14 DAY TRIAL // The San Bernardino iPhone case might be over, but the dispute between the FBI and Apple continues with yet another phone that the bureau wants hacked by the Cupertino-based company in order to access information stored in its memory.
The FBI has now sued Apple in order to force the company to hack an iPhone 5s belonging to Jun Feng, a methamphetamine dealer from Brooklyn who says that he no longer knows the password to his phone. Although he has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy, the FBI wants the phone hacked because it could contain evidence about other dealers. And it wants Apple to do it.
Claiming that the San Bernardino hack that it turned to in order to unlock the iPhone used by one of the terrorists involved in the shootings doesn’t work, the FBI says that Apple is the only one that can access the data. The hack was only developed for that particular case, the FBI explains.
Apple says the FBI can hack it on its own
One the other hand, Apple claims that the FBI has what it takes to break into the phone on its own and only wants to force the company to do it in order to set a precedent that could be then used to have them hacking other devices too.
The lawyer, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the NYT that the Brooklyn iPhone uses an older version of iOS than the one the FBI had already hacked as part of the San Bernardino investigations, so it’s supposed to be even easier to break into. iOS versions get harder to crack as they are newer, so iOS 9 is said to be the most secure release to date.
Obviously, Apple refuses to comply with FBI’s request and reiterates that the company expects the San Bernardino hack to leak very soon, making it much easier for its own engineers to patch the flaw and deliver an update to all iPhones. The FBI, on the other hand, is trying to keep everything secret for the time being and isn’t willing to share info regarding the hack with Apple.