IPhone encryption developers can quit Apple if ordered to work with the FBI

Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, California

If the FBI wins the lawsuit and forces Apple to unprotect the iPhone, the agency could face another obstacle: these are the developers.

Apple employees are now discussing what to do if there is an order to help law enforcement. Some declare that they will refuse to carry out such an order, while others say that they will rather quit their well-paid jobs than destroy the security of the software they themselves have created.

This opinion expresses almost a dozen programmers involved in the development of mobile systems and security systems, as well as former security system developers and management representatives who were surveyed by NYTimes.
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The possible resistance of employees adds complexity to the open public confrontation of Apple, the most expensive company in the world, and the American authorities for accessing the iPhone of one of the criminals who participated in the massacre of citizens in San Bernardino.

It also directly confirms the arguments that Apple brought in documents for the court that the demands of the authorities infringe the freedom of speech when the company should force people to do what they deem disgusting.

“Such coercion fundamentally contradicts Apple’s core principles and poses a serious threat to the autonomy of the company and its engineers,” Apple lawyers wrote in the final summary for the federal district court of the Central District of California.

Employee apprehension also reveals Apple's level of corporate culture. Despite the external attributes of the wealth of Silicon Valley, this culture is still based on opposition to the establishment - a principle that was established decades ago by the founders Stephen Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

"This is an independent, rebellious culture," said Jean-Louis Gassée, a venture capitalist who previously worked as a development manager at Apple. “If the government tries to force testimony or demand some action from these developers, good luck to them in this.”

Tim Cook, Apple's executive director, made it clear last month how employees can respond to such coercion in an open letter to users : “The same engineers who created strong encryption on the iPhone to protect our users will now be ordered to weaken this protection and degrade security".

Fear of losing wages is not particularly relevant for security professionals who work at Apple, because the demand for such professionals is very high. In the end, hiring them can be a matter of honor for IT companies that share Apple's skepticism about government intentions.

“If someone tries to get them to work on things that are contrary to their personal values, they can look for a better place to work,” said Windy Snider (Window Snyder), security director at startup Fastly and former senior manager at Apple’s security division. and confidential data.

Apple informed the court last month that meeting the requirements of the authorities would require a month of work from 6 to 10 engineers. However, since the staff is dispersed, the creation of the so-called "GovtOS" will be significantly complicated if key employees refuse to work.

Inside Apple, different development teams work poorly with each other — for example, hardware engineers usually do not work in the same office as programmers.

When a company is close to launching a product, key people from different teams get together to put the final touches, such as bug fixes, security audits, and final polishing of the software’s appearance and functionality.

A similar process will have to be launched to develop a program at the request of the FBI. It will take the participation of a number of programmers with the technical experience of writing highly secure software - including those people who have been developing the Apple security system over the past ten years.

Such a team now does not exist, and Apple has no intention to create it until it is required to do so by law. But Apple employees say they already have an idea of ​​who exactly should enter this hypothetical team.

First, a programmer who developed software for the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. This programmer used to work in an aerospace company. Another is a lead quality control engineer, who is described as a bug fix expert ("bug catcher") with experience in testing Apple products starting with iPod. The third is likely to be the security architecture specialist for the iPhone, Mac and Apple TV operating systems.

“In a civil disobedience hierarchy, asking a software engineer to endanger users is worse than professional disobedience,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It's like asking a doctor to prescribe a deadly medicine.”

There are other ways to resist employees besides being fired, such as absenteeism. Now this is a purely theoretical discussion. It may take a long time before employees have to make a choice, the legal process may take a long time.

Those representatives of the technology industry who are engaged in information security are distinguished by a particularly strong “healthy paranoia”, for them topics like data encryption are much more critical and more important than for others, said Arian Evans, vice president of RiskIQ, which specializes in security systems on the Internet. But their determination may wither if there is a lot of money at stake, he noted.

"If - and this is a big" if "- every Apple engineer who can write such code will quit, and another big" if ", Apple will be able to prove to the court the absence of such programmers, then the company has the right not to comply with the court's requirement, - explained Joseph DeMarco (Joseph DeMarco), former federal prosecutor. “It's like asking my lawnmower to write a code.”

Joseph DeMarco took the lead on the side of law enforcement groups in support of the Ministry of Justice. He also noted that if programmers refuse to carry out an order instead of directly resigning, "then, I think, the court will have more reason to accuse Apple of disrespect."

In addition to the accusation of disrespect, says cryptography expert Riana Pfefferkorn from the Stanford Internet Center and the public, a company can be charged a daily fine if the judge finds that Apple is delaying the implementation of the court decision.

The US government already has experience with reprisals against technology companies. Not so long ago, the court imposed a daily fine of $ 10,000 on a small secure email provider, Lavabit, when he refused to give the encryption keys to investigators in the case of Edward Snowden, the mailbox owner Ed_Snowden@lavabit.com .

The response of a small company to the requirements of the authorities shows how individual employees can respond to such an order. When Lavabit began to crush, its owner chose to close the company and destroy the encryption keys, but did not obey the government .