The FBI has “provisionally” decided not to reveal the details of the method it used to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone, Reuters reports. Anonymous sources reveal that the FBI plans to write to the White House within the next few days to explain that the agency cannot share the unlocking mechanism as it was provided by a third-party that retains the sole legal ownership to the method.
Sources ”>reported previously that the FBI contractor that unlocked the iPhone was a foreign entity and since U.S. authorities were not provided with the details of the mechanism, the FBI could not share it even if the agency wanted to.
Despite this, however, Reuters reports that the FBI did warn Apple of an unrelated vulnerability in iOS and OS X on Apr. 14 — the first disclosure to Apple under the White House’s Vulnerabilities Equities Process — however Apple noted that the vulnerability that was disclosed involved older versions of both operating systems, identifying issues that have already been addressed nine months ago in the initial releases of iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan.
