let say.. apple created a back door...
but later.. it was determined it was not constitutional...
apple could release a new version of OS.. that they do every year... that closes this door.
This piece of the puzzle is actually two-fold.
First,
then that said backdoor will actually remain due to the legalities that forced its inception.. This is bad news for everyone and ppl need to understand this.
^^
Apple has made it abundantly clear that they do not intend to comply with the order unless/until it is upheld by higher courts. Apple is not going to jump the gun and
do the thing only for the order to be deemed unconstitutional at a later point in time. Once the higher courts affirm the notion that the government has the authority to compel private companies into circumventing encryption and security features built in to their devices for the express purpose of protecting customer data, the precedent will be set. That will open the door for other US agencies to force Apple to unlock their massive stockpiles of locked iPhones - and Apple's cooperation (unwilling though it may be) with these orders will
also make other governments make similar requests. It's on thing for the FBI to want to break into iPhones, but what about other governments in other countries where Apple devices are sold - China, Russia, etc.
There won't be any undoing it, not on an international scale like that.
The second part is actually more worrying to me. Once the backdoor is created, it can't be unmade. That software would instantly become the target of hackers and even other less-friendly governments. Everyone will want it. The burden to secure that code (or the human element - the people responsible for designing the code) would be monumental and (I imagine) hugely expensive for Apple. It's just not realistic to think that the knowledge could be protected indefinitely. It
will get out, and it
will get used for less-than-noble activities. Keep in mind this is the same company whose cloud service was famously compromised, leaking the private data of many customers. And also keep in mind that many of the tools used for flashing smartphones are (or are based on) utilities designed for internal use by the manufacturers.
Where there's a will, there's a way.
