Walt Mossberg, writing for Re/code:

Even before the court order in California ignited the current fight, I opposed the idea of any encryption back door on grounds that it could also help criminals and repressive foreign governments. And I stand with Apple in its dispute with the FBI over the demand for special passcode-cracking software, for the same reasons.

But there’s an exception, a loophole, in Apple’s unyielding stance on privacy and encryption: Its iCloud service and, specifically, iCloud Backup — the convenient and comforting automatic way in which iPhones and iPads back themselves up daily to the cloud.

Unlike with the iPhone hardware itself, Apple does retain the ability to decrypt most of what’s in these backups. And the company does on occasion turn their contents over to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies when a proper legal warrant or court order is presented.

I’m still wrestling with this side of the issue. Should Apple treat an iCloud backup differently than the phone itself? One aspect of this is the fact that you have the option of backing your iPhone up locally if you don’t want your data exposed in iCloud.

Great read.