The FBI is already paving that way with this case. They don't overly care about access to this particular iPhone. They're taking this case through the courts so that they can establish a precedent that allows them to force manufacturer cooperation to unlock any phone.

Edit: If they really cared about access to this individual phone, they wouldn't be going through the courts to get it; they'd be talking to the NSA TAO or other LEO with advanced forensic capability. As several people have pointed out, this iPhone 5C does not have a Secure Enclave and probably does not present a significant challenge to forensically analyze, to people that know what they're doing. They're going through the courts on this so they can get carte blanche to access iPhones 5S and above, which no LEO currently has capabilities to inspect.

Further edit: This is Farook's work phone. His main, personal phone was found destroyed in a dumpster near the site of the attacks. I find it incredibly unlikely the FBI really cares much about the contents of this individual phone, they just want a high-profile test case to expand their surveillance capabilities.

This is an analysis, not an objective and demonstrable fact.

I could just as well argue that yes, the FBI really does care a lot about this particular iPhone, and that's why the asked-for update is to be keyed to this iPhone and only this iPhone.

At the same time, even assuming that is true, we're talking about the FBI going through a legal process, reviewed by a judge, to get the data off one phone at a time. If that's how it works every time, I don't see a problem; that is how the system is supposed to work. I am kind of baffled as to why we're cheerleading the fact that Apple is refusing to perform what appears to be a perfectly reasonable request that is being made in accordance with the law. If you are operating under the presumption that the government is always a bad-faith actor, then we have much, much bigger problems.

Also, apparently this 'precedent' has already been set; according to a link in the article, Apple had previously offered custom firmware images to law enforcement after a court order that bypassed the lock screen on earlier iPhones.

http://www.cnet.com/news/how-apple-and-google-help-police-by...

Wasn't it just yesterday a story was published about an upcoming documentary about the STUXnet virus that claims that the US and Israel developed it in secret together and had a very successful, but very limited use for it. Only when Israel allegedly went off on their own to modify and deploy it did it spread wide and far, popping up on the radar of anti-malware companies and getting researched and publicized.

Like what you said, after the exploit/backdoor/software is designed, it can never be un-designed. It will exist as a tool that can only be mitigated, but not destroyed.

Then why don't we have Apple's private keys yet?

Plenty of companies keep a lot of things very secret, including things like powerful debug modes, for a long time. At least long enough that everybody forgets the details and the software has long since rotted away.

Nobody in FBI would give a damn about leaking the patched OS image: it's Apple's reputation on stake, not FBI's.

There is nothing of value for the FBI to leak.

This is the huge difference between this order (which I can live with) and blanket encryption backdoors using key escrow or other crap (which I'm absolutely vehemently against and willing to fight to the teeth)

That is completely not true. There is no way to make such a thing that can only work on one particular phone. There will be some point at which the compromised firmware image checks to see if it's that device, at which point it would be possible to change that to whatever device you want.

"This is the huge difference between this order (which I can live with) and blanket encryption backdoors using key escrow or other crap (which I'm absolutely vehemently against and willing to fight to the teeth)"

No, there is absolutely no difference between those two.

The technique that makes this possible is described in Apple's iOS Security White paper, page 6 ("System Software Authorization"): https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

This mechanism explains why you can't take an old release of iOS off a different phone and copy it to yours.

Not LEOs.

No. You don't have to assume that law enforcement or intelligence agencies are bad faith actors to see they are constantly seeking to expand their powers.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/235910-fbis-hacking-...

https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-fbi-using-d...

https://epic.org/foia/fbi/lpr/

Given what we know about government surveillance programs, why would one assume the government is a good faith actor when it comes to encryption?

It needn't be "always", just (perceived as) too often. It seems fair to say the broad sentiment is that the national security arms of U.S. government have broached that barrier.

And how will we ensure that's the case? Once they have the firmware they need they can install it on other phones.

