The back and forth between Apple and the FBI has been making news for several weeks. The FBI demanded that Apple create a “backdoor” so that they could get inside the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooter’s.
Apple refused, standing up for users everywhere, and in the process the FBI took the company to court to force them to create a way into the iPhone. The FBI said it would be a one time situation, and that Apple could “throw away” the code after their investigation.
Tensions were high as the public watched on, debating the postilion of both sides of the argument. Then, just days before the hearings were set to begin the FBI dropped everything without so much as a word. We would all soon find out that they had found themselves a way into the iPhone, and with that other agencies began demanding the keys to the city for their own cases.
While this does seem to show that said government agency keeping their world doesn’t hold much clout (remember that in future cases you hear about), but the bigger issue was with just who cracked the then unbreakable iPhone security. Was it some white hat hacking group? Perhaps a fringe black hat organization? And just who now has the keys to break Apple security?
FBI director Comey seemed to give us an answer when speaking to a crowd in London. The director stated that the bureau paid “a lot” to and Israeli security firm to break into the iPhone. When pressed on the matter he stated that the US government shelled out more money than he would make for the remaining seven years in his position as director of the FBI.
Doing the math shows some pretty freighting numbers. Director Comey’s income shows that he makes $183,300, so multiplying that with his remaining time in office we come up with an astounding $1.34 million dollars. This comes as the FBI has yet to find anything of value on the iPhone, something most people expected.
Source: (Popular Mechanics)
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