Bill Gates during an appearance at Harvard in 2013.
Harvard/Screenshot by CNET
The US govement has gained a rare tech ally in its fight to compel Apple to help it hack into an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Beardino massacre.
Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates told the Financial Times that tech companies should be forced to aid law enforcement officials with terrorism investigations. Gates Idea go against the prevailing current on the issue in Silicon Valley, where other tech giants have lent their support to Apple.
"This is a specific case where the govement is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case," Gates told the Financial Times.
"It is no different than [the question of] should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information, should anybody be able to get at bank records. Let's say the bank had tied a ribbon round the disk drive and said 'don't make me cut this ribbon because you'll make me cut it many times.'"
Gates is just the latest tech figure to speak up in the high-profile case pitting Apple against the FBI, which is seeking to force the Cupertino, Califoia, tech giant create a backdoor for an iPhone tied to the December shootings that killed 14 and injured 22 in San Beardino, Califoia. Apple has resisted, contending that such a breach of security could not be contained and would expose countless iPhone users to unreasonable risks.
Gates words also come amid a mounting war of words between tech companies and policy makers, who contend that terrorist groups are benefiting from encryption, the technology that jumbles communications and files so that only the intended recipient can read them. Tech companies have become increasingly diligent about including encryption in products and services in the wake of revelations about US govement surveillance programs from documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sundar Pichai of Google and Jack Dorsey of Twitter have publicly supported Apple CEO Tim Cook for refusing to breaking into the phone. The American Civil Liberties Union and the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation have also supported Cook's position.
While siding with the govement's position, Gates said there should be rules created for when information can be accessed.
"I hope that we have that debate so that the safeguards are built and so people do not opt -- and this will be country by country -- [to say] it is better that the govement does not have access to any information," he said.
Representatives for Apple and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
- - , .
en apple news...
ما را در سایت en apple news دنبال میکنید
برچسب: نویسنده: استخدام کار بازدید: 310 تاريخ: سه
شنبه
4 اسفند
1394 ساعت: 11:10