Tomas Chlebek The last time we wrote about the case where the FBI asked Apple for a tool to access terrorists' iPhones was when they appeared advanced information about how the FBI got into that iPhone. However, other reports have surfaced questioning who helped the FBI. Whoever it was, statistics have now been released showing that the US government requested assistance in obtaining information from Apple in the second half of last year much more often than before.
After the information about the successful breaching of the protection of the iPhone of the terrorists in the attacks in San Bernardino, USA, it was considered most likely that the FBI was helped in this by the Israeli company Cellebrite. But a few days ago The Washington Post quoted anonymous sources, according to which the FBI has hired professional hackers, the so-called "grey hats". They look for bugs in the program code and sell the knowledge about those they find.
In this case, the buyer was the FBI, which then created a device that used a flaw in the iPhone's software to break its lock. According to the FBI, the bug in the software can only be used to attack iPhone 5C with iOS 9. Neither the public nor Apple has yet provided more information about the bug.
John McAfee, creator of the first commercial antivirus, article in The Washington Post attacked. He said that anyone can cite "anonymous sources" and that it was foolish for the FBI to turn to the "hacker underworld" rather than Cellebrite. He also mentioned and dismissed theories that the FBI assisted Apple itself, but did not cite any sources of its own.
As for the actual data that investigators obtained from the terrorist's iPhone, the FBI only said that it contained information it did not have before. These should mainly concern eighteen minutes after the attack, when the FBI did not know where the terrorists were. Data obtained from the iPhone is said to have helped the FBI rule out that the terrorists were contacting family members or the ISIS terrorist organization at the time.
However, it still remains a mystery what the terrorists were doing during that period of time. Moreover, the fact that the iPhone data has so far only been used to disprove possible San Bernardino terrorist contacts reinforces the impression that it contained no useful information.
The problem of protecting and providing data to the government is also concerned Apple message on government requests for user information for the second half of 2015. This is only the second time Apple has released it, previously it was not allowed by law. Message from first half of 2015 shows that national security authorities have asked Apple to provide information on between 750 and 999 accounts. Apple complied, i.e. provided at least some information, in 250 to 499 cases. In the second half of 2015, there were between 1250 and 1499 requests, and Apple granted between 1000 and 1249 cases.
It is not clear what is behind the increase in applications. It is also possible that the first half of last year was unusually low in the number of defective requests for information from Apple customer accounts. Unfortunately, data from earlier years is not known, so this can only be speculated.
