Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Monday, January 21st, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough.

Today, Apple could have encrypted iCloud backups but didn't, ostensibly to play nice with the government,

getting an Uber from the airport is about to get more expensive, possibly a lot more,

digital media is actually making money, is Is IG TV on the way out? Some interesting

raises and potentially the most consequential lawsuit in Silicon Valley history.

Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.

Sources are telling Reuters that about two years ago, Apple dropped a plan to encrypt backups of devices in iCloud after the FBI complained that such a move would harm their investigations.

Interesting that these details about how much Apple is in fact willing to help law enforcement pursue investigations is leaking out now,

wouldn't you say?

Quote, more than two years ago, Apple told the FBI that it planned to offer users

end-to-end encryption when storing their phone data on iCloud according to

one current and three former FBI officials and one current and one former

Apple employee.

Under that plan primarily designed to thwart hackers,

Apple would no longer have a key to unlock the encrypted data,

meaning it would not be able to turn materials over to authorities

in a readable form even under court order. In private

talks with Apple soon after, representatives of the FBI's cybercrime agents

and its operational technology division objected to the plan, arguing it would deny them the most

effective means for gaining evidence against iPhone using suspects, the government sources

said.

When Apple spoke privately to the FBI about its work on phone security the following year, the end-to-end

...