The FBI worked with Israel’s Cellebrite Mobile Synchronization to crack the iPhone used in the shooting last year in San Bernardino, California, according to people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it gained access to the data on the shooter’s phone, after it said it was approached by a third party about a possible way in. The FBI had been locked in a standoff with Apple for a month over accessing data on the phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook in the attack. Apple refused to comply with a court order to unlock the phone, saying it was an unreasonable demand on the company and threatened the privacy and data security of millions of iPhone users.
The FBI was already a Cellebrite client before this project, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the matter is private. Cellebrite, founded in 1999, is a unit of Japan’s Sun Corporation. Sun Corp.’s shares are up almost 40 percent since March 21 when U.S. authorities said a third party had demonstrated a way to get into the iPhone.
The successful cracking of the iPhone ended the government’s legal battle with Apple for now. The case was likely to have escalated to the Supreme Court, where a ruling would set legal precedents of personal privacy in the Internet age.
Cellebrite declined to comment. The company’s relationship with the FBI on this case was first reported last week by Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily. U.S. law enforcement officials have declined to disclose who helped it get into the iPhone.
(c) 2016, Bloomberg · Yaacov Benmeleh
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One Response
Israel our ONLY TRUE partner in the racist middle east. Apple won’t help us keep American safe but an Israeli company helped us Crack the phone and its content to save lives. Thank G-D we live in America which until now was the best country on the world. Going foward Issil will set off some type of weapon of mass destruction in the USA unless we get really tough on all these killers living FREELY among us.