Lawsuit filed against FBI to reveal who helped in gaining access to the San Bernardino iPhone

The Associated Press, Gannett newspapers and Vice Media have filed a lawsuit in a Washington DC federal court, to compel the FBI to reveal details about how it gained access to the iPhone belonging to one of the December 2015 San Bernardino attackers. As explained by The Guardian, the plaintiffs ask for the identity of the vendor from whom the FBI purchased the tool which gave them access to the phone, and how much the bureau paid for it. It is also argued that the public must know whether the technique exposes a critical security vulnerability, especially given the extensive use of iPhones. There are no requirements in the lawsuit for the Bureau to actually reveal how the technique itself works. The lawsuit follows the FBI report that it hired a third party to crack the targeted iPhone without Apple’s help, with only few information that the FBI director provided in April: that the price had been over USD 1 million, and that the exploit used works only on a limited series of iPhones.