Steve Wozniak Weighs in on Apple-FBI Dispute

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has backed Apple in its fight with the FBI over the agency's request that it unlock the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooter investigation.

Wozniak appeared yesterday on late-night TBS talk show Conan to share his thoughts on the high-profile case, asserting that the FBI had "picked the lamest case they ever could: the two phones owned by the people who aren't even convicted terrorists and have not one link to a terrorist organization."

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 - and it's so lame and worthless to expect there's something on it and to try and force Apple to expose it.

The FBI has asked Apple to create a version of iOS that would both disable passcode security features and allow passcodes to be entered electronically, allowing it to then brute force the passcode on the device. Wozniak explained the inherent danger of the agency's request by recollecting his early coding days.

A couple of times in my life, I tried writing something like a virus that could spread itself between Macintosh computers. And each time I threw away every bit of code I'd written. I was so scared inside, because you do not want to let something like that out. Once you create something like that, there's a good chance hackers will get into it.

Wozniak's views are relatively unsurprising given his work for the San Fransisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit organization that Wozniak co-founded and which aims to protect individual rights in matters of technology. You can watch his comments on the case in full in the video below.

Apple's opposition to the order that would require it to help the FBI break into the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone will face off against the government in court on March 22.

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