Bill Gates Sides With FBI In Apple Spat (ft.com)
Fudge Factor 3000 writes: Bill Gates has now publicly stated that Apple should cooperate with the FBI in the San Bernadino terrorist's phone unlocking case. He states that it is for this specific case, but seems to miss the point that there are other law enforcement officials waiting on the wings with their requests should this precedent be set. The war against privacy escalates. Setting aside the actual practicality of unlocking the San Bernadino phone, the teams that are emerging on this issue include some pretty strange bedfellows: John McAfee and Bill Gates on the pro-unlocking side, and Woz, Edward Snowden and even some of the victim's families on the con.
Not that his opinion matters nearly as much as the others(he's still loaded; but he's more busy playing the Hunter S. Thompson of tech than being a tech leader these days); but I thought that McAfee's position wasn't so much 'pro unlock' as "Me and my hacker posse will hack the shit out of it!"; which is a vote in favor of getting the contents of the phone(not that anyone is really against that, if there were some non-problematic way to do it); but not obviously a vote in favor of the feds having the right to force Apple to make it so.