That's the first I had heard that.

They want Apple to write new code, thus setting a very dangerous precedent, because some yokel messed up the phone?

It's so obvious what the government is after and it isn't in that phone.

the problem is that it could end up in the wrong hands, or being misused. If it could only be used with a legit warrant, I'd be OK with it, except for the fact there was a way to get that info without this new software and this request is only needed because someone messed up by resetting a password.

Bet that won't happen again.

I understand their need to get into this guy's phone...but they had their chance and messed it up. Now it's probably time to back MS on this.

I agree with noretreatnosurrender. TPTB don't want any citizen to have privacy, especially the NSA.

Read post #13.

Is I'm going to get an Apple iPhone.

"Would you like the icon in cornflower blue?"
Apple is trying to prevent the precedent. The last thing we need is more opportunities for the FBI and NSA to snoop on us.

Even if another company got its hand on the iOS source code and modified it, the iPhone won't load the OS unless it's been signed with Apple's electronic signature.

Sadly, it seem as if a lot of people do not care....sigh.

But in this case, the user's dead, the owner has given permission, and the court says the info should be provided.

It's unclear whose rights would be violated, except for the suspicion and fear that if the code existed it could escape and be used by other people on other phones, or the courts could start arguing that if you hack a phone with the owner's permission it's no different from hacking the phone over the owner's objections.

In this case no warrant is necessary. That means the real issue is whether this would be onerous for Apple to do and weighing the risk that the code could escape.

Of course, if I were on the short-list to produce that code, I'd be annoyed. The most likely suspicion would be that I'd turn the code over for money or ideology to some other group. Of course, there's the alternative--that if people knew I'd hacked the phone with permission I might be kidnapped (and my wife or kid) until I divulge the company secrets. That, of course, would require that they knew it was me and that the software itself hadn't changed over time.

It's a hard case that'll produce, I'm sure, some incredibly bad law.

Who is this person and how did he or she happen to have the phone in their possession? And if they reset the password why not just use the new password?

I'm privately calling bullshit but publicly saying oh dear oh dear.

That doesn't make sense to me either.

there are two passwords involved. One to log onto the phone itself (with the 10 failed attempts resulting in a iPhone reset) and one for the Apple account where the iCloud backup is performed. It was this latter password which was reset/changed by the County employee. If the AppleID account's password is changed, say from a web browser on a desktop computer, then to log on again to the iCloud it would require physically accessing the iPhone in question (which can't be done because it is password protected) in order to enter the "new" iCloud password which would be required to do an actual contemporary backup.

As for your question about how the password change was accomplished: I think it was done via a password reset request. See here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201355

As I understand it the password change to the iCloud backup (AppleID password) essentially decoupled the iPhone in question from iCloud.

Convenience becomes less convenient .

the information on the phone they should hand the phone over to Apple, telling them "we don't care how you get the information from the memory, we just want the information. Don't care how you do it, don't want an app to do it, we just want the information on that phone.

Why can't they just give the phone to Apple to extract the information for them?

... To challenge the validity of the data.

Puts it all out in the open. Especially a new extraction method...

in the FBI losing control of the data on the phone.
Legally there would be a chain of custody problem.
Outside of the legal stuff, the FBI is not interested in sharing the data with the public.

But apple does not want give the FBI at tool that could be used to extract this type of data for any apple cell phones. Also a very strong consideration.

“I don’t really need to worry about online privacy,” I used to think. “I’ve got nothing to hide. And who would want to know what I’m up to, anyway?”

Just before midnight last Friday, my plane touched down in Raleigh after a three-hour flight from Dallas. As usual, I’d spent much of the flight working, using American Airlines Gogo in-flight Internet connection to send and answer emails. As I was putting on my jacket, a fellow in the row behind me, someone I hadn’t even noticed before, said: “I need to talk to you.” A bit taken aback, I replied, “It’s late … need to get home.”

“I hacked your email on the plane and read everything you sent and received. I did it to most people on the flight.” He had verbatim detail of a long email that he repeated back to me essentially word for word.

I asked Abdo what we could to do protect our privacy. This is what he told me:

Call your representatives in Congress and on a statewide level and express your support for Apple in this case. Here’s a list of all U.S. members of the House and Senate. https://www.congress.gov/members

Make sure your devices are using their built-in encryption features. That’s FileVault for Apple devices and BitLocker on Windows products.

Use a password manager to help you create and store different — and strong — passwords for all your accounts. Don’t use the same password repeatedly, and don’t ever use passwords like “password” or “123456.” Some popular ones include DashLane, LastPass, and Sticky Password.

Download WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal, messaging apps that go great distances in encrypting voice and electronic messages. Keep in mind that even they are not 100% secure.


Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/02/24/got-hacked-my-mac-while-writing-story/80844720/