“The Federal Bureau of Investigation is testing the method used to crack a terrorist’s iPhone to see how many other versions of the device it could open, but it could take officials many more months to decide what to do with their newfound ability,” Devlin Barrett reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“The showdown between the FBI and Apple Inc. over the locked iPhone of San Bernardino, Calif., gunman Syed Rizwan Farook came to a halt this week when officials announced that an undisclosed third party had shown the government a technique for decrypting the phone’s data,” Barrett reports. “The FBI hasn’t disclosed the technique or what it found on the phone.”
“Apple hasn’t identified the security flaw that let the FBI access Mr. Farook’s iPhone 5C, or determined how many of its other devices might be vulnerable,” Barrett reports. “Robert Anderson, a former senior FBI official who is now an executive at Navigant Consulting Inc., said that the more iPhones could be opened with the technique, the more likely the government would be to disclose it to Apple… Mr. Anderson added, however, that much of the discussion of the Apple-FBI fight fails to account for the fact that technological advances outpace the government’s efforts to stay on top of them. The FBI’s success in cracking the phone ‘is going to last for about 30 seconds in the cyberworld… and we’ll be right back to square one,’ Mr. Anderson said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The FBI made a crucial mistake by taking this to the courts. Apple will rightfully double down on their already formidable security and spread encryption for which they do not hold the key to iCloud as well.
SEE ALSO:
ACLU: U.S. government forced Google and Apple to unlock 63 devices – March 31, 2016
FBI agrees to unlock iPhone, iPod in Arkansas homicide case – March 31, 2016
U.S. Senator Wyden pledges to fight limits on encryption – March 31, 2016
Apple’s new challenge: Learning how the U.S. cracked terrorist’s iPhone – March 29, 2016
Did the FBI just unleash a hacker army on Apple? – March 29, 2016
Apple declares victory in battle with FBI, but the war continues – March 29, 2016
Apple vows to increase security as FBI claims to break into terrorist’s iPhone – March 29, 2016
U.S. government drops Apple case after claiming hack of terrorist’s iPhone – March 29, 2016
Meet Cellebrite, the Israeli company reportedly cracking iPhones for the FBI – March 24, 2016