Apple Refuses to Unlock iPhone of San Bernardino Shooter: Here’s What’s Happening in the World Today

The Daily 5 is Sharp’s essential reading list for what’s happening in the world today. Make sure to follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Sharp Insider newsletter to stay up to date.

Here’s what we’re reading today.

1. The FBI vs. FIFA

If you follow sports at all, you’re at least casually aware of what’s going on with FIFA. Rampant corruption and bribery. Officials indicted or under investigation. President Sepp Blatter is currently serving an eight-year ban. The whole thing is bonkers.

Stories have trickled out, but there’s yet to be a definitive account of how exactly the FBI took on FIFA and won. Until now. ESPN’s Shaun Assael and Brett Forrest have this fantastic account of the FBI’s five-year investigation that you need to read right now.

2. Pot has a money problem

Banks won’t take their money. Visa and Mastercard won’t process their transactions. The marijuana industry is sitting on moutains of cash but has nowhere to put it.

As sales continues to grow, a swarm of startups are moving in to provide these kinds of basic financial services to dispensaries around the U.S. From hyperprecise geolocating tools to off-the-grid electronic payment systems, the New York Times profiles a range of new companies hoping to get in on the high.

3. Backdoor Man

Apple will not decrypt the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, CEO Tim Cook wrote in a letter to customers last night. Cook says the company could not decrypt the individual iPhone without providing a way to unlock all of its devices, and doing so would set a dangerous precedent.

A U.S. federal magistrate ordered the company to unlock the phone to assist the FBI in their investigations of the December attacks in San Bernardino. The stand-off may end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. Privacy activists are scrambling to organize rallies at Apple stores to protest what they’re calling the FBI’s ‘crusade to hack your iPhone.’

4. “Someone watches The Butterfly Effect in Spain, and it changes recommendations around the planet”

Discovery is one of the most important features of any widely-used app or service today – doubly so for something as widely used as Netflix. Today the company is rolling out radical changes to its recommendation engine. The changes will lump users into global genre-based categories, meaning drama fans in Germany will see the same recommendations as a drama fan in the U.S. Previously, recommendations had been siloed off by country, a tremendous burden when expanding into new regions.

5.  9,000 Chinese villagers are moving because of aliens

Seems like Chinese president Xi Jinping has been watching the new X-Files. The Chinese government is relocating 9,000 villagers in Guizhou Province in order to complete construction on the world’s biggest radio telescope, one of whose purposes is to detect signs of extraterrestrial life.

This is what the telescope looks like:

TAGS:

Apple,China,FIFA,Netflix,Visa Doesn't Want You To Get Stoned