“The FBI on Thursday threatened to raise the stakes in its legal battle with Apple, suggesting it might demand access to the iPhone maker’s source code and secret electronic signature used to verify the legitimacy of its software updates,” Aaron Pressman reports for Yahoo Finance.
“The FBI currently is seeking to force Apple to write a special version of its iOS software with some security features disabled so that the bureau can try to crack the passcode on an iPhone 5C used by deceased San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook,” Pressman reports. “But in a court filing on Thursday, the FBI said that if can’t require Apple to create the weakened software, it may demand access to what it described as Apple’s ‘crown jewels’ instead.”
“Source code is the list of programming code instructions used to create the software that runs the iPhone,” Pressman reports. “The code controls everything from the background colors on the screen to the most critical security protections the phone has. Apple’s secret signature is a digital ‘key’ required to update software on all iPhones.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The FBI needs to put down the crack pipe.
SEE ALSO:
Apple: U.S. Justice Dept attempting to ‘smear’ company by taking a ‘cheap shot’ – March 10, 2016
Apple is openly defying US demands for ‘backdoors,’ but in China Apple takes a very different approach – February 17, 2016
Apple agrees to subject products to Chinese government security inspections – January 22, 2015
Wouldn’t it be easier to just make a law that states that if you are under investigation/suspicion or arrested of anything your right to privacy is null and void? And as an individual you have to turn over your logins/passwords? Wait, isn’t the government already collecting all of this data? The next stop is a police state.
I am thinking that keeping all that cash off shore may have proven to be a good idea. Somebody interested in a brand new spaceship shaped building? It may never get used. I am thinking there is another country whose leaders don’t have their heads up there proverbial asses (although with politicians it is hard to tell where the ass and hole begin) who’d love to have Apple on their shores.
And no, this has nothing to do with Apple, it has to do with power and government going where it does not belong. Someone please tell me the difference of what we are seeing here and Stalinist Russia. Strip away the facade and there is absolutely no difference. And if you believe all the hocus bogus about this having to do with national security, go back and read about the FBI under Hoover (a person who couldn’t be honest to himself about his sexual orientation so took his anger out on others) and about Joe McCarthy, etc., etc. As a gay man, Tim Cook totally understands what is going on here and he understands why anyone meddling in your private life has to be stopped.
And I could demand a million bucks. Think I’ll get it?
Even on just this headline, I say it is time for Apple to head to another country. I wouldn’t want to see that happen, but the FBI is totally out of control. Once Apple lights somewhere new, I might join ’em.
Think about it…the government wants Apple (and other manufacturers of personal private communication devices) to basically be open for inspection. Meanwhile, the government won’t force the manufacturers of our voting machines to be
accountable to anyone but themselves. Talk about a rigged system.
This is the digital age lets do it right. iPhones have encryption, the encrypted password is save in cloud.
Only certain Federal judges have an authorization key device that can only be accessed with biometrics and code and is encrypted like the Apple Pay encryption system
Government gets a warrant to access an iPhone and gets three judges to agree with warrant. The three judges must be unanimous, if any of the 3 judges declines the phone remains locked, the warrant is declined and the government can not reissue the warrant again.
When all three judges have issued the activation key the password is decrypted and sent to the judge to give to the party that issued the warrant in court. The decrypted password has a time factor. After x days the password is reset in the phone.
The key authorizations can not have the same 3 judges in another case for a lockout period of time. Keeps governments from going to same judges all the time.
Government pays for everything and comes out of their budgets, FBI, NSA, DOJ with no additions funds offered by Congress.
Somebody needs to tell the Republican FBI Director that he is the hired help and that it is well past the time he shuts the fuck up. This whole thing is blatantly political and the FBI is supposed to enforce the law- not make it.
I am an independent Progressive but know many of my Libertarian and Conservative friends agree with me on this. Tell Comey if he wants a back door he should call a madam to make arrangements.
If push comes to shove Apple could move offshore and sue the US under investor state dispute resolution under any number of our so-called free trade agreements. The hearing would not be in a court of the United States and would be conducted under the Authority of the WTO and is binding upon the US Government. The damages could easily be in the hundreds of Billions.
President Hope & Change has been a total bastard on privacy and the national security state. Not one Wall Street Bankster has been prosecuted, but Obama has went after whistleblowers with a vengeance.
Vote for Trumpenstein or Hillary and you will only get more of the same.
Next Government will be demanding the recipe to Coke due to national security.