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Comment by skolos | Hacker News Reader

Storage unit owner has keys with which s/he can unlock the unit. Police does not ask storage unit owner to demolish his building at his own expense to get access to the unit if owner does not have keys.

Apple already "unlocked storage unit" to police where they had keys by providing police iCloud backups. Now police is asking Apple to "demolish the building".

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Yes, police don't ask the storage unit owner to break open the door - they just do it. In this case they're even asking first and willing to reimburse Apple, which is nice for a change.

If you think anything more than one phone's security is being "demolished", then you've been mislead by Apple into thinking their devices have security properties that they don't actually have. If their reputation takes it a hit, it will be due to their negligent design and marketing, not from the inevitably resulting correction. Security does not suffer politics.

If the FBI could break into the phone without asking, they would have.

This analogy is garbage. No building is being destroyed. The FBI is asking for a key to this one unit, and the fact that Apple even has the ability to make the key should be evidence that the system isn't as secure as you think.

Inside the storage unit is yet another invincible locked container, but the FBI is betting on the key being easy to guess.

This is more like the FBI asking the storage unit owner to turn off the security system that he installed that incinerates the contents of the storage unit when someone tries to pick the lock, but only on the unit that the FBI has a warrant to search. The storage unit owner then responds that although he could put an off switch on that particular unit, it's an outrage and sets a horrible precedent that the police should ever ask him to turn off his security incinerator.

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