Apple: U.S. founders would be 'appalled' by DOJ iPhone request

Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11293949.

On a technical level I really don't understand something about this situation. All the discussion I see presupposes that the only option for Apple to comply with the FBI is to build & sign this new version of iOS, and then give it to the government, who will distribute it internally to unlock hundreds of phones held as evidence in local court cases across the country, at which point it may or may not (but probably will) be stolen.

It seems like there's another possibility, where Apple takes the phone, signs the compromised version of iOS on an air-gapped computer deep in Cupertino somewhere, decrypts the phone, sends the decrypted hard drive image to the FBI, and then erases the signed version of the software. Why would this process have any higher risk of being compromised than Apple's normal release process for signing new iOS versions?

I get the reason this case matters at a more fundamental level, the precedent it sets and whether or not the government can force Apple to spy on its customers. It just seems like Apple is exaggerating their argument that it's impossible to build this new iOS version without it being hacked.

Very odd, nearly all of the comments got deleted. But the post is still there (accumulating points).

The constitution is meant to keep the government on a very short leash and put that leash in the hands of private citizens -- though I'm getting the feeling they desire to be the other way around.