Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, Outback Steakhouse fan, and Oculus Rift VR headset lover.
Wozniak told Reddit users yesterday to ask him anything, and the questions ranged from what kind of Apple Watch he wears (stainless steel sapphire) to what Woz does before he gets out of bed (summons his Amazon Echo).
But when it came down to the current Apple vs. FBI case, no big surprise, Wozniak again sided with the company, harshly criticizing the government for encouraging “snooping.”
Earlier this month on Conan O’Brien, Woz said the FBI “picked the lamest case you ever could” in asking Apple (AAPL) to help the government tap into the encrypted information on one of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhones.
Get Data Sheet, Coins2Day’s technology newsletter.
On Reddit on Wednesday, the Apple co-founder argued (much like John Oliver did on Sunday) that if Apple develops a so-called backdoor for the government, inevitably, others will use that door too.
Wozniak, who was instrumental in developing some of Apple’s first personal computers, suggested that new inventions and technology almost always leave room for hackers. “Almost every time a technology is brand new, it leaves security as a later concern,” he said.
“Twice in my life I wrote things that could have been viruses. I threw away every bit of source code. I just got a chill inside. These are dangerous, dangerous things, and if some code gets written in an Apple product that lets people in, bad people are going to find their way to it, very likely.”
Wozniak called the current case a question of “personal liberties”:
“If you tell somebody, ‘I am not snooping on you,’ or, ‘I am giving you some level of privacy; I will not look in your drawers,’ then you should keep your word and be honest.”
For more on Apple vs. The FBI, watch:
Here are his full remarks on the Apple vs. FBI case:
All through my time with personal computers from the start, I developed an attitude that things like movement towards newer, better technologies—like the Macintosh computer, like the touchscreen of the iPhone—that these were making the human more important than the technology. We did not have to modify our ways of living. So the human became very important to me. And how do you represent what humanity is?
You know what, I have things in my head, some very special people in my life that I don’t talk about, that mean so much to me from the past. Those little things that I keep in my head are my little secrets. It’s a part of my important world, my whole essence of my being. I also believe in honesty. If you tell somebody, “I am not snooping on you,” or, “I am giving you some level of privacy; I will not look in your drawers,” then you should keep your word and be honest. And I always try to avoid being a snoop myself, and it’s rare in time that we can look back and say, “How should humans be treated?” Not, “How can the police run everything?”
I was brought up in a time when communist Russia under Stalin was thought to be, everybody is spied on, everybody is looked into, every little thing can get you secretly thrown into prison. And, no. We had our Bill of Rights. And it’s just dear to me. The Bill of Rights says some bad people won’t do certain bad things because we’re protecting humans to live as humans.
So, I come from the side of personal liberties. But there are also other problems. Twice in my life I wrote things that could have been viruses. I threw away every bit of source code. I just got a chill inside. These are dangerous, dangerous things, and if some code gets written in an Apple product that lets people in, bad people are going to find their way to it, very likely.
