Who Needs Apple When the FBI Could Hack Terrorist iPhone Itself
- Experts say Feds could access data without going to court
- A kiosk in a Chinese mall holds a potential solution
How Can The FBI Get Into An iPhone?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has put the onus on Apple Inc. to break into the iPhone 5c carried by San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook. In fact, the feds almost certainly could do it themselves.
Security experts say there are many ways the FBI could hack the iPhone now at the center of a standoff between Apple and the U.S. government. They argue that doing so would be faster than waiting for the courts to decide whether Apple should be forced to create software that would let investigators try multiple passcodes without erasing the device. No one is saying a government hack would be easy, but the experts interviewed for this story have concluded the Feds aren’t even trying because they’d rather win a legal precedent that gives agents the power to access phone data with a warrant.