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The FBI just filed a motion to delay Tuesday's hearing in the San Bernardino iPhone case, claiming that an "outside party" may be able to help it break into the phone without Apple's help. The motion comes after weeks of escalation tension in the case with Apple, the FBI, and other stakeholders arguing the case in public before it reached courts. It's not clear who is helping the FBI or what the new method entails, but it may not coming from the NSA, despite speculation that the intelligence agency has the ability up its sleeve; today's filing suggests that the...

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has broken with other Silicon Valley giants by backing the FBI in its battle with Apple over hacking into a locked iPhone as part of the investigation into last December's San Bernardino terror attack. In an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Gates said a court order requiring Apple to help the FBI access a work phone belonging to gunman Syed Farook was " a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case."

.....Gawker Media is forced to talk out of both sides of its mouth, on the one hand callowly apologizing to readers (and, let’s be honest, advertisers) for one of its writers launching a disgusting pro-bullying attack on a marginalized group while simultaneously apologizing for the apology and denouncing anti-Gawker campaigns as little better than “fascism” in order to maintain their street cred with their bros. It’s a genius move, in a way, one that allows Gawker to tell the companies it relies on for revenue that it’s really and truly sorry while also doing nothing to alienate its core readership...

On Tuesday, Apple will face the first major hearing in the San Bernardino iPhone case, and new details suggest the company will be speaking directly to the security issues involved. The FBI has requested an evidentiary hearing, which means the court will hear testimony from witnesses on both sides.Those witnesses will include Eric Neuenschwander, Apple's head of product security and privacy, who can speak to the company's security measures and the feasibility of the government's proposed system. Neuenschwander filed a declaration to the court on Tuesday, which argued the government's order would potentially endanger the Trusted Platform Module system used...

SAN FRANCISCO — If the F.B.I. wins its court fight to force Apple’s help in unlocking an iPhone, the agency may run into yet another roadblock: Apple’s engineers. Apple employees are already discussing what they will do if ordered to help law enforcement authorities. Some say they may balk at the work, while others may even quit their high-paying jobs rather than undermine the security of the software they have already created, according to more than a half-dozen current and former Apple employees. Among those interviewed were Apple engineers who are involved in the development of mobile products and security,...

Debelle Dixon-Thayer is Chief Legal and Business Officer at Mozilla 'Companies should be able to build the best security for their users that they can provide' Since the news broke of the FBI request for Apple to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers, we’ve seen reactions from many horizons: tech companies, the FBI, victims’ families and, last weekend, President Barack Obama. This case is attracting a lot of attention, and it should. Much is at stake. This is not about Apple, or the FBI or helping the bad guys. It is about how to achieve...

In an exclusive interview with TIME, Cook discusses your privacy, America’s security, and what’s at stake in the battle over encryption The day after the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., where Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot to death 14 people and wounded 22 others at a holiday luncheon for the county department of public health, an FBI Evidence Response Team descended on the couple’s townhouse in nearby Redlands. They recovered, among other things, 12 pipe bombs, thousands of rounds of ammunition of several different calibers, and three cell phones: two from a dumpster behind the townhouse and one...

Earlier this month, infamous hacker collective Anonymous declared "war" on Donald Trump who they accuse of being a fascist and seeking to institute a dictatorship in America. We're not sure how many people took them seriously and we're almost positive Trump himself got a good, hearty laugh at the threat (after all, the group also declared "war" on Bakr al-Baghdadi) but on Thursday, the group claims it has released Trump's phone number and social security number.

The Justice Dept. was poised to launch a public relations campaign to pull at the public heartstrings of those who suffered as a result of the San Bernardino shootings. It took just a few hours for the Justice Dept. to gauge how its legal action against Apple would be perceived by the public. Not long after a California court released an order compelling Apple to help the FBI unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, there was an outpouring of support in Apple's favor, and little compassion for the government's case. FBI could demand Apple source...

Three years ago, reeling from Edward J. Snowden's disclosure of the government's vast surveillance programs and uncertain how to respond, President Obama said he welcomed a vigorous public debate about the wrenching trade-offs between safeguarding personal privacy and tracking down potential terrorists. "It's healthy for our democracy," he told reporters at the time. "I think it's a sign of maturity." But the national debate touched off this winter by the confrontation between the Justice Department and Apple over smartphone security is not exactly the one Mr. Obama had in mind. Mr. Snowden's revelations produced modest changes and a heightened suspicion...

