Microsoft founder Bill Gates has waded into the PR battle between Apple and FBI over cybersecurity - and sided with the FBI.
He said the government agency is right to demand the co-operation of Silicon Valley firms in terrorism investigations.
The FBI wants help to unlock a phone used by Syed Farook, who together with his wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, in December.
Apple boss Tim Cook has said that creating the software to do this would create a "back door" into the software and a precedent for future requests.
But Mr Gates said: "This is a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case.
"It is no different than (the question of) should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information, should anybody be able to get at bank records. Let’s say the bank had tied a ribbon round the disk drive and said: 'don't make me cut this ribbon because you’ll make me cut it many times'."
His stance is a surprise, after several prominent figures in Silicon Valley backed Apple's position.
They include Google's Sundar Pichai and WhatsApp's Jan Koum, as well as the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has also expressed support for Apple, saying: "We believe in encryption; we think that that's an important tool.
"I don’t think requiring backdoors with encryption is either going to be an effective way to increase security or is really the right thing to do for just the direction that the world is going to."
The FBI obtained a court order forcing Apple to rewrite iPhone software on the device used by Farook.
Agents want to discover more about the couple's links to terror groups, and the software would allow them to bypass security measures on the phone.
In an email to Apple employees Mr Cook said: "This case is about much more than a single phone or a single investigation."
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