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FBI unlocks San Bernardino shooter's iPhone and ends legal battle with Apple, for now
FBI unlocks San Bernardino shooter's iPhone and ends legal battle with Apple, for now
Federal officials said Monday that they have unlocked the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters and no longer need a judge to force Apple to help break into the device.
The move comes a week after justice officials brought the high-stakes legal fight against Apple to a sudden halt with an announcement that an unnamed outside group had come forward with a technique to hack into the iPhone.
While prosecutors said at the time that the method offered promise, they asked the judge in the case for time to confirm that it could grant access to the phone without jeopardizing any information stored on it.
The breakthrough came over the weekend, when FBI agents successfully extracted the phone’s contents, a law enforcement official said during a call with reporters. The official spoke on the condition his name not be used.
The official declined to say anything about the contents of the phone other than to say FBI agents are examining it.
The official declined to offer any details about the hacking method or the outside party that provided it.
Any speculation about using this method on other phones or devices is premature, the official said, adding that investigators were “committed to helping our state and local partners gain lawful access [to devices] in appropriate cases.”
Prosecutors, in a statement released Monday, said they decided to drop the case against Apple as a result of the breakthrough.
"We are now able to unlock that iPhone without compromising any information on the phone," prosecutors said in a statement after they filed a formal request with U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym that she vacate an order compelling Apple to cooperate.
"We sought an order compelling Apple to help unlock the phone to fulfill a solemn commitment to the victims of the San Bernardino shooting – that we will not rest until we have fully pursued every investigative lead related to the vicious attack," the statement said.
The decision appears to halt -- at least for now -- a historic legal showdown over the issues of national security and privacy. Apple had strongly opposed helping the FBI unlock the phone, arguing it would threaten the privacy of all its customers.
In a statement Monday evening, Apple said:
"This case should never have been brought.
"We will continue to help law enforcement with their investigations, as we have done all along, and we will continue to increase the security of our products as the threats and attacks on our data become more frequent and more sophisticated."
The company said the case raised issues that "deserve a national conversation about our civil liberties, and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participating in that discussion."
The FBI hoped the phone would provide insight into the planning of the attacks, and the movements of Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, in the hours after they shot and killed 14 people inside the Inland Regional Center on Dec. 2.
According to the court papers filed by the FBI last month, Farook disabled the phone’s iCloud backup function six weeks before the shootings, leaving federal investigators in the dark about his actions in the days and weeks before the attack.
Apple’s security measures became all but impregnable to law enforcement in September 2014, when the tech giant modified its encryption system. Farook’s phone was protected by an auto-erase feature that would permanently destroy all data on the phone after 10 consecutive incorrect password entry attempts. By disabling the iCloud backup, Farook was able to keep all his data hidden behind the phone’s passcode lock.
Previously, forensic investigators could tap into a device's hardware port and gain access to a phone's data "independent of needing to try passcodes," according to Clifford Neuman, director of USC's Center for Computer System Security.
High-level technologists regarded Monday’s announcement as a significant victory, but expressed grave concern that the larger debate about access to encrypted data had not been addressed.
Former computer hacker Will Strafach, who now runs the software firm Sudo Security Inc., said the FBI’s breaktrough was the “lesser of two evils.” While the idea that the FBI has found a way to hack the iPhone is problematic, Strafach said it was preferable to the possibility of a court battle that resulted in a judge ordering Apple to develop software at the government’s behest.
“The nice thing is by nature it has to be carefully used and in situations where it’s absolutely needed,” Strafach said. “If they don’t keep it guarded, it will get out there and Apple will be able to fix it. The FBI didn’t have an incentive to overprotect a backdoor that Apple created.”
Aaron Levie, chief executive of the online storage provider Box Inc., said the government’s discovery has served only to delay a needed conversation about how much reach law enforcement should have when seeking to get around encryption.
“This will literally happen thousands of more times over the next many decades unless we have a conversation about what tech companies should have to build into their technologies, and do we even want those backdoors if those systems are going to power our cars, our electrical grids, our homes,” Levie said. “What we’re seeing is the conflict between our laws and this future state.”
Monday’s announcement could also have far-reaching consequences for local law enforcement. Police nationwide have long contended that data encryption allowed criminals to store information on smartphones to avoid detection.
Thousands of the devices that have been seized during investigations in recent years currently sit idle in police evidence lockers. The Los Angeles Police Department has nearly 300 such devices, the department has said.
Peter Bibring, the director of police practices for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, expressed concern that the methods used to unlock Farook’s phone could be replicated and applied in other cases.
“It’s likely that the FBI can and will just share its security hack with other federal, state and local agencies that want to crack iPhones, allowing that law enforcement across the country to bypass Apple’s security even for routine criminal case,” Bibring said in an e-mail. “The government has said they will continue helping state and local entities access data on mobile phones, but won’t explicitly say whether this includes the technique they’ve developed in this case.”
It is also unclear if the government will be obligated to tell Apple how it gained access to the phone.
Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the policy which governs whether or not federal agencies have to notify tech companies about security flaws is weighted toward disclosure of those details. But the government has also successfully fought to keep those details secret before, he said.
An attorney representing relatives of several of those killed in the attack called the FBI's announcement "a very positive development."
"Our concern from Day One has been obtaining information of potentially great importance to both law enforcement and the victims of terrorism," attorney Stephen Larson said in an email. "For this to have dragged out in court battles would not have served the interests of either."
Twitter:@joelrubin & @JamesQueallyLAT & @peard33
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UPDATES
6:40 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from Apple.
6:00 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from technology experts and the American Civil Liberties Union.
4:39 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from a federal law enforcement official and an attorney representing some of the San Bernardino victims.
4:07 p.m.: This article was updated with background on Apple's security measures and the FBI investigation into the attacks.
3:03 p.m.: This article was updated with the statement from prosecutors.
This story originally published at 2:57 p.m.
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