“There are two types of encryption: one that will prevent your sister from reading your diary and one that will prevent your government.” – Bruce Schneier

Encryption. It may seem like a term from days long past, when good ol’ Alan Turing managed to overcome the heavy encryption of Germany’s Enigma device, and in the process saved thousands of innocent lives. In the modern age, encryption and decryption is not all that intense, but it still is highly important: In fact, even more so than during World War II.

Encryption is a means of achieving data security. In this case, encryption is to do mainly with the protection of electronic devices like cellphones, computers, laptops, etc. which contain personal data or other valuable information.

In today’s world, where social media and sharing [not to mention narcissism] is extremely popular and people have countless number of messages, contacts, images and other important personal items, hacking and decrypting can be highly dangerous. It can lead to all sorts of wrong things. That’s why cellphones and other such personal gadgets are cryptographically protected with numerical keypads or thumbprint identification. This ensures that people can live their lives without the fear of their information being stolen by the wrong people.

And of course, no company does their encryption better than Apple. Apple products have secure systems, where data and information is contained within the device, to be accessed by the user only. Apple was hence renowned for its superior encryption – until now.

You may have heard of the 2015 attacks in San Bernardino, California, where 14 people were killed and 22 injured in a mass shooting and attempted bombing. The perpetrators were a Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a Muslim couple residing in the United States. After the California shootings, they were both killed by the police, having destroyed their phones prior to the attack, in case they were caught. However, Syed Farook’s office phone, an iPhone 5C, issued to him by the San Bernardino Government, was found intact.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] recovered the iPhone during their crime-busting jaunt, only to find that it was locked with a 4-digit password. A few months later, the FBI announced that they were unable to unlock the phone due to its security features and its encryption of data.

Hence, the FBI asked Apple to develop a new version of the phone’s iOS operating system and run it in the phone’s RAM, through which the security features that prohibited the FBI from accessing the phone could be disabled and all the information contained within it could be accessed. Apple declined to do any such thing.

Here is Apple’s stance on the issue. If they unlock this phone for the FBI, it would pose a serious threat to Apple’s consumers. The software could be leaked, and if that happened, any iPhone or Apple device could be hacked. Apple stated that the FBI’s request is a threat to technology companies that is seriously undermining the security of their products. Apple is known for its encryption, and now if they decrypt this iPhone, they are threatening the security of their customers by showing them that their private information can be easily accessed.

What about the FBI? Well, the FBI’s reason is blatantly obvious: national security. People have been killed and seriously injured in a shooting, which poses a threat to the security of the people. Unless they can extract enough information about the crime and its perpetrators, there is no guarantee that such an incident won’t occur again. Thus they need access to the iPhone, so that they can gain enough data to ensure the security of the people from similar crimes.

So the way we should look at it here, is that this is a case, and that there are two sides: privacy and national security. Apple wants to protect its consumers, FBI wants to protect its country.

Now of course, the US courts and judiciaries have issued several orders, all in favour of the FBI, because heck, those old dudes wouldn’t know how to make a phone call on an iPhone if their life depended on it. They don’t get the whole privacy in technology thing. But security is something they can understand. Although this is quite paradoxical, seeing as Apple’s stance also is simply to assure the security of its consumers. Nonetheless, several judicial orders have been issued, and the FBI has taken this matter not just to court, but the entire general public.

On the 28th of March, 2016, the FBI announced that a third party had helped them unlock the iPhone, and the case was dropped for good. That’s great news… right?

Wrong.

Firstly, the whole ‘third party hacking the iPhone’ makes this whole case seem like a silly argument. FBI’s unexpected use of a third party to hack the phone tells the general public that this entire case and dispute was unnecessary, and could have been easily avoided. Basically, the FBI created loads of drama about Apple ‘not being concerned about national security’ and threw several cases at them, but then all of a sudden, they announced that someone else helped them, and expected everybody to go home fine and dandy. The FBI cast a bad light on Apple, and then just exited the scene. It’s like that bully who gets away with beating up little kids. Not to say that Apple’s a little kid but…. okay, that was a bad analogy.

Secondly, the very fact that some ‘third party’ hacked the software of what was believed to be one of the safest, most well-encrypted devices, is horrible PR for Apple. They were the ones who created a big deal of ensuring their consumer’s security, but at the end, they just made the situation worse. This incident tells the public that any ordinary person can get through Apple’s systems. So what Apple has been trying to prevent all this while has happened because they tried to prevent it. Yup – it’s confusing.

Just a few days back, Italian architect Leonardo Fabbretti pleaded Apple to give him access to his dead son’s iPhone. This confirmed one of Apple’s worst fears. If the FBI can ask them to hack an iPhone, what’s to stop everyone else from doing the same?

There’s no real point in taking sides over this dispute, because both sides are equally at fault. One tried to over-complicate a simple situation, and so did the other.

Privacy and national security shouldn’t be mortal enemies – instead they should be dealt with hand-in-hand, as their paths are intertwined. This whole dispute was frankly a pointless, embarrassing waste of time. But it sent a solemn message: that we can never truly be safe; that even the strongest encryption can be decrypted by anyone with the talent to do so; and that the government can breach several codes of conduct that the common public sets for its various endeavours.

Apple or FBI – it matters not. In my opinion, there are two lessons to be learnt from this whole hodgepodge:

1. When the FBI tells you to do something, DO IT.
2. Stop taking weird photos of yourself on your iPhone and assuming it to be ‘private’. Unless ‘private’ means scarring selfies of your pimples being uploaded to Facebook due to an ‘accidental glitch’.

But jokes apart – the world is a weird place. Nobody’s information is really safe. And just like information, nobody’s life is really safe either. But hey – what can you do? In the words of the great Kurt Vonnegut – so it goes.

Life is good. Adieu.