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Comment by 0xffff2 | Hacker News Reader

>I think it's interesting to note that Apple has complied with requests from law enforcement in the past...

It's also very important to note that preview law enforcement requests are not in the same scope as the FBI's request published yesterday. All of the information disclosed above is data held by Apple. The new request is for Apple to commit development resources to produce brand new software, not just turn over data.

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Brand new software that-- and this seems to be missed in the wider discussion-- may be impossible to produce. It may not be possibly for Apple to comply. For instance, you can't install firmware on a locked phone.

You certainly can - you can try it out yourself by rebooting the phone while connected to USB with Home button pressed - it will reboot to the Recovery mode that (since iTunes 12 AFAIR) allows you to choose between update and restore. Should you choose 'update', it will keep your data and rewrite the system partition, all without asking for your PIN.

My interpretation was that it would affect future iphones, not current ones. This is less to do with what was said, and more to do with what is practical.

It would be absolutely trivial to disable security features before selling to the customer. Afterward is more difficult.

Agreed...there is a difference...a whole new precedent may be set when all this is sorted...

Yes, the FBI is arguing that it's no hardship for Apple to write the software to do this, since writing software is the business they're in. Once that precedent is established, then no software the government asks Apple to write should be any "hardship." I'm betting the government has a well thought out wish list.

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