Bless their cold, spyin' hearts. The FBI suddenly cares about the rights of technology developers.
On Wednesday, the official word came from the federal agency that it will not be disclosing what vulnerability it exploited to force its way in to the San Bernardino attacker's iPhone, because — can you hear the gentle clutching of pearls?– "it did not own the rights to the technical method a contractor used to open an Apple iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters and therefore could not submit details of the mechanism for an interagency government review," as Reuters puts it.
In a statement, FBI executive assistant director for science and technology Amy S. Hess said when the agency paid an outside party to break through security features on the phone, FBI didn't actually buy the rights to the technique.
Because of this, FBI does not "have enough technical information about any vulnerability" in the iPhone to submit it for a secret interagency review, she said.
Only through such a review could the decision be made to disclose the vulnerability to other government agencies, or to any other private entities or individuals. Or Apple. You know. The folks who made that iPhone, which millions of people use and trust to be secure devices.
But don't worry! All of this hand-wringing over who owns the rights to the hack won't hold the FBI back from attempting the hack on other iPhones.
Snip:
While officials have not identified the contractor who provided the technique for opening the shooter's phone, a law enforcement official said that the FBI can re-use the unlocking mechanism on other phones, provided it works on those phones.
Hess said the FBI usually does not comment on vulnerabilities found in cyber products, but the agency decided to make a statement because of the "extraordinary nature of this particular case, the intense public interest in it, and the fact that the FBI already has disclosed publicly the existence of the method."
Hess' statement confirmed information from U.S. government sources on Tuesday that the FBI had provisionally decided not to share the iPhone unlocking mechanism because the agency did not own it.
"FBI will not share iPhone unlocking mechanism, cites lack of ownership" [Reuters]
