In a clever move, Apple has invited the FBI to hack another iPhone to see how law enforcement managed to crack the San Bernardino iPhone. The iPhone maker has asked the court to invite the FBI and ask it to unlock the New York case iPhone as the agency has already developed a method.
The FBI's legal battle against Apple ended last week when the FBI revealed that it no longer needed the iPhone maker's help to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone. The FBI was able to crack the case with the help of an anonymous third party who helped law enforcement access the information without destroying it.
However, the FBI's case against Apple doesn't seem to end there. Apple now wants to know how the FBI was able to crack the iPhone and has used another case to seek the information.
Apple lawyer Marc Zwillinger, in a letter to a U.S. District Court judge, is calling on the FBI to hack another iPhone from another case using the same method used in the San Bernardino case. Apple had previously refused to unlock an iPhone belonging to a methamphetamine dealer.
“If this same method can be used to unlock the iPhone in this [New York] case, it would eliminate the need for Apple’s help,” Zwillinger told Judge Margo Brodie.
In response to this request, the FBI has said that the San Bernardino method will not work with the New York iPhone.
As a counterargument to this response, Apple wants to test this claim. “If the [DoJ] claims that the method will not work for this iPhone, Apple will seek to test that claim, as well as any claims by the government that other methods cannot be used,” Zwillinger said.
According to legal experts, Apple is using a clever way to discover the method used by the FBI to unlock the iPhone. The company argues that if the government has already developed a method to hack the phone, it doesn't really need its help.
It will be interesting to see if Apple can get the kind of access the FBI used. She says that if the FBI found a vulnerability in the phone's operating system that is unknown to Apple, it could potentially be used on many other phones remotely.
