A screenshot of a section of Motherboard's database. Image: Motherboard
"This was something that frustrated me tremendously when I was in the government," Baker said. "It was very hard to get good data that we could rely on to make a strong case about how bad the problem was."Baker said one reason it was difficult to obtain good data was due to how some law enforcement officials don't even bother to go through the process of obtaining a warrant and trying to unlock a phone because they already know that the device is encrypted and they likely won't get any useful information."How do you count that?" when there is no search warrant or application available, Baker asked.To be clear, the data compiled by Motherboard has several limitations that are vital to keep in mind. It does not include every iPhone-related case in 2019: PACER, the court records system Motherboard used to construct the database, is focused on federal warrants, so the data does not include many other cases of local police departments applying for warrants to unlock iPhones that exist. Although Motherboard did create a relatively large dataset, we likely did not obtain every iPhone unlocking case from PACER, due to inconsistencies and variations in how law enforcement officials name such cases, meaning some are filed under obscure titles making them harder to discover.Do you have access to data on unlocking cellphones? Do you know anything else about it? We’d love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on+44 20 8133 5190 , Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
A screenshot of a case where investigators were unable to access an iPhone. Image: Screenshot
A screenshot of a case where investigators sent iPhones to a specialist FBI lab for data extraction. Image: Screenshot
Apple's improvement of the security of its devices is not purely a technical discussion. It leads directly into the DOJ's demands for another approach."I think a couple more hardware revisions of understanding the ways that these unlocks are happening and [Apple is] going to make it extremely difficult. Which then will bring this debate back," Stamos said. Rather than relying on cases that have not been wholly persuasive, such as those involving the locked phone of an already dead terrorist, law enforcement may have stronger anecdotes to draw from if iPhones become even harder to unlock, Stamos said. In the latest attempt in January, Attorney General William Barr called on Apple to help unlock two iPhones belonging to a terrorist who attacked a Naval base.In the December hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham told representatives of tech giants, including Apple's Neuenschwander, "My advice to you is to get on with it, because this time next year, if we haven’t found a way that you can live with, we will impose our will on you." (Graham, along with Senator Richard Blumenthal, recently introduced a bill called the EARN IT Act that is designed to combat online child sexual exploitation, but may have ramifications for end-to-end messaging encryption.)The fundamentals of that debate—what trade-offs is society willing to make around whether officials cannot unlock some iPhones and gather evidence, but every user's general cybersecurity is improved—will likely remain the same."Right now, there is no known mechanism to do what DOJ wants to do without introducing substantial cybersecurity risk into the system beyond that which already exists, which is also substantial," Baker, the former FBI general counsel, said. "It makes the cybersecurity posture of the United States even worse." Instead, public safety officials need to rethink not only their approach to encryption, but how they investigate crimes too, Baker added."There will be costs in certain types of investigations, but encryption is something that can protect everybody and shouldn't be undermined," Baker said.He added, "It is the world we are in today, and so have to deal with it."You can find the database here, and the related documents here."It is the world we are in today, and so have to deal with it."
