FBI Confirms It Won't Consider Telling Apple About iPhone-Hacking Method
April 27 2016 - 5:40PM
Dow Jones News
The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Wednesday it
wouldn't consider telling Apple Inc. how the agency was able to
unlock a terrorist's iPhone.
The decision brings to an abrupt end an internal government
debate about how much to tell Apple about a newly discovered
security vulnerability in one iPhone model.
The FBI decision not to initiate a broad governmental discussion
called the Vulnerabilities Equities Process—in which a number of
agencies explore whether to disclose software vulnerabilities to
the affected companies—means Apple will likely be kept in the dark
about exactly how the government was able to crack the model 5c
iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife killed
14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.
That phone was the subject of a high-stakes legal fight between
the Justice Department and Apple over whether the government could
force the firm to write software that would open the phone for
investigators. Apple resisted the directive, saying that to comply
could compromise the security of millions of other phones.
That court case came to an abrupt end in March, when the FBI
announced that an unidentified third party had shown it a way to
bypass the phone's security features.
That led to a new question: Would the government tell Apple
about the newfound vulnerability, or keep it secret for possible
future use against other 5c models?
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the FBI had
decided its agents didn't know enough about how the phone-hacking
tool worked to submit it for a vulnerabilities review.
The FBI determined it couldn't submit the phone-cracking method
for review because the agency didn't buy the rights "to technical
details about how the method functions, or the nature and extent of
any vulnerability upon which the method may rely in order to
operate," said Amy Hess, executive assistant director of the
FBI.
The FBI has notified the Obama administration of its decision,
Ms. Hess said.
Apple has said that whatever technique was used to open the 5c
phone, it would likely have a short shelf life because the company
is constantly upgrading the security of its products.
The FBI's decision is being criticized by privacy advocates, who
charge the agency is prioritizing its own investigations over the
greater public good of privacy for technology users.
Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 27, 2016 17:25 ET (21:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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