted over the Internet. It would simply suspend the "10 tries" feature (as your article correctly states). Then the phone would be given back to the FBI so that the FBI can try up to all 10,000 possible combinations of its 4-digit passcode, so they can inspect the data on it.

The threat to the privacy of all smartphone users is not in this custom update, but rather in tech companies in the future being forced by the government upon a secret court order to unlock any customer's smartphones. If Apple yields to this demand by the FBI, it will create a legal precedent that the FBI, NSA or CIA could use in the future for this supposedly limited purpose. How widely these security agencies would try to apply such a legal precedent remains unknown, but it is virtually certain they will try to apply it in future cases.

This is the old "nose of the camel" dilemma, applied to our civil right of freedom from unjustified search and seizure. How will you feel if we knew the FBI, NSA or CIA could get a secret court order for surveillance of your phone, because you've called someone in Russia or the Middle East? I've lived in Russia and Central Europe for more than 20 years, I know for certain the FSB was monitoring my phone calls and emails, and I have little doubt that the FBI and/or NSA monitor my communications. It's not a very comfortable feeling!