The Wall Street Journal reports this evening that in a one-page letter filed with a Brooklyn federal court Friday night, the government said an individual had recently come forward to offer the passcode to the long-locked phone.
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The case predated the government effort to force Apple to help access the phone of Rizwan Farook, one of the two killers in the San Bernardino massacre, which left 14 people dead and 22 wounded.
The US Justice Department’s starting to look like the boy who cried wolf.
Apple declined to comment about the filing.
Apple has resisted any demands, saying if it needs to create new software to get past a device’s security measures, that will create vulnerabilities for all iPhones, and giving any help could create a precedent for the government to make such demands again. The case in NY involves an iPhone 5S running the iOS 7 operating system, which has older encryption technology. They did so after a third party came forward with a solution to crack the phone, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation used to gain access to the device. After encountering heavy opposition from activists, academics, tech companies, and lawmakers, forensic investigators found a last-minute solution to break into the Apple device by instead hiring “an outside party”, whose identity it has not revealed.What’s been on the minds of many following this case is what was on the iPhone 5c that was worth going to court over. Though the types of phones and the type of technical assistance differed, in both cases Apple argued that the law did not permit a court to order the firm to provide the help sought.
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.
The groups called Apple’s refusal to help get information from an iPhone in a Brooklyn drug case a risky precedent.
The company changed its stance last year after the NY magistrate invited them to argue whether the Justice Department was stretching the more than 200-year-old and very general All Writs Act, which compels help executing warrants, to include more active assistance. With both high profile cases against Apple folding abruptly of late, is the DOJ now hoping for the ‘Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016’ to work its way through the system before bringing Apple back to court on other cases?
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The majority of the technology industry bitterly opposes the measure, arguing that requiring back doors would make all communication more vulnerable to hackers and that US citizens and companies would simply get their encryption from providers in other countries.
