Edward Snowden has spoken out about the court order the FBI has handed to Apple, saying that the government organization’s demands to be granted an iOS backdoor are “bullshit.”
Snowden was asked for his opinion on the FBI/Apple debate during a recorded conversation about surveillance, democracy and civil society, with the NSA whistleblower appearing via video link to share his thoughts. During the talk, Snowden refuted the FBI’s claim that Apple has “exclusive technical means” to unlock the iPhone, saying: “Respectfully, that’s bullshit.”
Snowden later elaborated upon his thoughts by posting a link to a piece by the American Civil Liberties Union on Twitter, which claims that the FBI’s claim is “fraudulent,” writing: “The truth is that even if this feature is enabled on the device in question, the FBI doesn’t need to worry about it, because they can already bypass it by backing up part of the phone (called the “Effaceable Storage”) before attempting to guess the passcode.”
The article continues: “All the FBI needs to do to avoid any irreversible auto erase is simple to copy that flash memory (which includes the Effaceable Storage) before it tries 10 passcode attempts. It can then re-try indefinitely, because it can restore the NAND flash memory from its backup copy.”
Watch Snowden’s response to the question below. His comments begin at around the 30-minute mark:
[Via The Intercept]
