San Bernardino DA says seized iPhone may hold “dormant cyber pathogen”

originally posted by: roadgravel
Is this plan C, D or E to get Apple involved.

The San Bernardino District Attorney told a federal judge late Thursday that Apple must assist the authorities in unlocking the iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the two San Bernardino shooters that killed 14 people in a killing rampage in December. The phone, which was a county work phone issued to Farook as part of his Health Department duties, may have been the trigger to unleash a "cyber pathogen," county prosecutors said in a brief court filing.

"The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino's infrastructure," according to a court filing (PDF) by Michael Ramos, the San Bernardino County District Attorney.
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Jonathan Zdziarski, a prominent iPhone forensics expert, said in a telephone interview that the district attorney is suggesting that a "magical unicorn might exist on this phone."

"The world has never seen what he is describing coming from an iPhone," Zdziarski said. "I would expect, I would demand, in order to make that statement at all, he should make some kind of proof."

Link

When all else fails, go with more terrorism. Wonder what is next after this one. They are persistent.

Someone should suggest that unlocking the phone might trigger this mythical cyber weapon.

Why do they have to cease and burgle a phone to get the data off it?????????

Is this just training us up to forget about the fact that every phone call going into and out of the US is recorded and stored in the Dekota storage facility?

pretty smart..

claim there's something catastrophic to the local community and the phone is the trigger

Apple will be forced to unlock it if they can play the story properly