Welcome to Ultimate Privacy - Anonymity that works! Thank you for stopping by. For over 19 years we have provided anonymity and privacy services to the online community. You will not find fancy graphics, bells and whistles here. What you will find is a no nonsense and effective approach to protecting your online anonymity and privacy in virtually every protocol. In January 1997 we began as an anonymous remailer which to this date is still one of our most popular features. We have grown over the years to meet our subscribers needs and are proud to answer only to our...

(Transcript) David Greene talks to former national security official Richard Clarke about the fight between Apple and the FBI. The FBI wants an iPhone that was used by one of the San Bernardino shooters unlocked. DAVID GREENE, HOST: . . . GREENE: Disrupting terrorist plots was Richard Clarke's mission for years. And we're adding his voice this morning in the ongoing debate over whether Apple should design a way for the government to break into that iPhone. Richard Clarke led counterterrorism efforts for two presidents - Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. RICHARD CLARKE: . . .Under the Obama administration,...

With Apple set to unveil a new iPhone (and more) next week ahead of its court hearing with the FBI over the encryption battle, John Oliver has a smart take on the whole tangled issue. The host of HBO's 'Last Week Tonight,' who has become increasingly relevant in debates on national issues, Oliver has come out in defense of Apple on the encryption issue, but noted the company could be more forthcoming with its ads, saying it could talk more about how hard it is to stay ahead of hackers. Oliver noted the issue has been brought up on the...

The FBI wants Apple to do something no private company has ever been forced to do: break its own technology. Specifically, the FBI wants Apple to build a new version of its mobile operating system (iOS, or GovOS) so that the contents of an iPhone can be removed from an iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the gunmen in the San Bernardino shooting.A magistrate judge recently ordered Apple to comply with this request; Apple in turn filed a Motion to Vacate (MTV) the magistrate’s order. The key point made in the MTV — and the key issue on which...

If Apple wouldn't comply with a court order, sheriff vows: "I'll lock the rascal up." Link only due to copyright concerns: Florida sheriff pledges to arrest CEO Tim Cook if Apple resists crypto cooperation LINK

Back doors, skeleton keys, just make it happen, nerds SXSW Amid the row between Apple and the FBI over the unlocking of a mass murderer's iPhone, President Barack Obama has told the tech world to suck it up and do what the Feds want. Speaking today at hipster-circle-jerk SXSW in Austin, Texas, the United States' Commander in Chief said phones and computers cannot be unbreakable "black boxes," and that an "absolutist" view on encryption won't fly with the laws and courts of the land.

The FBI's attempts to force Apple to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists is not just about accessing information about the attack, but changing the architecture of the device's mobile operating system, former CIA director James Woolsey said Friday. "The last time I looked into the language on this with some care, it did seem to me as if the FBI was trying to get a right essentially to effectively decide what kind of an operating system Apple was going to have, and that they were not just trying to get into one phone. They...

<p>What does this rule change mean for you? In short, domestic law enforcement officials now have access to huge troves of American communications, obtained without warrants, that they can use to put people in cages. FBI agents don’t need to have any “national security” related reason to plug your name, email address, phone number, or other “selector” into the NSA’s gargantuan data trove. They can simply poke around in your private information in the course of totally routine investigations. And if they find something that suggests, say, involvement in illegal drug activity, they can send that information to local or state police. That means information the NSA collects for purposes of so-called “national security” will be used by police to lock up ordinary Americans for routine crimes. And we don’t have to guess who’s going to suffer this unconstitutional indignity the most brutally. It’ll be Black, Brown, poor, immigrant, Muslim, and dissident Americans: the same people who are always targeted by law enforcement for extra “special” attention.</p>

It was supposed to be a chummy weekend with GOP lawmakers and billionaires. Instead, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) got into it with Apple CEO Tim Cook over his company's refusal to help the FBI hack into iPhones. The exchange, which took place at the American Enterprise Institute's World Forum, left a number of attendees "a little uncomfortable about how hostile Cotton was," a source familiar with the back-and-forth told The Huffington Post on Monday....

Viruses aren’t biological, they don’t just live dormant inside a phone. They have to be used, activated or deployed. Zdziarski says he thinks the District Attorney is trying to claim that the shooter was trying to compromise the local San Bernardino IT network with a virus of some kind, but the language used in the filing is just factually incorrect and likely misleading to the court. There is also seemingly no other evidence that would lead investigator’s to believe such a claim.If a serious computer virus did exist on the device with the phone acting as a host of some kind, then the device would have to...