John Chen, CEO Blackberry, turned into a blogger for a day with the aim of criticizing Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC),, more precisely its strategy in relation to protecting the privacy of data saved by users in terminals and cloud services.
The CEO of Blackberry claims that his company has a better policy than Apple for protecting the privacy of users' data and it does not apply to various criminals who cannot be convicted because the data from their terminals cannot be accessed by the authorities.
As an example for his statements, the CEO of Blackberry gives a recent incident in which the Apple company refused to provide the American authorities with data from the iPhone of a drug trafficker because providing that data would have substantially affected users' trust in the company.
It is well known that all communications made via iMessage and FaceTime are encrypted between users and Apple's servers, so that the data cannot be intercepted, and the authorities cannot find out what different people are discussing with each other through text messages or video chat.
For years, government officials have pleaded to the technology industry for help yet have been met with disdain. In fact, one of the world's most powerful tech companies recently refused a lawful access request in an investigation of a known drug dealer because doing so would "substantially tarnish the brand" of the company. We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good.
Apple has repeatedly said that the way it encrypts this data makes it impossible to access it even by itself, including when it comes to data from iDevices running at least iOS 8, but the American authorities are not easily convinced by such statements .
The interesting part is that now the CEO of Blackberry is attacking Apple because it has secured its devices too well and claims that his company can give the authorities access to user data, although it is theoretically a company that offers the best protection system for users .
The irony is subtle and whoever understands it realizes why now John Chen he shot himself in the foot criticizing Apple.
