The US government on Monday said it may have found a way to crack the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino attackers without Apple’s help, possibly avoiding a showdown with the tech giant.
In a court filing, federal prosecutors said that on Sunday, an unidentified “outside party” had demonstrated to the FBI a possible way to unlock Syed Farook’s iPhone.
“Our top priority has always been gaining access into the phone used by the terrorist in San Bernardino,” US Department of Justice spokeswoman Melanie Newman said in a statement. “With this goal in mind, the FBI has continued in its efforts to gain access to the phone without Apple’s assistance, even during a month-long period of litigation with the company.”
She said the government was “cautiously optimistic” that the latest option to recover data from the iPhone would work.
A California federal judge who was set to preside over a hearing in the contentious case yesterday granted the government’s request for a delay and asked that a status report be filed by April 5.
The new development may help avert — at least for now — a full-blown showdown between the US government and the world’s most valuable company that could have wide ramifications on digital security and privacy.
Privacy advocates hailed the FBI’s apparent drawback in the case as a win for Apple and encryption.
“With the FBI backing down on this case, this is at least a short-term win for Apple,” the Center for Democracy and Technology said in a statement. “This has always been a case about the government attempting to mandate technological backdoors that would make all Americans less secure.”
Federal prosecutors and Apple for weeks have traded a volley of legal briefs related to the FBI’s demand that the tech company help investigators unlock Farook’s work phone.
The FBI says the device may contain critical information for its probe into the shooting on Dec. 2 last year that left 14 people dead and was the deadliest terror attack in the US since Sept. 11, 2001.
However, Apple has balked at a court order to help investigators, citing customer privacy and security concerns.
The company, backed by security experts, civil rights advocates and other tech giants — including Google, Facebook and Microsoft — contends that assisting the FBI would jeopardize users’ data and set a dangerous precedent.
The FBI had been seeking Apple’s help in writing new software — or what the company said was creating a “backdoor” — that would allow investigators to circumvent the iPhone’s built-in security.
It argued that Apple is not above the law and that its request for technical assistance concerns only Farook’s work phone from the San Bernardino health department.
Farook and his Pakistani-born wife, Tashfeen Malik, died in a firefight with police after the attack.
Two other cellphones that are linked to the couple were found destroyed.
Tech giants and civil rights advocates have warned that the case goes beyond just one phone and that if the court sides with the FBI, it would spring open a “Pandora’s box” for human rights and digital security.
“Governments trying to undermine encryption should think twice before they open this Pandora’s box,” Amnesty International deputy director for global issues Sherif Elsayed-Ali said in a statement. “Weakening privacy online could have disastrous consequences for free societies, particularly for the human rights activists and journalists who hold our leaders to account.”
Rights advocates also say that while the FBI’s request to access the data on Farook’s phone might be legitimate, the method of accessing it raises concerns.
Technology analyst Rob Enderle speculated that the undisclosed person now helping the government crack Farook’s iPhone might be an ex-Apple employee or a computer security expert.
“An ex-Apple employee with the right set of skills could do this,” he said, dismissing the likelihood that the tech company itself could quietly be helping authorities. “If this was Apple coming in through the back door, and it leaked, the repercussions for Apple in terms of trust would be huge.”
Apple officials could not immediately be reached for comment concerning the latest twist in the case.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not