A federal judge has denied a government motion to force Apple to unlock an iPhone—but it’s not in the San Bernardino (California) case. Still, the ruling could have implications for Apple’s current battle with the FBI over San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s iPhone 5c.
In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Magistrate Judge James Orenstein ruled on Monday that the All Writs Act is being applied overly broadly by the government.
The New York case concerns an iPhone 5s used by a meth dealer (who later pled guilty), but it’s running iOS 7. Since that version of iOS isn’t encrypted by default, Apple could extract the data without needing to break the phone’s passcode. In the California case, by contrast, Farook’s iPhone 5c is running iOS 9, so the FBI wants Apple to write new software that would allow law enforcement to brute-force the passcode, since that’s the only way of unencrypting the phone’s data.
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