Apple co-founder Steve “The Woz” Wozniak, who is never afraid to share his opinion on all things Apple, appeared on the popular TBS late-night talk show Conan, and shared his thoughts on the FBI vs. Apple fight over unlocking the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
During the interview, Wozniak said the FBI had “picked the lamest case they ever could: the two phones owned by the people who aren’t even convicted terrorists and have not one link to a terrorist organization.”
Woz went on to say the service provider for the iPhone, Verizon, had turned over the phone records and SMS messages, and the feds, “want to take this other phone that the two didn’t destroy – which was a work phone – and it’s so lame and worthless to expect there’s something on it and to try and force Apple to expose it.”
As to the special version of iOS that, if created, could disable the passcode security features on the iPhone, and allow the government to use brute force techniques to unlock the device, Woz says that’s a dangerous thing to do.
“A couple of times in my life, I wrote something could be a virus that could spread itself on Macintosh computers, forever. And, each time I threw away every bit of code I’d written. I was so scared inside. You do not want to let something like that out. And if you… Once you create it, there’s a good chance hackers will get into it – and then, what if China says ‘Apple, you’ve got to give us a backdoor so we can get into any phone, even your government officials’ iPhones…’’
Wozniak and Conan’s conversation about the matter can be seen in full below.
