iPhone unlocking manoeuvre likely to remain secret

The company that helped the FBI unlock a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone to get data has sole legal ownership of the method, making it highly unlikely the technique will be disclosed by the government to Apple or any other entity, Obama administration sources said this week.

The White House has a procedure for reviewing technology security flaws and deciding which ones should be made public. But it is not set up to handle or reveal flaws that are discovered and owned by private companies, the sources said, raising questions about the effectiveness of the so-called Vulnerabilities Equities Process.

The secretive process was created to let various government interests debate about what should be done with a given technology flaw, rather than leaving it to agencies like the National Security Agency, which generally prefers to keep vulnerabilities secret so they can use them.

The government’s efforts to force Apple to help it unlock the San Bernardino iPhone have re-ignited a national debate about encryption, security and privacy that continues to rage two weeks after the Justice Department said it broke into the phone without Apple’s help.

The sources said the technology used to get into the phone was supplied by a non-US company that they declined to identify.

Without cooperation from the company, the FBI would not be able to submit the method to the Vulnerabilities Equities Process even if it wanted to, the sources said on condition they not be named.

The FBI itself probably does not know the details of the technique — just enough to determine that it worked, according to government sources and Rob Knake, who managed the White House process before leaving last year.

The FBI said in February that it was unable to get into the iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook without help from Apple, and it won a court order compelling the Silicon Valley icon to break into the device.