December 12, 2024

Apple, FBI, and Software Transparency

The Apple versus FBI showdown has quickly become a crucial flashpoint of the “new Crypto War.” On February 16 the FBI invoked the All Writs Act of 1789, a catch-all authority for assistance of law enforcement, demanding that Apple create a custom version of its iOS to help the FBI decrypt an iPhone used by one of the San […]

An analogy to understand the FBI's request of Apple

After my previous blog post about the FBI, Apple, and the San Bernadino iPhone, I’ve been reading many other bloggers and news articles on the topic. What seems to be missing is a decent analogy to explain the unusual nature of the FBI’s demand and the importance of Apple’s stance in opposition to it. Before I dive […]

The New Freedom to Tinker Movement

When I started this blog back in 2002, I named it “Freedom to Tinker.” On the masthead, below the words Freedom to Tinker, was the subhead “… is your freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify the technological devices you own.” I believed at the time, as I still do, that this freedom is more […]