The FBI was hacked again

This will come as no surprise to people in the tech space, but for those that aren't, the FBI was hacked again. In this case, it was a foreign threat actor that allegedly accessed the Epstein files. Here's to hoping they release the files that our own corrupt government refuses to release, but that's a story for another time and for far more qualified people to tell. I just want to take this opportunity to remind people that this is why giving the federal government a backdoor into end to end encrypted systems is a terrible idea.

Back in the day before what seems like another major split in the timeline, 2016, there was a horrible shooting incident in San Bernardino, California. It ended with the shooters being killed by the FBI hours after the attack. As part of the FBI's investigation they attempted to access one of the shooters iPhones to find some additional evidence, or maybe communications with other would-be terrorists only to find that the phones were locked up tight and they could not get any of the data they wanted. Naturally the FBI decided to try to force Apple to develop a version of iOS that could be installed to that device which would disable all of the protections iOS has to prevent brute force unlocking of the device. Apple, of course, said no. Having built its brand and reputation on the privacy features of the iPhone it would be insane to do such a thing.

So why am I talking about this thing that happened over a decade ago? Well, Apple and everyone with a desire to have encryption remain intact argued that once this backdoor was created, it could never be unmade. It would simply be too dangerous for it to ever exist. The FBI attempted to reassure both Apple and the public that this backdoor would only ever be accessible by the FBI and only for extreme situations; they would never share it with anyone else. And we've approached that fun part where it all ties together. The FBI being hacked yet again simply proves that Apple and really privacy experts around the world were right to never allow such a backdoor to exist. Had such a piece of software ever been made, it would undoubtedly have been stolen by hackers widely distributed online and potentially exposed every single iOS device to being compromised. 

Every time I hear about the FBI being hacked, I can't help but think back to this event and breath a sigh of relief that Apple held its ground, and that the public pressure, amongst other factors, led to the FBI dropping its lawsuit. The world would be an even scarier place if we ever lost the ability to have secure end to end encryption.

That's my rambling thought for the day. If you're interested in the whole FBI vs Apple encryption saga it turns out the verge has a plethora of stories neatly grouped together over here. Im also testing out the new federated features, so feel free to reply to this on BlueSky or via any PubSub platform.