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Unlocking the iPhone

Unlocking the iPhone

Last updated on: March 14, 2016 at 8:58 am by Gene Veith

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Unlocking the iPhone 2016-03-14T08:58:45-04:00 Gene Veith

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The Justice Department and Apple Computer are locked in a bitter legal battle in the FBI’s desire to unlock the iPhone used by the San Bernadino terrorists, both of whom were killed after their attack. The FBI, understandably, wants to see who else might be in the terrorists’ network. Surely, in the name of fighting terrorism, Apple should simply unlock the phone–right? Well, it isn’t that easy.

My iPhone has a four-digit code that I have to enter every time the screen goes black. When I got the phone, the guy at Verizon sternly instructed me that a user has six tries to enter the correct code. If the wrong numbers are entered, eventually the phone is disabled and everything on it is erased. A pang of fear shoots through me every time my big fingers hit the wrong numbers.

So if the FBI tries to unlock the terrorists’ phone–since it can’t get the correct numbers from the users, who are dead–they will likely instead cause the phone to erase everything they want to know. So the government wants to coerce Apple into developing a way to get into the phone anyway.

Apple made a phone that can’t be broken into. That means that Apple can’t break into it either. OK, it surely can be hacked, either by Apple or by independent or government-hired hackers. But there is no pre-existent key that the manufacturer can use to get into the phone. Apple would have to hack into its own system and engineer a completely new way to somehow disable the phone’s security features. That means iPhones would no longer have those security features. True, this is just a question of one phone, but the new key would probably get out, and Apple would be asked to use it every time a customer– or his child– messed up his phone.

Of course the government has the right, with a proper court order, to tap phones, get confidential records, etc. But does it have the right to force a company to use its own resources, personnel, and money to invent a new technology that would change its own product?

Besides, there are other ways to get the information: get at the automatic backup on iTunes or the Cloud; go to the terrorist’s bank and get his ATM pin number. He probably used that. If that doesn’t work, try 1111, 1234, and his birthday. That would still leave two tries, but these too obvious numbers would break into most people’s phones, never mind the high-tech security measures.

From Why Apple is right to resist the FBI | TechCrunch:

The FBI wants Apple to do something no private company has ever been forced to do: break its own technology. Specifically, the FBI wants Apple to build a new version of its mobile operating system (iOS, or GovOS) so that the contents of an iPhone can be removed from an iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the gunmen in the San Bernardino shooting.

A magistrate judge recently ordered Apple to comply with this request; Apple in turn filed a Motion to Vacate (MTV) the magistrate’s order. The key point made in the MTV — and the key issue on which this entire case hangs — is that complying with the FBI’s request would weaken a valuable encryption platform at a time when the United States desperately needs stronger, more effective encryption. . . .

What is the FBI seeking here? First, the FBI is demanding that Apple make a new software product. Second, that software product would have to be designed in accordance with specifications provided to Apple by the FBI. Third, once Apple created that software product, it would have to test the product to ensure it met Apple’s own quality standards. Fourth and finally, Apple would have to test and validate this software product so that criminal defendants would be able to exercise their constitutional rights to challenge the government’s legal claims as provided by the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE).

Simply put, the FBI is demanding that Apple create a new software product that meets specifications provided by the FBI. As Apple clearly articulates in its MTV, the FBI is demanding “the compelled creation of intellectual property.” The legal grounds for the FBI’s demand come from the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and the All Writs Act (AWA).

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