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A federal judge in Riverside, California, late Monday agreed to the government's request to postpone a hearing scheduled for Tuesday so that the FBI could try the newly discovered technique. The Justice Department said it would update the court on April 5. The government had insisted until Monday that it had no way to access the phone used by Rizwan Farook, one of the two killers in the December massacre in San Bernardino, California, except to force Apple to write new software that would disable the password protection. The Justice Department last month obtained a court order directing Apple to create that software, but Apple has fought back, arguing that the order is an overreach by the government and would undermine computer security for everyone.
The announcement on Monday that an unnamed third party had presented a way of breaking into the phone on Sunday - just two days before the hearing and after weeks of heated back-and-forth in court filings - drew skepticism from many in the tech community who have insisted that there were other ways to get into the phone. “From a purely technical perspective, one of the most fragile parts of the government's case is the claim that Apple's help is required to unlock the phone," said Matt Blaze, a professor and computer security expert at the University of Pennsylvania. "Many in the technical community have been skeptical that this is true, especially given the government's considerable resources.”
Former prosecutors and lawyers supporting Apple said the move suggested that the Justice Department feared it would lose the legal battle, or at minimum would be forced to admit that it had not tried every other way to get into the phone. In a statement, the Justice Department said its only interest has always been gaining access to the information on the phone and that it had continued to explore alternatives even as litigation began. It offered no details on the new technique except that it came from a non-governmental third party, but said it was "cautiously optimistic" it would work. "That is why we asked the court to give us some time to explore this option," a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, Melanie R. Newman, said. "If this solution works, it will allow us to search the phone and continue our investigation into the terrorist attack that killed 14 people and wounded 22 people."
It would also likely end the case without a legal showdown that many had expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. An Apple executive told reporters on a press call that the company knew nothing about the Justice Department's possible method for getting into the phone, and that the government never gave any indication that it was continuing to search for such solutions. The executive characterized the Justice Department’s admission Monday that it never stopped pursuing ways to open the phone as a sharp contrast with its insistence in court filings that only Apple possessed the means to do so.
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The results of the poll were released late on Monday, in the middle of a legal battle between Apple and the U.S. Justice Department over a judge's order that Apple write new software to disable passcode protection on the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California shooters. The two sides were set to face off in court on Tuesday, but late on Monday a federal judge in Riverside, California, agreed to the government's request to postpone the hearing after U.S. prosecutors said that a "third party" had presented a possible method for opening an encrypted iPhone.
The development could bring an abrupt end to the high-stakes legal showdown which has become a lightning rod for a broader debate on data privacy in the United States, which was inflamed by revelations in 2013 from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about the U.S. government's massive surveillance programs. When asked if they trust Apple to protect data from hackers, 60 percent of respondents said they strongly agreed or somewhat agreed, according to the poll, conducted March 11 to 16. That is in line with responses to the same questions about Alphabet Inc's Google, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp.
The poll found only one in 10 people consider security options such as encryption and passcode protection to be the most important considerations when shopping for a new phone. Performance and price were far ahead, each ranked as the most important factor by about a third of those polled. "Security is one of these things that gets people in trouble when it lapses, but it’s not something consumers are going to be shopping for," said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson. The results suggest that Apple's refusal to comply with a U.S. government demand that it unlock an iPhone has not given it extra credit with consumers, Jackson said. "This (poll) was about getting a feel to see whether Apple is seen as some kind of exemplary company," Jackson said. "It's not."
Apple certainly sees itself as a guardian of customers' privacy. The company "will not shrink from that responsibility," declared Chief Executive Tim Cook on stage at the launch of a new iPhone on Monday. "Apple has the same halo as many tech companies: A majority of people, but not a huge majority, agree that they trust them to protect their information," Jackson said.
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