The Justice Department said that it might no longer need Apple’s assistance in opening an iPhone used by a gunman in the San Bernardino, Calif., rampage last year.
The disclosure led a judge to postpone a court hearing over the issue and temporarily sidesteps what has become a bitter clash with the world’s most valuable company. In a new court filing, the government said an outside party had demonstrated a way for the F.B.I. to possibly unlock the phone used by the gunman. The hearing in the contentious case — Apple has loudly opposed opening the iPhone, citing privacy concerns and igniting a heated debate — was originally set for Tuesday.
Read moreIf you're not already worried about your car being hacked, you really should be, the US government says. Connected cars are becoming "increasingly vulnerable" to cyberattack.
They are just two of the latest organizations to voice their concern about software vulnerabilities in cars, which first came to light in 2013. New cars that go on sale are increasingly connected to the Internet and mobile devices, with features such as being able to use your phone to remotely start a car or get engine diagnostics. These features are meant to add convenience for drivers, but they also give hackers more opportunities to take control of vehicle systems.
Read morePresident Barack Obama said Friday that smartphones -- like the iPhone the FBI is trying to force Apple Inc. to help it hack -- can’t be allowed to be "black boxes," inaccessible to the government. The technology industry, he said, should work with the government instead of leaving the issue to Congress.
"You cannot take an absolutist view on this," Obama said at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. "If your argument is strong encryption no matter what, and we can and should create black boxes, that I think does not strike the kind of balance we have lived with for 200, 300 years, and it’s fetishizing our phones above every other value."
Read moreThe security researchers from Carnegie Mellon University were hired by the federal officials to discover a technique that could help the FBI Unmask Tor users and Reveal their IP addresses as part of a criminal investigation.
Yes, a federal judge in Washington has recently confirmed that the computer scientists at CMU's Software Engineering Institute were indeed behind a hack of the TOR project in 2014, according to court documents filed Tuesday. In November 2015, experts reported that Tor Project Director Roger Dingledine accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation of paying the CMU for providing information that led to the criminal suspects identification on the Dark Web.
Read moreBill Gates has broken ranks with Silicon Valley in the stand-off between Apple and the US government, saying technology companies should be forced to co-operate with law enforcement in terrorism investigations.
The Microsoft founder took issue with Tim Cook’s characterisation of the government’s order that Apple help break open the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone as a demand for a “back door”, denying that it would set a wider precedent. “This is a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case,” Mr Gates told.
Read moreFBI Director James Comey has penned an editorial about its dispute with Apple over unlocking the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. In it, he tried to quell criticism by Apple's Tim Cook that a court's decision forcing Apple to help the FBI access the device could have "chilling" implications.
"The San Bernardino litigation isn't about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message," says Comey. "We don't want to break anyone's encryption or set a master key loose on the land. It is about the victims and justice. We owe them a thorough and professional investigation." Apple pricked a hole in the "professional" part of the investigation, however.
Read moreApple CEO declared that his company wouldn’t comply with a government search warrant to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers, a significant escalation in a long-running debate between technology companies and the government over access to people’s electronically-stored private information.
But in a similar case in New York last year, Apple acknowledged that it could extract such data if it wanted to. And according to prosecutors in that case, Apple has unlocked phones for authorities at least 70 times since 2008. In other words, Apple’s stance in the San Bernardino case may not be quite the principled defense that Cook claims it is.
Read moreWith a special hacking tool, the Federal Bureau of Investigations not only took over operations of a child pornography site, but also located some 1,300 visitors. Now the computer code used to hunt down suspects must be released per a court order.
What the FBI has called "the largest remaining known child pornography hidden service in the world," Playpen operated in the part of cyberspace known as the Dark Web on the browser Tor where its IP address was hidden. That is, until the FBI managed to capture control of the site in February 2015 where it proceeded not to shut it down, but rather kept the illegal content up for two weeks to catch 1,300 visitors’ IP addresses.
Read moreThe stage is set for a showdown between the FBI and Apple after the tech company’s CEO Tim Cook confirmed he will not assist the feds in hacking the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.
The outcome is expected to have far-reaching implications in setting a precedent for future battles between digital privacy advocates and US national security interests. Here’s what you need to know about the fight so far: So why has this issue arisen? The FBI contacted Apple two weeks ago with a request for assistance in hacking the iPhone of one December's San Bernardino mass shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook. Apple refused.
Read moreApple CEO Tim Cook denounced a federal judge's order to crack open an iPhone used by a terrorist, calling the situation "chilling" and saying it would deal a major setback to online privacy for all.
To hack the phone, the FBI wants Apple to build a new version of its iOS software that Cook claims bypasses the iPhone's security features and creates "the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession." "The US government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create," Cook wrote in an open letter posted on Apple's website. "They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone."
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