[mlindner]

Most people I've met who work in security at large companies would rather lose their job than participate in the erasure of security for all. Apple showed this pretty obviously, but I think many companies would have most of their software engineers quit before accepting such a request, even if it was a direct order. The government cannot order you personally to write software, that's blatant first amendment violations, even if they figure out a way to order a company to do so. When politicians see one of their largest corporations disappearing over night, and the associated loss of world power and tax revenue, from engineers quitting vs a police force trying to force things like this... I think there will be some reconsidering that would happen.

[HappyTypist]

And then you look at how many people who works for Facebook.

[mlindner]

If enough of the core developers quit that puts a pretty huge dent in the company.

[grandalf]

> Most people I've met who work in security at large companies would rather lose their job than participate in the erasure of security for all.

While I think (and hope) this is correct, I'm not sure it matters.

For example, it would not be necessary for most of the engineers to be aware of a backdoor or other known vulnerability. There have been examples from open source crypto where malicious code has weakened it significantly and still nobody noticed.

There's also the very real possibility of baking the backdoor/vulnerability into a custom ASIC design. Chances are the government has a lot of expertise in this area and could simply tell Apple that it would provide one of the parts for all iPhones and the part would behave to spec (but would contain other undocumented behavior).

I think it's also realistic that other governments do this. Unless a chip is manufactured using the latest microprocessor-level miniaturization, it could contain all sorts of undocumented circuitry. I'm not sure about the economics of this sort of attack, but surely it makes sense once in a while.

[QuantumGravy]

They can take the high road because they currently have money and social status to leverage. If they were easily replaceable and earning an average middle-class income, the first amendment wouldn't mean crap next to their continued employment. That could actually be a novel argument against anything that would suppress their wages and salaries; their paycheck may be the last line of defense against a dystopian future.

[icantdrive55]

I have found people like to claim they would do the ethical/moral thing, but from what I have seen; it's maybe 1 out of a thousand that will walk, especially when it comes to their job/career.

There's this weird denial that takes place. I see it in all professions.

[grandalf]

I think people are reluctant to believe this, but practical evidence shows it to be true. Unethical behavior by groups is very common.