This site may earn chapter commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

467869-fbi

The FBI and Apple could be headed for another showdown after the FBI has reportedly found itself stymied by an encrypted iPhone. The device in question belonged to Devin Kelley, the suspected shooter in terminal weekend's Texas church building shooting. The agency initially refused to identify the telephone make, just information technology'southward now telling media that it'southward an Apple tree device. The FBI has had a lot to say most encryption in recent years, and this could add fuel to the fire.

The Sutherland Springs shooter'south telephone is encrypted, which prevents investigators from accessing its contents. That'due south the default setting on most phones now–both Android and iOS encrypt device storage, and there's no manner to access that data if a phone has a secure unlock method like a Pin or fingerprint. Even biometrics like fingerprint unlock aren't enough to unlock a phone afterwards it has been idle for also long. At that bespeak, yous need the phone'south password to gain access.

Apple and the FBI previously butted heads over the telephone belonging to the San Bernardino shooter in late 2015. In that instance, the iPhone was issued by the county government that employed the shooter earlier the assail. Apple tree asked canton Information technology specialists to reset the device's iCloud countersign, but that only served to make backups inaccessible. The FBI asked Apple to bypass the device's encryption, only the company refused, saying any tool to break its encryption would exist unsafe for all of its users.

In the end, the FBI dropped the case after it found a tertiary-party firm to unlock the telephone. These sort of undisclosed vulnerabilities are highly prized among security firms, and the FBI paid handsomely for the unlocking service.

FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2017.

The agency appears to take learned its lesson from the mistakes in its San Bernardino investigation. Post-obit the Sutherland Springs, TX shooting, the FBI began a forensic exam of the shooter's telephone. It didn't immediately need Apple go the device working. In fact, Apple had to reach out to meet if the phone was an iPhone.

The FBI is still looking for backups of the phone's data on a laptop or online. That could provide the agency with what it needs and save it from some other messy court battle. Last time, some Apple tree engineers pledged to quit before they built a tool that could suspension encryption on the iPhone. Apple's legal team also seemed fix to take the instance all the mode to the Supreme Court.

If the data on the shooter'southward phone is of that much involvement to the FBI, we could exist looking at another legal showdown.