The Inspector General’s report on the FBI/Apple crypto punch-up is what I think one might call a “damning exoneration”. As in “well, technically nobody lied, but...” oig.justice.gov/reports/2018/o…
On the day they filed their suit against Apple, the head of one of FBI’s tech units knew they had a vendor 90% done with an exploit that would get them into the phone without coercing Apple. Why wasn’t that mentioned in FBI’s court filings? Because nobody had asked.
The head of FBI’s cryptanalytic unit was, in fact, “definitely not happy” that the suit against Apple had to be dropped because an independent exploit had been found.
It is very, very hard to read this & not conclude that the folks at FBI pushing the Apple suit weren’t really all that interested in getting into the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, but very interested indeed in leveraging a high-profile terror case to set a legal precedent.
Critically, FBI represented to the court that they had no alternative access mechanism—which was key to the legal argument. But the due diligence behind that claim appears to have been a notch above whispering “hey, anyone got anything?” into a paper bag.
“No, sorry your honor, the bag’s got nothin; guess we’re gonna need a writ.”
FBI asst director “became concerned that the CEAU Chief did not seem to want to find a technical solution, and that perhaps he knew of a solution but remained silent in order to pursue his own agenda of obtaining a favorable court ruling against Apple.”
I mean...that’s striking. We have this report because a senior official *within FBI* called in OIG because she thought others in the Bureau were more interested in getting a legal win & forcing Apple’s cooperation than actually gaining access to the phone.
