Libertarian presidential candidate John McAfee has a plan to save the United States — and he wants to act on it before he sets foot in office. That plan hinges on the FBI turning over the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, the one the bureau has insisted Apple unlock.
For years, the U.S. Department of Justice has been sparring with Apple over consumer encryption.
The Justice Department has called for Apple and other tech companies to build in backdoors to consumer devices to enable law enforcement agencies to gain access to information secured by encryption that could take authorities years to crack.
Apple and tech industry experts have fought against building backdoors into their software. A backdoor is a soft spot, one that hackers could exploit, Apple has argued as it defied court order after court order.
Creating backdoors in iOS, Android and other operating systems would be worse than handing over the U.S.' nuclear codes to its enemies, McAfee asserted in an op-ed published on Tech Insider. It's a "black day" for the U.S. and the beginning of the country's end as a world power, he wrote.
"The government has ordered a disarmament of our already ancient cybersecurity and cyberdefense systems, and it is asking us to take a walk into that near horizon where cyberwar is unquestionably waiting, with nothing more than harsh words as a weapon and the hope that our enemies will take pity at our unarmed condition and treat us fairly," stated McAfee.
McAfee stands by Apple and Apple CEO Tim Cook in their belief that this wouldn't be a one-off thing, as the FBI has suggested. The Department of Justice has already attempted to twist the arms of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and others in cases in which law enforcement agencies sought to crack the encryption protecting consumer data.
In an open letter to Apple customers, Cook asserted that the company has done everything in its power to assist law enforcement agencies without violating the law or sacrificing the integrity of iOS. But the government still wants Apple to build a backdoor into the OS.
"Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation," Cook wrote. "In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession."
McAfee's solution involved the FBI allowing him and his team of hackers to crack the encrypted iPhone. His team, composed of about 25 percent hardcore coders and 75 percent social engineers, are all prodigies and could crack the phone in a matter of weeks, McAfee insisted.
These hackers could work for the FBI if the bureau wasn't afraid to hire coding experts that rocked "24-inch mohawks" and huge gauges in their ears and insisted on smoking weed while they worked.
"But you bet your ass that the Chinese and Russians are hiring similar people with similar demands and have been for many years," McAfee wrote. "It's why we are decades behind in the cyber race."
While the FBI may not want to work long term with the likes of the people who work on McAfee's team, the bureau may also be opposed to doing so on a one-off basis for one simple reason.
This latest court order to Apple may be more about establishing a precedent than finding new details about the San Bernardino shooter. Cook doesn't think there's any way anyone could guarantee that a way in through a backdoor would only be used once.
"Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices," Cook wrote. "In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable."
