Google and Microsoft CEOs Back Apple
Twitter doesn’t lend itself to subtlety or nuance, but Google CEO Sundar Pichai used a 5-part tweet to weigh in on Apple CEO Tim Cook’s open letter to customers about the FBI’s request that Apple create a hacking tool to brute force an iPhone passcode in the San Bernardino terrorism case. Pichai essentially signed on to Apple’s position, saying that Google builds secure products and complies with legal orders to hand over data when possible, but simultaneously expressing concern that requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices and data could be a troubling precedent. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also commented, though less directly, by retweeting a post from Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith that summarized the firm’s anti-backdoor position via a linked statement from the Reform Government Surveillance group, of which Microsoft is a member.
I think you have to be pretty optimistic to read Satya Nadella's tweets as "support for Apple".
I read them as "We have to say something here, but I don't want to stick my neck out"
Yeah, it's pretty corporate, but the RGS statement does say basically the same thing:
Reform Government Surveillance companies believe it is extremely important to deter terrorists and criminals and to help law enforcement by processing legal orders for information in order to keep us all safe. But technology companies should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users’ information secure. RGS companies remain committed to providing law enforcement with the help it needs while protecting the security of their customers and their customers’ information.
Everyone's walking a fine line here, since the FBI's choice of a domestic terrorism case was highly intentional as a way of putting tech companies on the spot.
And now Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is backing Apple too.
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/zuckerberg-supports-apple-in-fight-with-fbi-over-iphone-privacy/