May 11, 2020
Apple vs. FBI – the encrypted phone (Student handout)
At the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California a major terrorist attack happened at December 2nd 2015. A husband and wife opened fire on a mass and attempted bombing. According to the FBI, both suspects practiced Islam and had been “radicalized”. FBI declared the incident a terrorist attack. The investigators saw an opportunity to collect evidence against the perpetrators and to identify their network: one of the suspects was employed by the government, which was therefore in possession of the suspect’s iPhone 5C. The phone was encrypted but FBI assumed that valuable data would be found inside it which would help them identify other terrorist suspects and their future attacks.