Me, as IT guy, I'd never have anything of import stored on an Apple device, or a Windows device that is network discoverable.
This, imho, is a nut job opinion.
Not really. As an IT guy with a security background, I completely understand what he's saying.
In fact, I'm convinced that there's even more weirdness to this case because FBI may not have the ability to bust this device, but I'm not convinced NSA doesn't. And this is a case one would think is squarely in NSA's court. But they don't want someone at FBI to know their capabilities.
These OSs are a total mess when it comes to real security. I'm not completely buying that there isn't a government agency that can't crack Apple or any other device if they feel a significant need to. And their reasons they don't feel a significant need to in this case, is definitely interesting if you think that one all the way through. (Not enough of a real national security threat to expose their capabilities. And yes, they DO think that way.)
Plausible scenario: FBI wants their day in the spotlight. NSA may have told them to **** up a rope. FBI decided to strong arm Apple. Apple decided to make marketing hay with it.
We aren't going to get the whole story. Not for a couple of decades at least. There's also some agency or agencies embarrassed here because they watched the guy go marry the girl overseas and bring her back with him and nobody thought to look into it, nor bar him from government jobs, nor ... All sorts of screw ups there.
Less Plausible but still Plausible: FBI knows they missed something badly, and wants a "win" to keep the questions at bay once someone makes the right FOIA request and figures out the magnitude of their ****-up.
Something is weird in this case. Very weird.
And there's also the distinct possibility of it all being disinformation. FBI takes Apple to court after Apple already handed over the information. Apple wins marketing points with the world. Bad guys and gals relax because they think FBI didn't get data, and make a mistake and contact someone the FBI is watching.
All sorts of cloak and dagger possibilities with this one. To think a tiny number of in the know NSA/FBI and Apple folks wouldn't play a disinformation game with the world, is crazy in the national security business.
The big thing the carriers wanted once it started to leak that they were complicit in mass wiretapping was simply to be indemnified of all liability of those actions. It was a big deal to them. They didn't care at all if government wanted to place the taps. They wanted the same get out of jail free card the government has.
They just wanted not to get sucked into civil and criminal liability. Once they shuffled things around so that their liability fell back on the FISA courts, they never said another word. Note: They didn't ever come out and say they removed the fiber taps ether.
We very well could all just be being played. Wouldn't surprise me a bit.