FBI director confident iPhone exploit can be kept under wraps

FBI Director James Comey said that he is confident the agency can protect the tool it has purchased for cracking an encrypted iPhone used by one of the shooters in San Bernardino (CA) terrorist attack. "The FBI is very good at keeping secrets,” he said. "And the people we bought this from, I know a fair amount about them, and I have a high degree of confidence that they are very good at protecting it and their motivations align with ours."

Director Comey suggested that the technique’s efficacy could be limited, noting that that it only works on a specific model of iPhone running a certain version of Apple’s iOS operating system. He also said that there are conversations “within the government” about providing information about the technique to Apple, which could allow the company to patch the vulnerability that allows the agency to access the data. “That’s an interesting conversation, because [if] we tell Apple, they’re going to fix it and then we’re back where we started from,” he said, to laughter. “But look, as silly as that may sound, we may end up there. We just haven’t decided yet." At a different point during the event, he said that authorities could also end up revealing details of the technique as part of the discovery process in a criminal case.