Apple iPhone unlocking maneuver likely to remain secret

Reuters | April 13, 2016 | BY JOSEPH MENN AND MARK HOSENBALL

[Swordmaker]

The company that helped the FBI unlock a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone to get data has sole legal ownership of the method, making it highly unlikely the technique will be disclosed by the government to Apple or any other entity, Obama administration sources said this week.

[Swordmaker]

SHEESH! Now were back to a private company, not some black or gray hat hacker. . . can it get any more murky?

[Swordmaker]

A source inside the Obama White House now says that the iPhone hack used by the FBI is owned by a private company and not owned by the FBI and therefore cannot be revealed to anyone, even if the White House's own Vulnerabilities Equities Process requires it be released to Apple . . . Oh, well. — PING!

Pinging dayglored and Shadow Ace just for the heck of total confusion about who the hell knows anything any more?

Apple v. FBI v. Obambi v. Privacy
Ping!

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[Swordmaker]

Does anyone feel like we are watching one of those slap stick comedy movies where everyone is chasing everyone else through multiple doors in a hallway and you can't tell who is going to come through what door when? You just want to sit down and watch them make fools of themselves.

[Ken H]

Frank Drummond must be in charge.

[Ken H]

Drebin.

(1st rule of comedy - get the punchline right)

[thoughtomator]

The story remains consistent with my hypothesis that they were never able to hack into it at all and are just bluffing.

[Cololeo]

I agree. There was no hack. There is no information. This is all Kabuki Theater to save face and pretend they are competent.

[bert]

Or, the unlocking never happened.

The easy way to end the controversy was to lie

[IncPen]

The river of lies rolls on unabated from the Administration...

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

HYPOTHETICAL Question:

If a data breach compromised the personal information of millions of users and it turns out the government was aware of a bug in the system but did not reveal the information to a company for whatever reason, what then?

Cases such as Target and Home Depot come to mind. I am NOT suggesting the feds were aware of any vulnerabilities, this is a 'what if ' question.

Both have paid millions of settlement dollars. Those breaches have cost those companies in terms of dollars and customer trust, not to mention the cost to affected consumers.

What would be the responsibility of the government if it did not disclose a known vulnerability resulting in a massive data breach affecting millions of private citizens? Would private citizens have recourse as private citizens?