Now The Justice Department Suggests It May Demand Apple's "Source Code"

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The Department of Justice has suggested it’s willing to use what observers have called the "nuclear option" in its battle with Apple over the iPhone’s security measures: demanding that Apple turn over its products’ source code as well as the signing key that validates software as coming from Apple. A product’s source code is the most fundamental underlying part of any software. With access to it, anyone can change or manipulate any aspect of a product’s software.

A signing key validates software as being from a legitimate, authorized source. Devices use a signing key to determine if software is safe to install. If the DOJ were able to force Apple to turn over its source code and signing keys to its software, it could theoretically make its own version of iOS that it could then install on any iOS device in the world without users being able to tell the difference. In what observers have called a carefully calibrated threat, reports Reuters, the DOJ suggested it could be willing to go so far as requesting Apple’s source code in a footnote in its latest court filings last week, in which it rejected Apple’s arguments for its unwillingness to comply with a court order that ruled Apple must help the FBI bypass iOS’s security measures to access the iPhone used by one of the suspects in the San Bernardino shooting.


Now The Justice Department Suggests It May Demand Apple's "Source Code"