William Gallagher
Apple flat-out denies the claim by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) that it made backdoors into iOS that let American spies surveil officials and civilians in the country.
The FSB's unclear allegation is that Apple made backdoors into its encrypted iPhone operating system, so that America's National Security Agency (NSA) could use malware to infect several thousand Russian phones.
According to Reuters, Apple has now commented on the accusation.
"[Apple has] never worked with any government to insert a backdoor into any Apple product," said Apple in a statement seen by Reuters, "and never will."
The NSA has reportedly not commented on this allegation. It has previously commented quite bitterly on Apple's refusal to cooperate with requests to create backdoors, however.
Charles Martin
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This is the definition of projection. Russian law requires Russian companies to do such things so they assume or at least accuse the US of doing the same thing. Kaspersky software was banned from US government computers and networks because of the law and the assumption Kaspersky would have to comply with it. I'm guessing this is going to serve as a pretext for the Russian government to ban Apple devices in Russia. The Russian government will promote instead domestic technology. That should be great. LOL
After this gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-ipad-privacy-problems-data-gathering-1849855092/slides/8 can Apple be trusted with any representation of privacy ... ?
The statement by Russia probably has several purposes. One that should not be overlooked is a two pronged attempt to reduce the number of Apple products sold in Russia and to undermine Apple's reputation with their population.