Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
No need for any risks. Simply have Apple develop the allegedly needed software in house and use it on the one phone. Simple. Then give the data to the FBI.
Isn't that begging for chain of custody issues? Also, once the phone is unlocked, the FBI could reverse-engineer the firmware.
Either way, this isn't really about this one phone. It's about the precedent. The idea that the FBI could force a company to make a broadly applicable security hack for its own devices is pretty chilling.
Please re-read. I said DATA only. Apple could easily do this while giving absolutely no special software keys or anything revealing to the FBI.
Respectfully, Steve, I'm not the one who has to re-read.
The phone's contents are evidence. If Apple retrieves them before handing them to the FBI, that will be one link in the evidence's chain of custody that wasn't under the FBI's control.
If Apple then hands the unlocked phone with the new firmware back to the FBI before wiping it, that would give the FBI the opportunity to reverse engineer the hack. Reverse engineering is not the same as being handed something.
Others in this thread seem to think those concerns aren't necessary or applicable. But they did see that I WAS talking about data, not firmware.
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
My issue is Apple has done this hundreds of times already. Why is this phone so special?
Apple says they've never made a custom version of an OS that bypasses a security setting that was positively chosen by the user. That's what (they say) is different about this case.
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
And since it's user (not owner) was a mass murderer it would seem the right thing to do. I'd love to have absolute security on my phone but not if it protects folks who murder innocent citizens...
You know the answer to that as well as I do. What's moral for one particular case and what makes sense as a law or policy aren't always the same.