The device is evidence, so all of you saying they can just start desoldering things and such need to think about that. What is the first thing a defense attorney would say if the data were to be used in a criminal trial? That's right, "the FBI replaced the memory chip on the phone with one they wrote their own copy of the data to." That is only after they potentially permanently damage the device and data.
Can't the same be said for when law enforcement takes images of hard drives? That happens all the time. There are procedures for maintaining chain of custody that are required to verify these things.
Hard drives have a universal interface for reading out their contents without modification. Most jurors would understand that. Many jurors would equate drastically modifying a device as tampering. Chain of custody doesn't matter. What a juror thinks is what matters.
I wouldn't expect there's much of a difference in how laymen (jurors) understand reading out and using an image of a hard drive and reading out and using an image of a flash device.
First of all, for most of them, it's black magic. For the few who know a bit more, will be convinced by arguments of analogy (after all, nowadays many hard drives are in fact flash devices, and the details of interface protocol are beyond what jurors will care about).
And yet, there's no issue with "We'll let apple take the device, flash a custom OS onto it, and allow us to make attempts remotely while not having physical access to the device".
That's what they're asking for. Part of the FBI's argument is that they need the information for safety of our country, not specifically for the trial.
The FBI specifically asked for a version of iOS that would be loaded into memory and not modify any of the information on the flash. One of Apple's arguments about why the request is an undue burden is that iOS doesn't normally work like that and it would take a lot of effort to make it work like that.
The FBI said it would be acceptable for Apple to retain possession of the phone while it was running the customized version of iOS out of RAM in order to prevent the custom iOS from falling into their hands.
> The FBI said it would be acceptable for Apple to retain possession of the phone...
However... in that case the FBI will have remote access to the phone in question to run whatever software tools against it they require. (This requirement is in the order. :) )
Given that "prevent iOS from reading the ROM used to boot the iDevice" probably isn't a threat that Apple considered to be a serious one, it's entirely possible that the FBI (or an agent of another TLA embedded within the FBI) could use this remote access to also gain access to Apple's (signed!) PIN entry delay and self-destruct removal modifications.
If this happens, and there's a way to bypass whatever mechanism Apple used in the modified image to make it run only on that single iPhone, then Apple has just unwittingly (and unwillingly) handed a backdoor to any iPhone of that model to FedGov (along with any other governments that have clandestine access to the systems of the TLAs in question).
The owner is dead, so the phone data is not needed for a trial against the owner.
It might be evidence against "co-conspirators" - sadly, we have a vindictive, lawless government now that likes to go after former roommates and acquaintances.
What criminal trial? The criminals are dead. Yeah, I know, James Comey said that maybe there's another criminal; spare me, I ain't buying it.
Also, you hire an expert to testify as to the technical details. It isn't perfect, but it is what it is; and anyway, the first thing a defense attorney will say/do in the case that the FBI prefers is to cast doubt upon the integrity of anything the FBI finds after all of the screwing around with it that's been done.
