Here in 2016, Apple may be at odds with the FBI on the subject of iPhone unlocking — but things weren’t always that way!
According to a new report, when the FBI first asked Apple to help it unlock an iPhone, way back in 2008, Apple didn’t just comply with the order; it actually helped prosecutors to draft the court order.
The case in question involved the prosecution of a married couple from Watertown, New York, who were involved in an horrific case of child sex abuse. In this instance, an iPhone was discovered discarded inside a bag of diapers. It is thought that this may be the first time the All Writs Act was invoked to help unlock one of Apple’s handsets.
As the Wall Street Journal notes:
“[Apple] wanted a court order authorizing it to crack a customer’s passcode. But it was otherwise cooperative: An Apple lawyer supplied the Justice Department with language to use in the agency’s legal request for the order, according to the brief.
…
U.S. Magistrate Judge George Lowe signed the order within hours of the Justice Department’s request. A New York State Police investigator then took the iPhone to Apple’s headquarters in California, according to court documents and a person familiar with the case.Apple engineers bypassed the phone’s passcode in the investigator’s presence, according to court documents filed in Brooklyn.”
Both the husband and wife in the case plead guilty to federal charges in October 2009 and were sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Since then, Apple helped the feds to access more than 70 iPhones, but it became more reticent about this after tightening up iPhone encryption in 2014. Interestingly, 2013 was the year in which the Edward Snowden revelations broke — showing the extent of government surveillance on citizens.
In other words, Apple seemed more than happy to help the government until it breached the trust of users. But I’m sure Apple are still the bad guys in all of this, right?
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
4 responses to “Apple had a different stance on helping the FBI in 2008”
The other flip side is that iPhones back then were much easier to crack, the newer models are much more difficult and Apple doesn’t want to purposely open a backdoor. The method the FBI used was something they had to go to a company that specializes in cracking into technology products, much like a locksmith can create a master key or drill the lock. Even the FBI mentioned that even some of the safe mfg don’t have the ability to crack one of their safes, so the FBI resorts to blowing up a safe if necessary, so even the safe mfg don’t HAVE to have a backdoor, so why would computer devices be any different?
The thing with the Government and Court system is their lack of knowledge of technical terms and I’m sure it was probably Apple’s way of making sure the court orders were written in a manner that they could actually comply with the request. The thing is, the 5C could be hacked into, it’s just that Apple doesn’t have the technology to do that, but specialty companies do, which is why the FBI went to them instead. Is Apple required to produce a technology to crack into their own products when there are specialty companies that specialize in hacking into products? on the other side, in order to make the products more secure to keep customer’s data secure, Apple has to figure out new ways to plug the security holes in their products, otherwise they’ll expose their customers to a rash of potential hackers, and Apple doesn’t want to get a Civil suit for not plugging up a known security problem.
It’s almost like Apple is in a Catch 22 situation, if they fix the security holes to make a more secure product, the Feds might sue, and if they don’t fix the security problems, then they’ll get class action civl lawsuits from trolling law firms. What can Apple, or any mfg, do?
Huge difference between ‘unlocking a phone with a known method’ and ‘writing a new version of the OS that will enable generic cracking of the device’. This article glosses over this critical distinction.
My reaction to this is: “So?”
What apple did before 2014 is pretty much irrelevant.
What did the Apple engineer have to create to get past the lock code? Was it using existing tools, the use of which would place no undue financial (or other resource) burden on the company? Or did Apple have to create a tool that might possibly be improperly obtained and exploited by others (internal or outside Apple) for illegal activity?
And how did Apple’s stance re: personal security and civil liberties differ then from what it is now? In a few short years, privacy and security has moved from a relatively insignificant focus to the forefront.
I agree with CelestrialTerrestrial’s comment that Government & the Court system lack technical and security knowledge and wisdom. They shouldn’t be involved in design at all (legislating a back door, as Senate Intelligence Committee leaders Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are trying to do), and they needn’t write legislation that forces companies to comply with lawful court orders (that’s already a given).
Instead, legislation should be written to clearly and unambiguously define what is and is not allowed under the law – and usurpation of civil liberties is unconstitutional. Conscription of a private company’s resources to create un-invented tools is clearly beyond constitutional boundaries. Requiring help in the use of existing tools and methods immediately available and compensation for the effort is justified.