EncryptionSnowden dismisses FBI's claim it cannot unlock San Bernardino killers’ iPhone

Snowden receiving an award for intelligence integrity in Moscow // Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Edward Snowden has joined the debate over the FBI’s attempt to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone 5C used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists.

The FBI says that only Apple can deactivate certain passcode protections on the iPhone — for example, the 10-attempt limit, which makes the phone permanently inaccessible after ten attempts to guess the password —which would allow law enforcement to guess the passcode by using brute-force.

CNET reports that Snowden, talking via video link from Moscow to the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, said: “The FBI says Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means’ to unlock the phone. Respectfully, that’s bullshit.”

Snowden then went on to tweet his support for an American Civil Liberties Union report saying that the FBI’s claims in the case are fraudulent.

Meanwhile, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said in a discussion on Reddit: “I think there needs to be a discussion about when the government should be able to gather information. What if we had never had wiretapping? Also the government needs to talk openly about safeguards.”

Gates refused to comment specifically about the FBI-Apple case, although he appeared to be supporting the FBI before backtracking.

Microsoft later filed an amicus brief backing Apple against the FBI.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak also spoke out against the FBI on the Conan O’Brien show on Monday, saying: “I side with Apple on this one. [The FBI] picked the lamest case you ever could.”

Wozniak added: “Verizon turned over all the phone records and SMS messages. So they want to take this other phone that the two didn’t destroy, which was a work phone. It’s so lame and worthless to expect there’s something on it and to get Apple to expose it.”