After issuing an open letter to Apple users regarding the FBI's request to create an iPhone backdoor to help hack into the San Bernardino shooter's locked iPhone 5c, CEO Tim Cook on Monday reinforced his company's position in an internal memo to troops.
According to the all-hands memo, a copy of which was obtained by John Paczkowski of Buzz Feed, Apple wants the Justice Department to withdraw a court order that would force it to create a special version of iOS with decreased security measures.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Apple to help investigators access encrypted data on the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, reports NBC News. The ruling says that the Cupertino firm must provide "reasonable technical assistance" to the FBI in recovering data from the handset.
More specifically, the device is an iPhone 5c that belongs to Syed Farook, who with his wife Tashfeen Malik murdered 14 people in San Bernardino, California last year. The phone is locked with a passcode, and prosecutors say data found in Farook's iCloud account suggests it could contain evidence.
The US Library of Congress on Tuesday issued a set of exemptions to the notorious circumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The provision makes it illegal for users to circumvent restrictions put in place by manufacturers, but every three years, the Copyright Office has the ability to grant exemptions to products and practices.
This year's exemptions are far-reaching, granting permission to tinker with everything from smart TVs to vehicles, but the part we're most interested in has to do with jailbreaking. The US government not only renewed the ability to jailbreak smartphones, but it added tablets into the mix. So for all intents and purposes, it's now legal to jailbreak your iPad.
The Pentagon today announced a massive partnership with Apple, Boeing, Harvard and others on designing gadgets and sensors that could be molded onto the outside of a jet or worn by soldiers on the battlefield, Reuters reported Friday.
Defense official praised the “rapid development of new technologies” by the private sector which often out-innovates the Pentagon's own solutions.
Apple on Tuesday quietly announced the promotion of Lisa Jackson, formerly the VP of environmental affairs, to a new lead policy position. As noted by The Washington Post, Jackson's bio on the company's website now reads Vice President, Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives.
In her new role, Jackson will not only continue to oversee Apple's efforts to minimize its impact on the environment, but she will also be responsible for the company's education policy programs such as ConnectED, its product accessibility work, and its worldwide government affairs.
Increasingly, Apple is finding itself in hot water with regulators over its rumored subscription-based music service. Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that the United States Federal Trade Commission is now probing Apple's efforts to line up deals with record labels.
The agency is reportedly taking a closer look at the possible misuse of the iPhone maker's dominant market position as the largest seller of music downloads to put rival music services such as Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, YouTube and others at a disadvantage.
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly taking a closer look into Apple’s business practices ahead of the rumored Beats Music relaunch, with DOJ officials having already interviewed high-ranking music industry executives about Apple’s business habits, The Verge reported Monday.
Citing multiple sources, the publication claims that Apple's “aggressive tactics” have garnered scrutiny from DOJ, which has apparently taken issue with Apple's push to kill free Spotify streaming ahead of Beats relaunch. If true, the cunning move has the potential to reduce competition for Apple's music service as popular service like YouTube, Pandora, Rdio and others are also the target.
The Chinese government has adopted new cybersecurity rules targeted at Western technology companies that are bound to give firms like Apple a major headache.
According to The New York Times on Thursday, the new rules require vendors that sell computer equipment to Chinese banks to turn over secret source code.
The Chinese government also requires that Western technology providers submit to “invasive audits” and even build backdoors into hardware and software. As a result, the Apples, Dells and HPs of this world are going to need to jump through more hoops to do business in China.
CEO Tim Cook has agreed to allow Chinese government officials to conduct security audits on Apple devices sold in China, IDG News Service reported yesterday.
The surprising development comes amid tensions that have erupted in the 1.33 billion people country, Apple's second largest market by revenue, over allegations that other governments are using Apple devices for surveillance and accusations of state-sponsored phishing attacks on Apple's iCloud users.
Disregarding for a moment the fact that Apple has never actually made any promises regarding bringing iMessage to other platforms (unlike FaceTime, but that's a topic for another story), the embattled smartphone maker BlackBerry wants Apple's messaging platform on its smartphones so badly that it's calling on the United States government to intervene and do something about it.
It's not a joke: BlackBerry CEO John Chen penned a post over at the company blog proposing just that.
In a nutshell, rather than let the market dictate what any company should do, he's demanding that the Cupertino firm make iMessage cross-platform.
Apple has increased its lobbying presence in Washington heavily following the release of Apple Pay, and the impending release of the Apple Watch later this Spring. Bloomberg reports that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, was even seen in December at the US capitol - a rare place for a company's executive.
New documents by NSA leaker Edward Snowden were published this weekend by German newspaper Der Spiegel, giving us new insight into how the GCHQ tracked iPhone users without their consent.
Rather than tap specific exploits that GCHQ's U.S. counterpart, NSA, relied on in order to compromise the iPhone's software, GCHQ surveilled targets by following a device's UDID across different services.
They were even able to pull data from the device itself when syncing with a compromised computer took place.