Apple's FBI forensic expert has been criticized for making the office's job more difficult by strengthening encryption standards on its products.
During the International Cybersecurity Conference in New York yesterday, Stephen Flatley called on the company's security experts to make it more difficult to root out an iPhone and track down criminals and terrorists, and spread the fact that "Apple is very good at the genius of evil."
“At what point is it just an attempt at one thing, and at what point is it to thwart law enforcement?” Flatley asked, according to the motherboard.
The FBI official pointed to the fact that Apple had increased hash frequency from 10,000 to 100,000, greatly reducing FBI attempts to crack passwords with brute force from 45 attempts per second to one attempt every 18 seconds.
"The crack time has passed from two days to two months," Flatley said.
This is far from the first time Apple has clashed with the FBI. In 2016, the FBI turned to Apple to decrypt an iPhone 5C recovered from one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple famously refused, leading to a legal standoff that was only resolved when the FBI purchased the technology from Silbright, the Israeli hacking company, to break into the phone.
"We have used encryption for many years to protect our customers' personal data because we believe it is the only way to keep their information safe," says Apple. "We even put that data out of our reach, because we believe that the contents of your iPhone are not our business."
Flatley's comments came after FBI Director Christopher Wray detonated rhetorical attacks on coding standards to disrupt his agency.
“In fiscal year 2017, we were unable to access content from 7,775 devices - using appropriate and available technical tools - even though we have the legal authority to do so,” Wray said in a speech. "Each of those devices, approximately 7,800, is linked to a specific topic, a specific defendant, a specific victim, a specific threat."
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