The U.S. government said an individual, still to be identified, provided crucial information to the case in which the unlock of an iPhone was neccesary. Late last night, the government used that passcode by hand and gained access to the iPhone.
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Apple had been fighting efforts by the Justice Department to force it to help in accessing data on the iPhone, arguing in court that it was not clear that all other avenues to access data from the phone had been exhausted by investigators. In fact, when presented with similar court orders, Apple unlocked dozens such phones and past year even provided agents with technical language necessary to obtain a search warrant seeking its assistance in opening the NY drug defendant’s device.
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FBI Director James Comey alluded to the figure, saying that the agency paid more to open the iPhone than he will earn in the last seven years and four months he has in his post.
Officials will not release the individual’s identity because the investigation is still in process, Justice Department’s spokeswoman Emily Pierce said. The two cases have been at the center of the debate over encryption and whether private companies such as Apple can be legally compelled to provide access to the secure data of their customers. Considering how the cases have gone so far, however, winning the precedent they want seems easier said than done.
The drug dealer’s iPhone was one of more than 1,000 Apple phones that cops around the USA have said they can’t break into, and it’s been at the epicenter of a legal fight over privacy and security that may redefine the relationship between police and the public. Still, the government and Apple urged the court to rule anyway, apparently to help set a legal precedent for such iPhone unlocking cases.
In the most recent case, Feng is a Queens, N.Y. defendant who pleaded guilty in October to a methamphetamine conspiracy.
In February 2016, Apple filed a brief in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in opposition of the U.S. government’s request for the company to unlock the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook.
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Apple and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were bound for a courtroom showdown over the iPhone in March, until the government said that it had found a way to get data off the device without the company’s help.
