FBI

The ongoing battle between Apple and the FBI over bypassing an iPhone's security during a criminal investigation took an interesting turn last week, when the government abruptly dropped its court appointment, saying it had found another method to get inside the iPhone 5c at the middle of San Bernardino terrorism case. Unfortunately for the FBI, this new trick for bypassing Apple's encryption is unlikely to remain a secret for long.

Continue Reading

Surprise! The FBI has made a big production of trying to force Apple’s hand in unlocking an iPhone, Apple has waged a big legal battle to keep the government out of its users’ phones, and Snowden has claimed the FBI has been able to unlock the phone all along. It’s a revolving circus of serious litigation and possible precedent-setting court rulings, and it has just presented a big plot twist: the FBI may have just found a way to crack the iPhone, a new court document reveals.

Continue Reading

Drivers should be cautious of potential car hacks, the FBI has warned today, pointing out that increasingly connected vehicles open the door to futuristic automotive exploits. The PSA, issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Department of Transportation (DoT), recognizes that onboard data connections - whether installed by automakers themselves, or via a third-party accessory by the cars' owners - can be useful, but cautions that we're unlikely to have heard the last of high-profile hacking incidents.

Continue Reading

Apple has just filed a legal response to the Justice Department's response to Apple's response to the court order on behalf of the Justice Department. That simplified yet still confusing chronology of legal filings only shows the circus surrounding the tussle between Apple and government agencies, specifically the FBI, over unlocking the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. After being on the receiving end of some colorful remarks from the DOJ, Apple's latest legal statement fires back by saying how the Founding Fathers would be appalled by the DOJ's order.

Continue Reading

If you weren't already convinced one way or the other about the Apple FBI encryption case, today "Last Week Tonight" will do that job for you. John Oliver tackles encryption, showing how the situation has played out so far and how absurd everything has been. In this Last Week Tonight, like all Last Week Tonight episodes, Oliver not only takes the case and makes it all simple enough for any person to understand, he drops the mic at the end as well.

Continue Reading

From name calling to almost veiled threats. That's how far the tussle between Apple and the FBI over San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's iPhone has gone. In its most recent legal response to Apple's own legal filing, the Justice Department pretty much implied that it could require Apple to just give it the source code to its iOS mobile platform should the company continue to refuse to give in to the FBI's requests to unlock the iPhone. This was in response to one of Apple's arguments that it would cause an undue burden on the company.

Continue Reading

This week the FBI has pulled out all the stops when it comes to getting Apple to unlock their iPhones for court cases. They've invented a term. The term is "Cyber Pathogen." That's not a real thing. They've invented a new term to describe something that cannot possibly be inside the iPhone to convince the government that they absolutely NEED to gain access. It's one hundred percent absurd, for real.

Continue Reading

Today we're rounding up all the details regarding Apple's legal battle with the FBI over iPhone encryption. This includes the one-sentence filing made by attorneys representing Apple this week notifying the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California that their clients "formally object" to an order to break in to an encrypted iPhone. Today we make it simple. Today we catch you up at the same time as we collect the data in one place for ourselves, as well.

Continue Reading

This afternoon the FBI and Apple spoke before a congressional panel regarding iPhone encryption. This case has to do with unlocking a singe iPhone, says the FBI, one owned by a San Bernardino shooter. After a New York Magistrate Judge (James Orenstein) ruled against the FBI on compelling Apple to unlock this iPhone, the FBI and Apple went to congress to continue to speak on the issue. Apple's arguments have been straightforward. The FBI's arguments have stacked with fear mongering statements aplenty.

Continue Reading

One ruling is released in Apple's battle with the government over given access to encrypted iPhones in court cases throughout the United States. As we pour over what Magistrate Judge James Orenstein's 50-page memorandum and order means for Apple, we can also fairly easily interpret what it'll mean for all smart devices, including those running Google's Android. And Windows Phone. And Blackberry, if you wish. The whole lot.

Continue Reading

Apple CEO Time Cook appeared on ABC World News Tonight last night, and in a 30-minute interview with David Muir, he goes into detail about Apple's stance encryption, as well as why they will not give in to the FBI's demands for backdoor access into an iPhone that belonged to a terrorist. The television broadcast of the program only included a small portion of the interview, but ABC has now posted it online in full, and it's a must-watch for anyone closely following the Apple/FBI topic, as well as the larger issue of privacy and the government.

Continue Reading

The New York City Police Department says they'd like Apple to unlock every iPhone currently subject to a court-ordered search. Once the San Bernardino doors are broken down by the FBI, the NYPD has made clear: they want in, too. That'd mean every iPhone entered into evidence in a court case and subjected to a search ordered by a judge could be forced open by law enforcement, courtesy of a piece of software they've forced Apple to create. That software would be an entirely new version of iOS which the FBI (then the NYPD, and every other law enforcement agency in the USA) would then install on each iPhone, bypassing Apple's security measures, opening the locks to access data. You might be asking yourself, "why is that so bad?"

Continue Reading