Blockchain view on FBI–Apple encryption dispute

By Othman Darwish

The Case 

On December 2, 2015, 14 people were killed and 22 others were seriously injured in attack consisting of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The FBI recovered an Apple iPhone 5C owned by the San Bernardino County, California government, that had been issued to one of the shooter .On February 9, 2016, the FBI announced that it was unable to unlock the county-owned phone it recovered, due to its advanced security features, including encryption of user data . The FBI–Apple encryption dispute concerns whether and to what extent courts in the United States can compel manufacturers to assist in unlocking cell phones whose data are cryptographically protected. There is much debate over public access to strong encryption.

FBI’s Position Supporters 

Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys Inc. and the National Sheriff’s Association:

• Public safety will suffer and crimes will go unresolved, criminal will go free, if Apple refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement.
• The order does not compel Apple to turn over the methods it uses for disabling the auto-erase function to the FBI.
•  The order does not compel Apple to maintain or to keep that software, Apple free to destroy it, and by doing this, it will not undermine the security or privacy of iPhone users. 

FBI director James Comey:

 We don’t seek the backdoor approach, we want to use the front door with clarity and  transparency, and with clear guidance provided by law 

Cyrus Vance Jr. Manhattan district attorney:

 Accessing digital evidence is significant in criminal’s cases, terrorism and sex crimes,      communication is existing on those phones and used by criminals to perpetrate the crime,    this is a fact Apple have to acknowledge, and strike a balance between public safety and   privacy.   

BILL GATES Microsoft co-founder:

With the right safeguard, there are cases the government should act in our behalf like in terrorism which could become worst in future. and that is valuable (safeguard), I do believe that there is a set of safeguards where the government should not have to be completely blind, we do want the government to be able to stop those criminal activities.

Apple's Position Supporters

Tim Cook Apple CEO: 

• The court order is not based on any cybersecurity law, but rather a broad reading of All Write Act of 1789,“the Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” Using All Write Act will give the government the power to reach anyone’s device and capture their private data.
• The government suggest building software with backdoor, and to be used once in one phone, and that is not true, once created, the technique could be used over and over again on any number of devices, it will be equivalent to master key that able to unlock millions of locks.   
• Despite the FBI’s good intentions, it would be wrong to build such backdoor, that will ultimately undermine the freedoms and liberty that the government is meant to protect.  Criminals and bad actors still cable to protect their data using already available tools and encryption techniques that Apple have nothing to do with.

Andrew Keane Woods law professor and cybersecurity expert:
“If code is speech - which Bernstein v. United States confirmed in 1996 -, and the government is compelling Apple to code, then it looks an awful lot like the government is compelling speech”

Blockchain View 

• Traditional regulatory models do not fit the decentralized nature of digital currency and blockchain technology, the distributed ledgers drop the role of central authority, the network operates in trustless – no single point of trust –. The question is, If the government want to seek for assistance –assuming good intentions - for law enforcement, who will be the party or the indivual the court will order?
•  Digital currency and blockchain uses borderless virtual world as medium of exchange, asserting jurisdiction of individual transaction, participant or scheme is challenging for national regulators considering virtual cross-border reach of the technology. National authorities will find it difficult to enforce law and regulations in such virtual borderless world
• Digital currency combines the properties of value (money), commodities and payment network, their different classification lead to legal and regulatory implications.  For example, the U.S tax authority IRS classified the digital currency as property to serve the purpose of federal taxation, while FinCEN consider it as value for the purpose of AML/CFT obligations, other jurisdictions avoid formal classification and focus in the nature of transaction executed. This disparity of treatment may lead to inconsistencies within and among jurisdictions
• Digital currency and blockchain technology fully protected by tamper resistance military proven cryptography algorithms. The backdoor solutions -in theory – are not applicable, for example in Bitcoin and many other digital currencies, the software that run the network is opened for public, the instructions set executed to run the network are limited, fully automated, and out of any central authority control. in smart contract based solutions, the code itself is protected by digital signatures and run inside the blockchain itself, the code and the data are integrated and protected by cryptography. The new paradigm of bockchain technology add extra challenges for governments, where no place for backdoors, the governments needs to breach the security cryptography algorithms itself, which not only will threaten the digital currency world, but also the entire information technology industries and national security.