Activist Group: FBI Should Share Hack Info With Apple

Web activist group Fight for the Future is calling on the FBI to let Apple in on how it managed to hack into an iPhone.

Apple had fought a court order to provide its own security work-around for the phone, belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, but the FBI dropped that legal action this week after it found a way into the phone without Apple's help.

The computer company had initially been cooperative with law enforcement efforts but balked at having to develop software to unlock the phone, arguing it could make millions of other phones less safe.

Fight for the Future is suggesting the FBI's work-around poses the same problem.

"Now that they’ve opened the iPhone in question, the mainstream media is already speculating as to how they did it. And it goes without saying that hackers, other governments, and those wishing to exploit this security flaw to do harm to the public are already hard at work trying to figure it out," the group said. "If they [the FBI's hackers] really care about public safety, they must disclose the vulnerability they used to Apple to prevent criminals, hackers, and terrorists from exploiting the same security flaw and using it to do harm."

Several members of Congress warned earlier this week that the FBI's successful hack was hardly the end of the story.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.