Apple is currently locked in a major fight with the FBI that has big implications for the future of mobile security and privacy. We’ve also been hearing that Apple is working to make an “unhackable” iPhone in the future that will make it impossible to fulfill the FBI’s demands to enable others to break into its products. Per Business Insider, Apple recently made an important hire that could help it stay one step ahead of the FBI in the encryption wars: Frederic Jacobs, a key developer of the private messaging app Signal.
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Jacobs announced on his Twitter account on Thursday that he has accepted an offer to start working “with the CoreOS security team at Apple” starting this summer. As Business Insider notes, his current employer Signal has won acclaim from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for its ability to deliver messages securely in a way that spy agencies can’t crack.
Although Jacobs will only be working as an intern this summer, it’s very likely that he’ll be doing some important work to make the iPhone more secure. In an interview with Technologist last year, Jacobs explained that one of his goals at Signal is to bring “strong cryptography techniques to iPhone users.”
With Apple’s emphasis on securing users’ privacy making a lot of headlines in recent weeks, we expect to see a big emphasis placed on new security features at this year’s WWDC and during the launch of the iPhone 7 in the fall.
