14 DAY TRIAL // FBI agents who are investigating the Texas church shooting cannot access the information stored on the attacker’s phone because the device is encrypted and the agency doesn’t have the necessary resources to unlock it, an official said earlier this week.
While the FBI did not reveal the brand or the phone model that shooter Devin Patrick Kelley was using, it’s believed it’s one of the new-generation flagships, as breaking into these phones has often been considered impossible, with parent companies paying particular attention to making devices harder to crack.
Apple’s iPhone, for example, has been the subject of a several months-long dispute between the Cupertino-based technology giant and the FBI last year when investigators attempted to extract data from the device used by one of the attackers. The agency requested Apple’s help to unlock the iPhone, but the company refused to do it, claiming such a decision would compromise the security of all its customers.
No word on possible talks with phone maker
Eventually, the FBI said it managed to crack the phone with help from an undisclosed group of hackers who were paid as much as $1 million for the unlock method. It’s believed the FBI, however, hasn’t found any useful data on the phone after extracting all the information following the successful hack.
“With the advance of the technology and the phones and the encryptions, law enforcement -- whether at a state, local or federal level -- is increasingly not able to get into these phones,” FBI special agent Christopher Combs explained.
“I don't want to tell every bad guy out there what kind of phone to buy to harass our efforts on trying to find justice here,” he continued.
The FBI agent hasn’t revealed whether the agency requested help to unlock the device to the company that manufactured the phone, but if it’s an iPhone, then Apple has most likely said no just like it did in the San Bernardino investigation.