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Your comparison is flawed. The owner of the phone is the company the terrorist worked for; they gave the go-ahead. This is like if you shot 20 people and the owner of your safe reverts to the company you worked for, who bought it for you. The company tells the FBI "Yes, you can search it." FBI realizes they can't open it, so they go to the locksmith who made the safe, and he refuses to open it because "WELL IT MIGHT COMPROMISE SECURITY FOR EVERY OTHER SAFE I MADE" despite the fact the key will never leave his office. The FBI has the power to make Apple create the firmware, as they are the only people on the planet who can make it, making it would not be an undue burden (it's a software company making software), and the reason is just (any reasonable person can see why the FBI wants access to a phone used by actual terrorists who actually killed people). All the FBI is asking Apple to do is to make a firmware update for this one phone so they can crack that fucker open. The order even says they have to do this on Apple's property, that they can remove the firmware before they send the unlocked phone back to them, and that the firmware doesn't have to leave Apple's property. Apple can destroy it after the phone is unlocked. Or they can spread it far and wide. It's their choice. All the doomsday talk about the FBI having the key to your iPhone is fucking moot because they won't even have the fucking key. Apple will. This shouldn't even be a fucking issue. The only reason Apple is refusing is because they think it will hurt their brand and are spinning this into "FBI WANTS US TO HACK INTO YOUR IPHONES! ISN'T THAT AWFUL? BET MICROSOFT WOULDN'T TAKE A STAND..." Fucking slimy rats. You literally could not make a more just and constitutional order than this if you tried. Here's the order itself. Pages 19, 20, and 25 contain the important bits, but you should read it all. Funnily enough, this might lead to phones becoming less secure.

Yeah from the context of the story I understood that this would be an update for all iphones somehow. If it's just for the terrorist's phone then there is just no argument

I'm curious. What are y'alls thoughts on the FBI vs Apple thing going on right now? For those not in the know, or not in the US: The FBI is currently in possession of the work iphone of the perpetrator of the San Bernardino shooting (14 people were killed, 22 injured), however they cannot gain access to the data. The data on the phone itself is encrypted, a feature built into some of the latest versions of iOS itself, Apple says that even it cannot access the data on any single Apple device that's been updated to run a newer version of the OS. One of the other security features built into the OS is a data-wipe feature, after 10 failed attempts to unlock the device, all data on the device is deleted, thus preventing a brute force attack. Apple has already provided as much help as they can, but now the FBI has requested - and a federal judge is ordering - that Apple effectively build a new version of iOS that disables a few key security features. This new build of iOS would have the auto-wipe feature disabled, and the password input delay would also be disabled so the FBI can brute force the phone. Apple is refusing, and challenging this order. The FBI is using an old statute called the All Writs Act, a federal statute whose original form was part of the Judiciary Act of 1789. The current form of the act was first passed in 1911 and has been amended several times since then. The All Writs Act has been used to get mobile phone producers to unlock smartphones before, and Apple has helped the government extract data some 70 times in the past. But the key words here is "extract data". Apple can pull certain types of data from their phones, even if they're locked, but those phones must be running an older version of iOS. In one New York case, the phone in question ran on iOS7, but in the San Bernardino case, the iphone runs on iOS9, and the previous extraction techniques no longer work on iOS9. The government isn't asking for a mere data extraction, but the creation of a new version of the iOS platform with several key security features disabled. As far as I'm aware, I don't really think the government has the power to force Apple to create something that currently does not exist. Just like how the government can force you to give up your safe or computer, but it cannot compel you to hand over the key or password to unlock them. Aside from the question of whether or not the government has that kind of power, I don't particularly trust any branch of our government with this kind of software. Not only that, but there's the potential for others to abuse such vulnerabilities, especially since those gaps in the OS' security would be widely known. While I may not like Apple's products, I do take their side in this issue.