Steve Wozniak stands behind Apple in the encryption debate

When Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, decided to do a Reddit AMA on Wednesday, one of the most popular questions that was asked was where he stood in Apple’s ongoing legal battle with the FBI regarding encryption, and he didn’t shy away from it. Despite no longer having an active role at Apple, Wozniak still fully supports the company’s decision to challenge the government’s demands to weaken its encryption, and gave a rather personal explanation for why he’s supporting Apple. That explanation was just one of several excellent answers from Wozniak, and I definitely recommend checking out the entire AMA.

Steve Wozniak may not be an active part of Apple anymore, but there’s no question which side he’s on in its ongoing battle with the government. On Wednesday, Wozniak participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session, fielding questions about the beginnings of Apple, Tim Cook’s tenure as CEO, and the best prank he’s ever pulled. But the session’s top question was simple. “What are your thoughts on the FBI/DOJ vs Apple ordeal at the moment?” redditor c20_h25_n3_O asked. Wozniak didn’t shy away. He wrote about his personal philosophy on technology, that it should “make the human more important than the technology,” and that part of humanity is a right to privacy, something that has not always been guaranteed in parts of the world like the Soviet Union under Stalin. Toward the end of his post, Wozniak addressed malicious code, or viruses. He said that twice in his life had had written harmful programs. He deleted them, down to the source code, but the experience taught him that there will always be people who will seek to exploit vulnerabilities. That knowledge, he said, made it clear that a backdoor into Apple’s code would inevitably be used by the wrong people. “These [viruses] 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 wrote.