best encryption software without fbi backdoor

The FBI’s Comey gave no clear reason for the move when asked about it in the hearing Tuesday. Tim Cook said he and his people found out about the court order through the media. Apple had been helping the FBI in its investigation for 75 days before the FBI suddenly ran to the court. The FBI didn’t even tell Apple it planned to file a motion in court, or that it had done so afterwards, much less that the order would be unsealed. The manner in which the FBI turned Apple from an ally to an adversary in the San Bernardino matter says a lot about its real motives. Just days later, however, a federal district court in Brooklyn, New York, ruled that the act can’t be used to compel Apple break into another iPhone in another (criminal) case. The FBI won an order from California’s Central District Court that uses the All Writs Act to direct Apple to write custom firmware to help break into Farook’s iPhone 5c. The government has seen mixed results in the courts. It’s pointed to a 1789 law called the “All Writs Act” as a legal basis for court orders to tech companies to provide backdoors (or, in Apple’s case, to create a piece of software that disables the backdoor’s security alarm.) It’s also failed to enlist the White House in the cause beyond urging dialog among the stakeholders, the president has largely kept his distance from the issue.Īs a third option, the DOJ decided to go to the courts.

Close observers say the Justice Department has worked hard over the past few years to advance a law in Congress that would require tech companies to keep encryption keys to user data, and share the data with investigators with a search warrant.

Best encryption software without fbi backdoor