The US Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, has cracked the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino killers without Apple’s help, the government has abandoned its attempt through the courts to force the company to assist.
According to the excerpts from papers submitted by prosecutors to withdraw the court motion for Apple to help crack shooter Syed Farook’s iPhone 5C: “The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc”.
The unlocking the iPhone by the US Justice Department, which has been acting on behalf of the FBI, comes after heightened tensions between Apple ( supported by technology companies) and the law enforcement agencies in the US. Led by Apple, tech companies and civil liberties groups have argued that the case represented a “dangerous precedent”.
After the FBI’s claimed that it had unlocked the iPhone, Apple said the “case should never have been brought”. According to a statement issued by the company, it said Apple would continue to help law enforcement agencies with investigations where it could but it would also “continue to increase the security of our products as the threats and attacks on our data become more frequent and more sophisticated.”
The security agency had asked Apple to create a new operating system — dubbed GovtOS by the Californian company — to allow electronic, rather than manual password submission, remove time delays between password entry attempts and bypass the erase data function on the phone. The US government had argued the court motion was essential and it needed Apple’s help to access the iPhone.
The withdrawal of the order to force Apple to create a new operating system for the US government came on the heels of reports that the FBI was helped by a private security company.
Interestingly, about the time that the FBI postponed the court battle date with Apple, Israeli security company Cellebrite was reported to be helping government officials access the iPhone. US attorney Eileen Decker, in a statement published following the withdrawal of the order, said it had been helped by the “assistance of a third party”.
The US government is giving no official details regarding the successful method used for the unlocking and government would keep it classified. Apple may, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have a case to ask the FBI to reveal how it accessed the iPhone.
While the withdrawal of the case marks the end of the public spat over the iPhone, it is likely that it will not be the end of the debate around law enforcement’s access to secure products. Apple’s statement said it is welcoming a more open dialogue on the issues but it still faces an appeal in a separate New York iPhone unlocking case.
