The San Bernardino shooting that shocked the people of Southern California last December has been a topic of debate for the past few months. It was not the shooting itself that has been greatly debated. It was the fact Apple would not crack open an iPhone of one of the shooters after the FBI accidentally deleted sensitive material from the smart phone. With no other choice but to hire hackers themselves to dive into the phone, the FBI may have just opened the door for hackers to make millions of dollars helping solve crimes.
In late April, the FBI paid a team of hackers $1 million to hack into one of the shooter’s phones. Obviously, that takes paying thousands of dollars to winners of hacking challenges to an entire new level. It opens the door for a new wave of hackers to emerge. This especially becomes the case when given the possibility of making an honest living hacking.
Apple takes a stand
Apple took plenty of flak for not agreeing to a judge order to hack into one of its own phones. When looking at it from a business point of view, one certainly cannot blame them. Apple was determined to protect the privacy of one of its customers. However, some saw it as Apple preventing the FBI from effectively doing their job. Essentially, Apple disallowed the FBI the ability to gather the inner thoughts of a terrorist who committed a horrible crime. With that said, owners of Apple property must be pleased with the level of dedication from the global company. This especially is true when considering we live in a world in which our privacy is becoming nearly non-existent.
Computer hackers have historically been frown upon due to the stigma that they are anti-corporate. In recent years, however, they have gone from the bad guys to the good guys. Regardless of a person’s view on the hacker group known as Anonymous, the network of activists certainly has a way of promoting their ideas through well-timed publicity stunts.
With the FBI working closely with hackers to fight terrorism, there is no denying it could be a dawn of a new day in which two sides that have typically fought will come together for a common good. That good, of course, is to fight global terrorism through the use of technology.