Moot point: Judge closes iPhone encryption case in Brooklyn

1

The United States Justice Department said on Friday that it has withdrawn a request compelling Apple Inc to cooperate in unlocking an iPhone related to a drug case in NY following a third-party providing a passcode to the authorities to access the handset.

"An individual provided the department with the passcode to the locked phone at issue in the Eastern District of New York", Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi said in a statement.

On Friday, the Justice Department told a federal court in Brooklyn that it would withdraw the motion to force Apple to pull data from a drug dealer's locked iPhone, The Washington Post reported.

Investigators have dropped the court case against Apple as they have successfully gained access to the iPhone 5s involved in the NY drug case.

There are about a dozen other All Writs Act orders for Apple's assistance with opening for other devices that are unresolved, but are not in active litigation, according to a Justice Department official. Apple, meanwhile, demanded to know in the NY case whether the government had exhausted all other options to get to the data.

The company said it "strongly supports, and will continue to support, the efforts of law enforcement in pursuing criminals", but not through the government's misuse of a law it wants to use as a "precedent to lodge future, more onerous requests for Apple's assistance".

The case dates back to 2014, when authorities seized the iPhone 5s of the suspect Jun Feng. Feng pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and is scheduled to be sentenced in June. Comments attributed to Apple's attorneys also suggest that while the company isn't aware of the method used, it's convinced that normal product development is eventually going to plug whatever exploit was used to gain access to that iPhone.

According to the Wall Street Journal, that "individual" is Feng himself, who has already been convicted and only recently became aware that his phone was the subject of a national controversy.

The case began on February 16 with an order from Judge Sheri Pym and ended on March 28 when the Justice Department withdrew its legal actaion against Apple.

As a result, Comey's remarks strongly implied that the bureau paid at least $1.3 million to get onto the phone, which had belonged to Syed Rizwan Farook, who, with his wife, killed 14 people during the December 2 terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif. 、

Recommended

Customer Headaches Could Curtail Apple’s Encryption Push

At an event held during Apple’s fight with the FBI over whether it should help unlock a dead terrorist’s iPhone, CEO Tim Cook promised “We will not shrink” from the responsibility of protecting customer data —including from government overreach. Yet the obvious next step for the company could be hard to take without inconveniencing customers. ...

Debate over tech tools'encryption

Before the San Bernardino terror attack, Syed Rizawan Farook's iPhone was just one fancy Apple device among hundreds of millions worldwide. But since the California government worker and his wife shot and killed 14 people on December 2, apparently inspired by extremist group IS, his iPhone 5c has become a key witness - and the ...

Encryption and privacy are priorities for tech firms

The Justice Department and Microsoft go head-to-head in the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Wednesday. The battleground? Data privacy. At issue is the question of whether U.S. law enforcement can use a search warrant — in this case, in a drug investigation — to force the U.S.-based technology company to turn ...

It is difficult for the FBI to crack most smartphone encryption

The FBI is struggling to decode private messages on phones and other mobile devices that could contain key criminal evidence, and the agency failed to access data more than half of the times it tried during the last fiscal year, FBI Director Christopher Wray told House lawmakers. Wray will testify at the House Judiciary Committee ...

暂无评论

发表评论

您的电子邮件地址不会被公开,必填项已用*标注。

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.