The US government dropped a court case that could have forced Apple to unlock one of its iPhones, the second time it has done so in as many months. 
 
 The Department of Justice on Friday night told a federal judge in New York that someone had given investigators the passcode to an iPhone linked to a local drug investigation. 
 
 The reversal comes after the government abandoned a high-profile case to force Apple to help it hack into a phone used by San Bernardino gunman Syed Farook. In that instance, the FBI announced less than 24 hours before its court date that it no longer needed Apple’s help because it had purchased a hacking tool to break into the phone. 
 
 Taken together, the legal maneuverings illustrate the challenge Washington faces as it pressures the technology industry to build wiretap-friendly products. Authorities seek to show that they are missing out on key evidence because of strong encryption and new privacy features. 
 
 But as the two cases demonstrate, there are a lot of ways to gather information. 
 
 “Yesterday evening, an individual provided the passcode to the iPhone at issue in this case,” the government wrote in its filing Friday night. “The government used that passcode by hand and gained access to the iPhone.” 
 
 The government declined to disclose any details on the individual who supplied the passcode. Apple declined to comment. 
 
 The closely watched New York case already featured several unusual twists and turns. 
 
 Until 2013, it was commonplace for Apple to help the government extract data from locked iPhones. But following several high-profile data breaches and the Edward Snowden surveillance leaks, Silicon Valley began adding stronger encryption and privacy features to its products. Apple, among other things, engineered its new phone software such that it could no longer extract data for authorities. 
 
 However, the phone in the New York drug case was running older software Apple could still crack, even if the phone was locked. 
 
 Starting last fall, Apple began objecting to the legal theory the government was using in many of its iPhone unlocking cases. US attorneys were citing the All Writs Act, a vague legal principle from America’s founding that gives courts broad authority to make sure orders – such as iPhone search warrants – are executed. 
 
 The worry among some civil liberties advocates was that such a theory, if uncontested, could eventually be used to force technology companies to rejigger products with strong encryption to make them more accessible to investigators. 
 
 The question became moot in late 2015 after the defendant pleaded guilty. Still, the government and Apple urged the court to rule anyway, apparently to help set a legal precedent for such iPhone unlocking cases. 
 
 That strategy didn’t work in the government’s favor. In February, as the government prepared to battle Apple in court over the San Bernardino phone, federal magistrate judge James Orenstein ruled in Apple’s favor. 
 
 The government then appealed and the two sides were headed back to court. 
 
 “These cases have never been about setting a court precedent; they are about law enforcement’s ability and need to access evidence,” DoJ spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a written statement. “Because we now have access to the data we sought, we notified the court of this recent development and have withdrawn our request for assistance.” 
 
 It remains unclear who else would have had access to the drug dealer’s phone passcode in the New York case. In a legal filing last week, Apple’s attorneys suggested the government just ask the defendant himself. ||||| According to a new court filing, government prosecutors have formally asked a federal judge to cancel her prior order that would have compelled Apple to assist efforts to unlock a seized iPhone linked to the San Bernardino attacks in late 2015. 
 
 Apple had publicly said in court that it would resist all efforts to force its compliance. Last week, however, the hearing between prosecutors and Apple was postponed less than 24 hours before it was set to take place, because the Department of Justice said it was evaluating a new method to access the phone's data. 
 
 "The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on [terrorist Syed Rizwan] Farook’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc.," prosecutors wrote in the Monday filing, which does not explain precisely what was done. The government has also not explained what, if any data was recovered. 
 
 Thom Mrozek, a DOJ spokesman, did not respond to Ars' questions as to whether this technique would be disclosed to the court, to Apple, or even to the public. 
 
 Apple did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment. 
 
 In a Monday evening call with reporters, a law enforcement official who was granted anonymity, said that the DOJ would not comment on the possibility of future disclosures to Apple, adding that it would also not explain what data was accessed, nor what non-government entity helped prosecutors. He also said that the FBI would continue to assist state and local law enforcement partners in lawfully accessing data held on mobile devices—suggesting that this technical and legal tactic could continue in the future. 
 
 The DOJ had previously told the judge they needed this new version of iOS as a way to get into the seized iPhone 5C that was used by Farook. The iOS 9 phone was encrypted with a four-digit passcode, and investigators were afraid that if they enter the wrong passcode 10 times, it would auto-delete all the data on the phone. The initial order would have forced Apple to create a customized version of iOS that would disable this lockout feature, enabling the government to brute force passcodes until it could get in. 
 
 The government relied on its interpretation of an obscure 18th-century law known as the All Writs Act, which allows courts to compel people and companies to do certain actions. Last month, Apple put forward its first formal legal arguments, based on a rejection of a 1977 Supreme Court decision United States v. New York Telephone, the prominent case that relies on the All Writs Act. There, authorities demanded that the utility implement a surveillance tool known as a pen register trap and trace device to investigate a gambling operation. 
 
