Remember the FBI was trying to make Apple hack the phone of the gunman responsible for the San Benardino shooting? Well, the FBI was somehow able to hack the phone without any help from Apple. The legal action against Apple to write software to hack its own products was, therefore, dismissed. The U.S. supreme court argued computer code is a type of speech and forcing Apple to stop encrypting their codes would be a violation to their freedom of speech or the first amendment. The Department of Justice lost in the case against Apple that would require the company to stop encrypting computer codes. Anyway, how was the FBI able to hack the iPhone of the gunman responsible for the San Benardino shooting? Well, other people, obviously computer experts who do not work for Apple, contacted the FBI with some suggestions on how to hack the San Benardino terrorist's iPhone. Apparently, if you get the password on an iPhone wrong 10 times it automatically wipes it, so the FBI, definitely, had to make sure the people who were giving them suggestions knew what they were talking about. After the FBI hacked the iPhone of the terrorist from the San Benardino shooting they started offering to help other agencies hack iPhones because they now know a method or a number of methods for how to bypass an iPhone's security mechanism or hack it. The FBI does not want to disclose information on how they were able to hack the iPhone of the San Benardino shooter, but it is believed they used a hacking method called NAND mirror which is when you make a copy of the original NAND chip or memory card as it is also called. You start this process by copying the content of the original NAND chip onto a new NAND chip. Then, you try 9 or less password attempts (hackers usually use 5 attempts). After that you copy the contents of the second memory card onto the original memory card. Hackers who are trying to hack an iPhone need to repeat this process until they successfully guess the correct password of the device. It is not clear the FBI even used this NAND chip method, but it is possible. It is also believed the agency that helped the FBI to hack the iPhone of the San Benardino shooter's iPhone was Cellebrite; an Israeli cyber-security company. If you are reading this do not attempt to follow the steps I listed above on how to hack an iPhone using the NAND chip mirror method. You could get into serious trouble for hacking a person's device. The steps I listed above might not be 100% because I am not a hacker and do not intend to be a hacker, but still do not attempt to follow these steps. In conclusion, I do not disagree with Apple when they are opposed to putting a back door on their devices or writing a code that hacks an iPhone from the back. The FBI figured out how to hack an iPhone and if they continue to be knowledgeable about how to hack an iPhone or any other Apple device, Apple might not have to worry about finding ways for hacking their devices and can continue to keep them secure for their users.
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