Feds to Apple: Give Us a Key That You Don't Have to a Box That May Be Empty.

Also, while you're at it, break your own best product. Oh, and the whole world is watching.

Apple's Tim Cook: Never cared for him or his products,
but the feds may turn him into a hero.

Of course this is not about me, but mentioning my distaste for Apple -- which runs back so far that I almost forget why I don't like Apple, oh yeah, it's the elitism -- is necessary only to show I don't have a dog in this fight, a pony in this race, or a unicorn in this fantasy. I don't care what happens to Apple. They're a tech company, not a religious movement. Well, maybe they are, but...

And yet, I'm forced to side with Apple in this case. The feds want Apple to break into one of their phones that they made impossible to break into. (Of course it isn't impossible and they know how to do it, but that's oddly beside the point.) And as I said, it's akin to asking Apple to give the FBI a key they don't have to a box that may be empty.

It's my feeling that Apple won't do it unless, of course, Congress passes a law that says do it or go to jail. A judge could also send Tim Cook to jail for contempt of court, but I suspect we're pretty far away from that, though I imagine Cook would take a stand and go to jail.

Why? It's because what the feds are really doing, specific to Apple, is saying break your product, just break it. While you're at it, make your customers worldwide no longer trust your product, or even worse, make a whole host of countries realize that they can break iPhones by ordering Cook to do it or no selly-selly your products.

Meanwhile, the terrorists have not only won but most likely will have moved on.

Many tech companies are lining up behind Apple, as they should. This is a genie that should not be allowed out of the bottle. Governments can't order companies to design products so that user privacy can be violated, not to mention to allow them to be surveiled. Governments can order such things, but is that a world Americans want to live in? Also, could this "break" the Internet, a place where we want to be safe and secure as we do our business? Don't we want more encryption, not less?

An irony that shouldn't be ignored is that conservatives, who should be against regulations that impose anti-constitutional loss of freedoms, will most likely be shouting the loudest for new laws that allow this kind of violation of personal security for the sake of national security. Weird, huh?

Here's a good look by Fortune into the issue. Here's a link to good blog post on the issue, contained in the Fortune article.