 "This shows that Apple was right all along that it was not necessary for the government to make it weaken its encryption to get what it needed pursuant to its warrant," Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told Ars. "It’s an implicit concession by the government that its All Writs Act argument wasn’t a good one." 
 
 Last Friday, Jonathan Zdziarski, a well-known iOS security and forensics expert, detailed a NAND mirroring attack, which demonstrates "how copying back disk content could allow for unlimited passcode attempts." ||||| The Department of Justice on Monday filed to withdraw a legal action compelling Apple's assistance in unlocking an iPhone linked to last year's San Bernardino shootings, saying it successfully gained access to, and extracted data from, the target device. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Justice Department has moved to vacate a California court order compelling Apple provide aid in an ongoing FBI investigation into the San Bernardino shootings. With a working exploit, law enforcement agents no longer require help from the iPhone maker and cannot —or need to —assert the All Writs Act to force Apple's assistance."The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook's iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc. mandated by Court's Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016," the government said in a court filing.An unnamed government official informed USA Today of the Justice Department's plans on Monday , more than one week before federal prosecutors in the case are due to update the court on the efficacy of a third-party unlock method presented earlier this month . Court reporter Dan Levine of Reuters confirmed the decision on Twitter."It remains a priority for the government to ensure that law enforcement can obtain crucial digital information to protect national security and public safety, either with cooperation from relevant parties, or through the court system when cooperation fails," said DOJ spokesperson Melanie Newman in a statement to BuzzFeed News. "We will continue to pursue all available options for this mission, including seeking the cooperation of manufacturers and relying upon the creativity of both the public and private sectors."Apple in February was ordered by a federal magistrate judge to comply with FBI demands for assistance in unlocking an iPhone tied to San Bernardino terror suspect Syed Rizwan Farook. The company resisted, arguing that the creation of a software workaround weakens the security of millions of iOS devices around the world and had implications on the public's right to privacy.Due to its high-profile nature, the case spilled over into the public arena, sparking a contentious debate over the proper balance between civil rights and national security. The stakes were high for both sides, as an FBI win would set valuable precedent in asserting AWA as an effective evidence gathering tool, while Apple would gain protections against the same if it won.In a last minute twist just one day prior to an initial evidentiary hearing, federal prosecutors called for a delay after being presented a potential workaround from an outside party. It appears the method is effective, rendering all prior arguments moot.With a working iOS exploit in the wild, focus is bound to shift toward Apple. The company's assertions, which rested on the premise of a nigh unhackable operating system, have been upended by today's development. Not only does Apple need to recover from the inevitable PR debacle, but it must also work to secure its devices against an attack method that could be aired in public as court evidence.The government has not yet determined whether or not it will furnish details of the vulnerability to Apple engineers, and it is not clear that the company is entitled to such information.Aside from its prepared statements, the DOJ made no substantial comments on the matter during a media conference call, saying that releasing details on the exploit would be premature. Apple did not comment on today's news.Apple has issued a brief statement, as reported by BuzzFeed's John Paczkowski:"From the beginning, we objected to the FBI's demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent. As a result of the government's dismissal, neither of these occurred. This case should never have been brought.We will continue to help law enforcement with their investigations, as we have done all along, and we will continue to increase the security of our products as the threats and attacks on our data become more frequent and more sophisticated.Apple believes deeply that people in the States and around the world deserve data protection, security and privacy. Sacrificing one for the other only puts people and countries at greater risk.This case raised issues which deserve a national conversation about our civil liberties, and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participating in that discussion."
– The looming fight between the government and Apple over encryption has been delayed again—this time after the passcode to the locked iPhone of a New York drug trafficker was simply handed over. "An individual provided the department with the passcode to the locked phone at issue," a Justice Department spokesman said in a statement. "Because we now have access to the data we sought, we notified the court of this recent development and have withdrawn our request for assistance." The DEA had obtained a search warrant to look through the iPhone 5s of meth dealer Jun Feng. Unlike newer models, it is a phone that Apple can easily crack, but the company, which had assisted authorities in scores of similar cases, refused the DEA's request for help, CNN reports. Feng—who claimed to have forgotten the passcode—pleaded guilty late last year, but the government and Apple kept the legal fight over the phone going in the hope of setting a legal precedent for such cases, the Guardian reports. The government had been about to appeal a recent ruling in favor of Apple which said officials didn't have the authority to force companies to allow investigators into devices, the Wall Street Journal reports, which makes the sudden end of the case a big setback for the government. Sources tell the Journal that the person who provided the passcode was Feng himself, who appears to have had a sudden flash of memory after recently discovering that his phone was still involved in a legal battle. (FBI Director James Comey hinted it cost more than $1 million to pay hackers to crack a phone in a similar but unrelated case.)