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Photo: Mark Wilson/ Getty Images.
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Photo: Mark Wilson/ Getty Images.Apple has been fighting a legal battle against the FBI over the unlocking of an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters. The FBI wanted to use to phone to build their case against the man, Apple said that unlocking the phone would set a dangerous precedent of permitting government surveillance. They also pledged to make their phones harder to unlock, specifically with the release of iOS 9.3.
The FBI is backing down from their motion. But it’s not all good news; they’re doing so because they say they’ve unlocked the phone.
"The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on [San Bernardino shooter Syed] Farook's iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple," the government wrote in court documents filed Monday.
Last week, Department of Justice lawyers asked that the court hearing be delayed as a third party came forward with a possible hack of the phone. That hack appears to have been successful, although they have not disclosed what information they’ve accessed on the shooter’s phone.
"Our decision to conclude the litigation was based solely on the fact that, with the recent assistance of a third party, we are now able to unlock that iPhone without compromising any information on the phone," United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker said in a statement released Monday, according to NBC News.
Though the government did hack the phone, it was an iPhone 5C that presumably hasn’t been updated since the shooter was killed in a firefight with police. That means an older phone model with an older operating system that may have been more vulnerable than iOS 9.3. The ruling was set to be a judicial landmark, and one that Apple fought strenuously against.
“This is an issue that impacts all of us, and we will not shrink from this responsibility,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the launch event a week ago.
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