wants to exploit that troubleshooting system by forcing Apple to write and install new software that strips away several security features, making it much easier for the government to hack into the phone. Apple designed that feature to make it easier to repair malfunctioning phones.

Each iPhone has a built-in troubleshooting system that lets the company update the system software without the need for a user to enter a passcode. Cook wrote in a recent letter to customers, “We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.”īut there is a catch. “There are probably 50 different ideas we have all sent to Apple,” said Jonathan Zdziarski, a security researcher.Īpple built its recent operating systems to protect customer information. Security experts who have been studying Apple’s phone security say it is technically possible to fix. Exactly how Apple will address the issue is unclear. Independent experts say they have held informal conversations with Apple engineers over the last week about the vulnerability. A company spokeswoman declined to comment on what she called rumors and speculation. Separately, a person close to the company, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed this week that Apple engineers had begun work on a solution even before the San Bernardino attack. One senior executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity, replied that it was safe to bet that security would continue to improve. “We are in for an arms race unless and until Congress decides to clarify who has what obligations in situations like this,” said Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. But tech companies like Apple and Google are not covered, and they have strongly resisted legislation that would place similar requirements on them. Federal wiretapping laws require traditional phone carriers to make their data accessible to law enforcement agencies. The only way out of this scenario, experts say, is for Congress to get involved. That would most likely prompt a new cycle of court fights and, yet again, more technical fixes by Apple. If the Federal Bureau of Investigation wanted to get into a phone in the future, it would need a new way to do so. If Apple succeeds in upgrading its security - and experts say it almost surely will - the company will create a significant technical challenge for law enforcement agencies, even if the Obama administration wins its fight over access to data stored on an iPhone used by one of the killers in last year’s San Bernardino, Calif., rampage. WASHINGTON - Apple engineers have begun developing new security measures that would make it impossible for the government to break into a locked iPhone using methods similar to those now at the center of a court fight in California, according to people close to the company and security experts.

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