[Infowarrior] - Feds want Apple’s help to defeat encrypted phones, new legal case shows

[Richard Forno]

Feds want Apple’s help to defeat encrypted phones, new legal case shows
by Cyrus Farivar - Dec 1 2014, 9:00am EST

OAKLAND, CA—Newly discovered court documents from two federal criminal cases in New York and California that remain otherwise sealed suggest that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is pursuing an unusual legal strategy to compel cellphone makers to assist investigations.

Apple expands data encryption under iOS 8, making handover to cops moot

"Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data."

In both cases, the seized phones—one of which is an iPhone 5S—are encrypted and cannot be cracked by federal authorities. Prosecutors have now invoked the All Writs Act, an 18th-century federal law that simply allows courts to issue a writ, or order, which compels a person or company to do something.

Some legal experts are concerned that these rarely made public examples of the lengths the government is willing to go in defeating encrypted phones raise new questions as to how far the government can compel a private company to aid a criminal investigation.

Two federal judges agree that the phone manufacturer in each case—one of which remains sealed, one of which is definitively Apple—should provide aid to the government.

Ars is publishing the documents in the California case for the first time in which a federal judge in Oakland specifically notes that "Apple is not required to attempt to decrypt, or otherwise enable law enforcement’s attempts to access any encrypted data."

The two orders were both handed down on October 31, 2014, about six weeks after Apple announced that it would be expanding encryption under iOS 8, which aims to render such a data handover to law enforcement useless. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that DOJ officials told Apple that it was "marketing to criminals" and that "a child will die" because of Apple’s security design choices.

Apple did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/feds-want-apples-help-to-defeat-encrypted-phones-new-legal-case-shows/


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