For all we know so far, Apple could still provide a signed firmware bypassing the bruteforcing delay implemented by the Secure Enclave.

Probably not easy and not on mass scale. It may even need to have to see inside the silicone itself. Which is expensive and hard. But as long as the keys are on the device or in possession of apple - they can be extracted.

Apple chose themselves to have total control over the device, signing and ecosystem - now it backfires.

I would think it's more similar to the following: the government has gone to the safe manufacturer to help it open a safe it has a warrant for, has access to and can move, but can't open.

The government is asking to develop a method to modify the safe so that it can be opened. The safe manufacturer says that it they did so the same method would be able to be used on all of their safes, and thereby make all of their products less secure.

I would imagine that a reasonable safe manufacturer would bring up the same objection.

If the safe manufacturer doesn't want to be put in this position, it should make it so there is no such modification possible. Which as far as I understand it is what Apple did with their safes^H^H^H^H^Hphones starting with the A7 CPU, but this phone is older.

I'm guessing that the secure enclave not only requires a private key from Apple, but that it wipes the crypto keys it contains (effectively wiping the device) if it's updated without first being unlocked with the user's passcode. That would prevent even Apple from cracking it, barring an exploit of the secure enclave's software, or some sort of highly advanced attack on the physical hardware.

This requirement is self-contradictory. The device has no way to determine whether the attacker trying to gain access is a good or bad guy, nor can it.

Which law enforcement? The FBI? Really? how about the DEA? TSA? How about the federal police in China? Venezuela? Saudi Arabia? Syria?

Were I in Apple's position, I would probably do what Apple is doing here... but it's a harder question than just "should we cooperate?" They have to ask, "what if we don't?"

Sure, they can try brute-forceing it, or even break open the chips and try to extract keys with an electron microscope. That's all within their domain. But why should anyone be forced to assist them?

A safe is a container filled with physical objects: property. Property is subject to search and seizure with appropriate warrants, levies, writs, orders, wants, etc.

A phone is a container filled with information. The only physical property relevant to evidence consists of the electromagnetic state of the memory on the device. This would be no different from the bioelectric state of the neurons in the human brain, which coincidentally, also is a container filled with information. In both cases, there seems to be easy precedent to state that the information in those containers represents protected information, as it pertains to the possibly incriminating testimony of that information.

A safe can be physically removed and brought to a place where there are more specific tools available to access its physical contents. I stipulate to that.

A phone can also be physically removed and brought to a place where ... What? What tools exist to interrogate the electromagnetic state of the phone that aren't already accessible? Asking Apple to create some software allowing them to unlock and read the information is tantamount to asking a neuroscientist to create software allowing them to unlock and read your mind.

Not trolling, these are my sincere beliefs. Are they wrong?

Nobody can bypass the security on an iPhone but Apple, requiring them to do so isn't requiring a company to assist in a search, it's requiring a company to use its unique position as the manufacturer to damage their product.

Unfortunately, I think this sort of example paints you into a corner. The court is not requiring the company to permenantly damage the product, any more than a locksmith who opens a locked door to assist in the execution of a warrant is damaging the door. Once the court has what it requests it is trivial to reinstall the original firmware.

There is an old saying that hard cases make bad law. This is a hard case. The defendants are both heinous and deceased; they lack standing to resist and few will support such an effort. Apple is a third-party here and is on such shakey legal ground that they are left defending themselves in the court of public opinion because they know they are going to lose in an actual court. Bad things tend to come out of situations like this.

Can you explain how that duty comes to be?

And since you asked, I would bet that most of the people sitting on a jury deciding if you go to jail or not for impeding the execution of the warrant probably think that your duty to act in such a situation is considered a part of the price of admission to civil society.

Well, because an actual judge would be required to make such a decision, and in each case, the merits would be assessed separately. So Apple could say no, and a judge might agree with them "right, the government has no grounds here".

(IANAL, and IANEAA - I am not even an American).