FBI says hack tool only works on iPhone 5c

Only the iPhone 5c running iOS 9 can be unlocked by the tool the FBI bought to crack the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers.

The tool does not work on the iPhone 5s or 6, so it only addresses a “narrow slice” of iPhones, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said late Wednesday at Kenyon College.

The government is considering whether it should disclose to Apple the flaw that aided the hack: “We just haven’t decided yet,” he said at the Ohio college’s Center for the Study of American Democracy.

A court in California ordered Apple to help the FBI to hack by brute force the passcode of the iPhone 5c. The government was concerned that, if an auto-erase feature was activated on the phone, the data that the FBI was looking for would be automatically erased after 10 unsuccessful attempts, so it wanted a workaround from Apple.

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