CNN Perspective with Andy Grotto: Why unlocking Apple iPhones for law enforcement isn't the answer
Despite pressure from President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, Apple continues to stand its ground and refuses to re-engineer iPhones so law enforcement can unlock the devices. Apple has maintained that it has done everything required by law and that creating a "backdoor" would undermine cybersecurity and privacy for iPhone users everywhere.
Apple is right to stand firm in its position that building a "backdoor" could put user data at risk.
At its most basic, encryption is the act of converting plaintext (like a credit card number) into unintelligible ciphertext using a very large, random number called a key. Anyone with the key can convert the ciphertext back to plaintext. Persons without the key cannot, meaning that even if they acquire the ciphertext, it should still be impossible for them to discover the meaning of the underlying plaintext.