[Cryptography] Apple ordered to decrypt cellphone

[Ron Garret]

On Feb 17, 2016, at 12:35 PM, Mark Seiden <mis at seiden.com> wrote:

>> 
>> So it was a government owned phone? Even less reason to go to the mat over this.
>> 
> 
> 
> according to associated press:
> http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/tim_cook_apple_will_fight_orde.html
> 
> it was a county-owned work phone.

Then it seems to me that this is not a question of “hacking”, this is a question of data recovery.  I presume the county government, i.e. the owner of the phone, is consenting.  If so then (AFAICT, IANAL) this is no different than if someone walked into an Apple store with an iPhone and said, “I can’t remember my pass code but I have some really important data on this phone that I need to recover, and I’m willing to pay whatever it takes to get it back.  Can you help me?”  I don’t see how it is reasonable to refuse that request on *privacy* grounds.

rg