NEW YORK (AP) – Faced with a federal judge’s order to help investigators break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California, shooters, Apple may well argue that the request places an unreasonable burden on the company.
In fact, experts say that complying with the government’s request wouldn’t be particularly challenging for Apple. But doing so might set a dangerous precedent that could threaten the data security of the millions of iPhone users around the world.
The phone in question was used by Syed Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in a December attack. Investigators don’t know if the phone contains important evidence about the attack or the couple’s communications – and because its contents are encrypted, they won’t unless they can get the passcode to unlock it. The phone was issued by Farook’s employer, the county of San Bernardino.
Investigators can’t just try random passcodes until they hit on the right one, either. The phone has apparently enabled an Apple security feature – a sort of self-destruct option that would render the phone’s data unreadable after 10 incorrect passcode attempts.
The judge’s order requires Apple to create a unique software package – one Apple CEO Tim Cook described as “a new version of the iPhone operating system” – that would allow investigators to bypass the self-destruct system. The same software would also let the government enter passcodes electronically, eliminating both the tedium of manual entry and the enforced delays the iPhone system imposes after a few wrong guesses.