The stealthy method by FBI for breaking into a locked iPhone 5c will soon be busted. Senior Apple Inc engineers, and even experts outside Apple, are certain that this will not remain a secret for long.
According to a news report on Venturebeat.com, the company will be able to plug the encryption hole as soon as this FBI scheme is exposed. iPhone users will no longer have to worry that they will become vulnerable to hackers once they lose physical possession of their devices. The moment that such flaw will be fixed by Apple, an announcement will immediately follow, and thus extending the public battle over security holes.
In a news report on Reuters, just last week, the FBI dropped its courtroom quest, forcing the company to hack into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. The Federal Bureau of Investigation claimed that an unidentified party had provided a means for acquiring the unknown passcode of the deceased killer.
Provided that the authority pursues a parallel case in New York, which seeks Apple's help, then the court could then make FBI reveal its new trick.
"The FBI would need to resign itself to the fact that such an exploit would only be viable for a few months, if released to other departments," Jonathan Zdziarski, an independent forensics expert who has aided FBI agents break into many devices, said in a statement. "It would be a temporary Vegas jackpot that would quickly get squandered on the case backlog."
On Friday, Reuters acquired a memo containing the FBI's position of sharing the tool "consistent with our legal and policy constraints."
Regardless of the FBI hoarding the information and the policy of the White House tilting towards disclosure to manufacturers, if this method is not disclosed to Apple, the company can actually find some other means to bring this FBI trick into light or put an end to it according to Zdziarski and some senior Apple engineers who spoke during an interview with Reuters on condition of anonymity.
