Tech industry groups, security experts back Apple

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — From security experts worried about hacking to independent app-makers who fear more burdens on their business, a slew of tech industry groups and civil liberties advocates are filing court documents backing Apple in its fight with the FBI.

[...] a group of cryptographers and security experts warned in their brief that forcing Apple to write software that overrides iPhone security features would produce a dangerous new tool that itself would be vulnerable to theft or hacking.

If the government prevails, then this case will be the first of many requiring companies to degrade the security and to undermine the trust in their products so essential to privacy in the digital age," attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union warned in their brief, adding that the precedent would implicate "the security and privacy of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Any new software code is likely to have unexpected bugs that could be exploited by hackers, according to a brief from Stanford computer scientist Dan Boneh, cryptologist Bruce Schneier, independent researcher Jonathan Zdziarski and four others.