Apple vs. FBI

2:37 PM Unknown 0 Comments

Everybody knows about Apple, innovative tech giant and builder of the world’s most popular device – and, most recently, defender of the common people’s privacy in the Apple vs. the FBI case. Stuart Carlson’s political cartoon aptly portrays many aspects of the situation, many of which the common citizen is probably not aware of.

In the political cartoon, Apple is seen being forced by the FBI to unlock the “backdoor,” a word which, in everyday English, is used to describe something secretive and devious.  Both Apple and the FBI have neutral faces and regular sized bodies – both see their respective sides as the responsible and right thing to do, and both have their reasons. In any case, they both have good intentions.

The giant, almost superhuman people leering behind Apple and the FBI, however, definitely do not. With their eager smiles and tense body positions, hackers and repressive regimes look almost like children in standing in front of a candy shop. And they might as well be. If Apple really hacked the iPhone, that would open up the code to the rest of the world – not excluding people who shouldn’t be able to. If hackers, repressive regimes, cyber criminals, etc. are enabled access to that code, their power would be immense – much larger than what Apple and the FBI would be able to handle.  

The title, “Pandora’s iPhone”, also gives a little insight to the disastrous consequences Apple’s hacking the terrorist’s iPhone could have. After all, this political cartoon is alluding to Pandora’s release of all of mankind’s evils, achieved just by opening a little box she was told she shouldn’t. If Apple were to unlocked “Pandora’s iPhone,” they would be unleashing the power to all sorts of evils.