Bill Gates Weighs In On Apple vs. FBI Fight Over Unlocking of San Bernardino Shooter's Phone

Billionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates has given his comment on the controversial issue regarding the FBI asking Apple to unlock the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. However, the iPhone maker said they will not be heeding the request of the agency.

In a report by The New York Times, Gates answered questions about the topic during an interview with Bloomberg and he said that the case of the FBI vs. Apple is specific as the authorities are asking for access to information. He believes that with the "right safeguards, there are cases where the government, on our behalf, like stopping terrorism, which could get worse in the future, that that is valuable."

A lot of people and news publications have taken Gate's statements as him siding with the FBI but he did clarify that he is not siding with anyone. He did clarify, however, that Apple is just waiting for a high court to "make clear what they should do." Apple has until Friday to respond to the order.

In a report by Tech Crunch, Apple CEO Time Cook has released another letter thanking Apple employees for working on security features that protect customer data. He also reiterated in the letter that the order should be dropped.

However, the FBI remains to contend that their request is just limited to one iPhone as they believe that there will be available information that could piece together what led to the attack last December 2 during a holiday party. The shooting killed 14 and injured more than 20.

CNET reported that FBI Director James Comey wrote on Sunday that they do not want "to break anyone's encryption or set a master key loose" in the United States regarding their request. Still, Apple stands firm with their decision to not help the FBI, saying it is not that simple.

Many Silicon Valley giants have rallied behind Apple saying that the FBI's request poses threat to user privacy. Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chief executive of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, as well as Google's chief executive, Sundar Pichai, said in their words and ways that the order is unacceptable.

Tags

FBI vs. Apple, FBI vs. Apple case, FBI vs. Apple update, Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, iPhone, San Bernardino shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook

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