Apple Suspects the latest Encryption Case Has Nothing To Do With regulation Enforcement

On Friday, the Justice department renewed its efforts in a Brooklyn courtroom to force Apple to help damage right into a drug trafficker’s iPhone, a move that Apple believes is simply some other attempt to set up a criminal precedent that will make such demands on tech corporations more straightforward one day.

The DOJ said in its submitting that it “continues to require Apple’s help in having access to the data” from the iPhone of Jun Feng, a convicted methamphetamine trafficker.

An Apple legal professional mentioned Friday the company is upset that the federal government is doubling down on its request, even after the judge within the case, U.S. magistrate decide James Orenstein, determined that its reliance on the antiquated All Writs Act to compel Apple within the matter used to be an overreach. Apple attorneys regard the federal government’s submitting with the courtroom Friday as an “appeal.”

Apple has said that it indeed has the aptitude to extract the encrypted data from the Feng cellphone, but filed a motion with the court docket in October refusing to do so.

Apple has said that the creation of even one “back door” to encrypted knowledge on an iPhone would weaken the protection of millions of iPhones if it ever fell into the incorrect hands. however Apple’s primary problem may be that compliance with one court order irritating the advent of a customized OS (back door) would naturally result in many extra, in all varieties of circumstances.

The Feng case is an undesirable reprise of an awfully identical case where the FBI won an order from a California federal court worrying that Apple lend a hand it smash into the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s iPhone. if that’s the case the FBI wanted Apple to build a custom OS that may disable security features on the phone in order that a brute-pressure attack will be used to guess the encryption passcode. the federal government said it hoped to find data that may link Farook with terror teams within the center East.

Apple refused to help. The FBI later abandoned the court order simply 22 hours ahead of the court was once to study the case after six weeks of excessive and really public prison wrangling between the 2 parties. the government stated a “third birthday celebration” had come forward with a option to get right of entry to Farook’s iPhone without Apple’s assistance.

Apple says the Justice department’s renewed effort in the Brooklyn case proves that its demand in the San Bernardino case was never about only one phone, as FBI director James Comey had mentioned, or that it used to be ever about combating terrorism.

paperwork unsealed by way of decide Orenstein in the same Brooklyn case exhibit that the FBI has requested that Apple create a “back door” to encrypted knowledge on iPhones as a minimum 9 occasions, and presumably as many as 17 times, due to the fact that final October.

without in truth accusing the government, Apple lead attorney Bruce Sewell implied many times that the federal government is enjoying a political sport, the usage of federal district courts as a instrument to establish a criminal precedent for the usage of the All Writs Apple to make tech companies divulge their clients’ encrypted data upon request of the federal government. Apple will file another movement with the Brooklyn courtroom refusing to help the government within the case.

Apple attorneys are likely to make two major arguments in the movement. First, it’ll carry the possibility that the government hasn’t absolutely explored its options for breaking into the Jun Feng telephone with out Apple’s assist. 2d, it’ll argue that the federal government is the use of the All Writs Act in a technique it used to be by no means meant to be used, and can cite choose Orenstein’s own exhaustive examination of that query and the truth that he reached the same conclusion.

here’s a timeline of the Apple-FBI saga:

supply: IPVanish.com