Officials at the FBI are going to recommend against sharing the details of a tool that was used to hack into an Apple iPhone, and will soon submit a letter to the White House making their case.
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The issue had been slated for review by an interagency panel tasked by the White House to disclose cybersecurity flaws discovered by federal agencies. However, as several reports on Tuesday evening indicated, the FBI is expected to argue that it does not understand how the hacking tool works, and that it should therefore be exempt from the review process.
The FBI paid at least one contractor more than $1.3 million to develop the hacking software used to break into an iPhone 5c used by shooters in December’s San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack. FBI Director James Comey has suggested the hack works only on that model, rendering it already outdated and greatly diminishing the significance of any decision about whether to share it with Apple.
Yet even if the federal review process doesn’t result in the hack being divulged to Apple, federal courts may eventually compel it. The company has said it will not directly file suit over the issue, but in a filing in a separate case this month, it taunted the FBI over the issue.
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Responding to a suit by the FBI seeking to compel the company to help it access an iPhone 5s in a New York drug case, Apple attorney Marc Zwillinger said the agency had some explaining to do. “If that same method can be used to unlock the iPhone in this case, it would eliminate the need for Apple’s assistance,” he wrote.
“If the [Justice Department] claims that the method will not work on the iPhone here, Apple will seek to test that claim, as well as any claims by the government that other methods cannot be used,” Zwillinger added, suggesting the FBI would effectively need to hand over the tool to demonstrate why it couldn’t be used in that case.
Rather than responding to Apple’s filing, federal prosecutors wrote last week that an individual had recently “provided the department with the passcode,” rendering its demand for assistance suddenly moot.
