NicVene

I've had emotionally charged arguments with people elsewhere on this topic, and it amazing just how absurdly misunderstood the subject is. For example, the article posits that Apple has some kind of PR debacle on their hands. Well, to be sure this has been an emotionally charged case, but to anyone with some knowledge of these devices, it's not a debacle. I was always disappointed that the FBI had so much trouble hacking iOS, when jailbreak examples on the 5C were out some time ago, and those didn't even assume you COULD open the phone and work more directly with the hardware trying to break in. Most can't separate the task of hacking iOS and unlocking the phone. One vulnerability is not directly related to the other. We've known for some time iOS could be hacked, and so far every phone from the first to the 5 series has hacks for iOS (not entirely sure about the 6 series yet, but I don't expect it would take much longer). That still doesn't unlock the phone. So, Farook's phone wasn't of concern to him before he died. It was the one phone they didn't bother to crush, and it was issued by a local county government. It would be laughable for a terrorist to use a government issued phone for secretive information and communications. As such, it is doubtful Farook would have bothered to choose the stronger custom alphanumeric passcode option, and probably chose some simple 4 digit number. With a hack applied to avoid the kill switch and long delays at the login screen, one could find a 4 digit passcode through automated means within an hour. This wasn't news to most of us familiar with the technology. Yet, for a lot of people who don't think, this represents some kind of defeat for Apple, by finding a passcode hardly any more secure than "1234". Brilliant, guys...just brilliant. Find anything more than was on the older iCloud backup did you? Did you? Hello?