Why would a branch of the US government demand a back door into one of the most widely used pieces of consumer technology, at almost exactly the same time that a second branch voluntarily relinquishes just such a back door into another?
That is what happened this week, as the security of two of the defining personal computing platforms of the past 40 years — Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s iPhone — came under scrutiny. The mixed messages from Washington show the headway the tech industry has made in reaching a new accommodation with national security and law enforcement agencies over access to their equipment and services — but also how far they still have to go.
It is nearly seven years since leaks by Edward Snowden detonated a bomb under the complacent rela