Why Apple — and Not Google — Is in the FBI’s Crosshairs

Google can't encrypt its phone data as well as Apple. That's bad news for its customers -- and good news for the government.

BY ELIAS GROLL-FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Google’s mobile operating system runs on more phones around the world than Apple’s. And like Apple, Google has publicly embraced the kind of encryption designed to make it difficult for law enforcement to crack — and that has led Washington to accuse Silicon Valley of effectively helping terrorists.

That conflict escalated on Tuesday when a federal judge ordered Apple to unlock an iPhone 5c phone belonging to Syed Rizwan Farook who, with his wife, killed 14 people in a December shooting spree at a San Bernardino, California, community center.

The FBI isn’t simply going after Apple because the Islamist militant used an iPhone. Instead, Apple is in government crosshairs — and not Google — because of the little-known fact that Apple uses far more secure encryption in its mobile software than does Google. That’s potentially bad news for the hundreds of millions of people who use Android phones, but it’s a boon for the law enforcement personnel who say encrypted communications prevented them from stopping the Paris attacks and could enable more terror strikes in the future.

“The phones of the rich keep them safe, and the phones of the poor leave them vulnerable,” said Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Together, Google and Apple dominate the mobile phone market, but Android devices are more popular than iPhones. Some 51 percent of American phonesrun Android, compared to the 44 percent that use iOS, and Android devices are much cheaper because they’re sold by a variety of manufacturers, from Samsung at the high end to Alcatel at the low end. An unlocked iPhone 6sstarts at $649; an Alcatel can be had for $174.

But the large number of frequently bargain devices running Android also makes it harder for Google to implement strong encryption, according to Soghoian. He said that creates a “digital security divide” where cheaper Android phones come with worse security.

Google did not respond to requests for comment on its security procedures. The company’s CEO, however, has publicly backed Apple in its fight with the government.

“Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users’ privacy,” the executive, Sundar Pichai, said on Twitter Wednesday. If the government prevails in the case, Pichai said it “could be a troubling precedent.”                                             Read More