Judge: Apple Must Help FBI Hack San Bernardino Killer's Phone
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A federal judge Tuesday ordered Apple to help the FBI hack into an iPhone belonging to one of the killers in the San Bernardino terror attack.
U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym ruled that Apple must provide the software that can disable the security feature that erases data from the iPhone after too many unsuccessful attempts to unlock it.
If you put the wrong password into an iPhone more than 10 times, it will automatically erase everything on that phone, something the federal agents are trying to avoid. So the FBI wants Apple to write a software that will override the password and won't erase the phone's content.
Apple opposes any attempts to disabled security and privacy features as CEO Tim Cook recently explained to "60 minutes." "There are intimate conversations with your family or your coworkers. There's probably business secrets, and you should have the ability to protect it," Cook said. "And the only way we know how to do that is encrypt it."
CBS2/KCAL9 legal analyst Steve Meister said it would not be a wise business move to help hack into Syed Farook's phone. "Encryption has become the standard for privacy. It's built into every smartphone that's made. So, for a company to appear to acquiesce to a government request to decrypt a phone or to assist in its decryption could hurt sales."
Apple has five days to counter the ruling and has not commented on the order.
Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people at the Inland Regional Center, authorities said, during a holiday party Dec. 2. The couple was later killed in a shootout with police.
