(credit: flattop341)
Apple has been served with a court order at the FBI's request, demanding that it assist the government agency with unlocking an iPhone 5C that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 and injured 24 in an attack in San Bernardino, California on December 2, 2015.
In response, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the FBI was demanding the equivalent of a backdoor and that complying with the FBI's demand would undermine the security of all iPhones.
Whether you call it a "backdoor" or not, it's important to recognize that the ordered changes to the iPhone operating system would not circumvent the core of the iPhone's encryption. The court isn't asking Apple to defeat the encryption in any way. Nor does the court require Apple to create a vulnerability that would jeopardize the security of any other phone. Rather, it's asking Apple to do the one thing that Apple alone can do: use the iPhone's built-in method of installing firmware written by Apple.