Apple vs FBI Continues to Mystify


This morning brought some interesting speculation. Apple vs FBI continues to mystify. Yesterday I wondered aloud how an employee at the San Bernardino agency where one of the murderers worked could change the Apple ID password.  Today someone pointed out that the iPhone in the FBI’s possession is the guy’s work phone.  He destroyed his personal phone.  Of course his employer could change the Apple ID password — it was their phone!  (Note, however, that users can set their own passcode or passphrase for their iPhones.)

Does anyone really believe that the shooter would use his work phone for communications related to the planning of this hideous event?  I don’t.  Which makes me wonder why the FBI is so hot to get access to data that will probably be little more than schedule updates and reports on various restaurants.

Apple has been accused of grandstanding by refusing to decrypt this phone.  If my guesses are correct, the media has it exactly backwards.  It’s the FBI that’s grandstanding.


About Tony Lima

Tony Lima has been working with technology, economic modeling, forecasting, and market research for 40 years. His background makes him uniquely qualified to navigate this varied landscape. Begin with his education: B.S. in chemical engineering from M.I.T. , M.B.A. from Harvard, Ph.D. in economics from Stanford. His day job was professor of economics at California State University, East Bay. He retired in 2016 to devote his time to consulting and writing. But he has found time to: write (eight books and over 100 articles ranging from wine economics to detailed analyses of meta-language code generators) consult with companies ranging from Microsoft to CEDEX keep his expertise up-to-date, constantly reading and sorting through the avalanche of information available daily maintain three blogs: Wine Research, Wine Economics, and Economic Policy Local policy analysis: Los Altos Politico.com

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