The FBI has been unable to access a Washington Post reporter’s seized iPhone because it was in Lockdown Mode, a sometimes overlooked feature that makes iPhones broadly more secure, according to recently filed court records.

The court record shows what devices and data the FBI was able to ultimately access, and which devices it could not, after raiding the home of the reporter, Hannah Natanson, in January as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information. It also provides rare insight into the apparent effectiveness of Lockdown Mode, or at least how effective it might be before the FBI may try other techniques to access the device.

“Because the iPhone was in Lockdown mode, CART could not extract that device,” the court record reads, referring to the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team, a unit focused on performing forensic analyses of seized devices. The document is written by the government, and is opposing the return of Natanson’s devices.

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    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 hours ago

      The “funny” thing is that anybody thinking that a mere 5 years ago would have been deemed a conspiracy nutter.

      • bampop@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        That’s not by accident. Every right wing conspiracy is a ridiculous pastiche of the shit they are really getting up to, or intend to in the near future. No doubt Pizzagate was invented to make people incredulous about claims of secret cabals of kid rapists in elite circles. Every accusation a confession.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 hours ago

          Every accusation [is] a confession

          That is indeed something which has been very visibly and very often proven, again and again and again, in the last couple of years.

          I reckon it was always so, but we just forgot it during the period after WWII and the ressurging of the far-right.