The FBI said Wednesday 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.
Amy S. Hess, the FBI's executive assistant director for science and technology, said in a statement that when it hired an outside party to unlock the phone, the agency did not purchase the rights to the technique.
Amy S. Hess, the FBI's executive assistant director for science and technology, said in a statement that when it hired an outside party to unlock the phone, the agency did not purchase the rights to the technique.
As a result, Hess said, the FBI does not "have enough
technical information about any vulnerability" in the iPhone to submit
for the interagency review.
The review, which is being conducted in secret, would decide
whether the vulnerability could be disclosed to government agencies or
the private sector.
The iPhone in question was owned by the San Bernardino
County Health Department and assigned to employee Syed Farook, who, with
his wife Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and wounded 22 during an
attack on his co-workers last December.
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.
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