The FBI has withdrawn its case against Apple, wherein the bureau was looking for the company to create a new version of the iOS or a backdoor to bypass the encryption of the iPhone. This would be used to infiltrate the iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attack in December 2015.
The withdrawal of the case by the FBI did not signal the end of the battle on encryption between the FBI and Apple, however, and a new report by the Los Angeles Times confirms this.
The FBI is said to have agreed to assist in the investigation of a murder trial in Arkansas by helping prosecutors gain access to an iPhone 6 and an iPod that could hold significant evidence.
Arkansas 20th Judicial District prosecuting attorney Cody Hiland said that the Little Rock field office of the FBI will help in unlocking the devices that were owned by two of the suspects in the murder of Robert and Patricia Cogdell.
According to Hiland, the FBI decided to help with the case less than a day after his office requested for assistance. Hiland learned that the bureau was able to unlock Farook's iPhone and looked to see if the FBI could help with the Cogdell case.
Hunter Drexler, 18 years old, and Justin Staton, 15 years old, are accused for the murder of Robert and Patricia Cogdell in July 2015. The pair was arrested in Texas and then brought to Arkansas, with prosecutors confiscating Drexler's iPhone. Staton's iPod was later acquired by the prosecutors.
It was not determined whether the FBI will be using the same method on the devices that it used to unlock Farook's iPhone. When the Los Angeles Times contacted the Little Rock field office of the FBI, their calls were not returned immediately, while a spokesman for the bureau in Washington refused to issue a comment.
An official of the bureau, however, suspects that the method that will be used to unlock the confiscated iPhone and iPod would be different than the one used on Farook's iPhone, as the trial would require for the method to be revealed. If the method would be publicly revealed, Apple would be able to patch the vulnerability.
