A federal official, requesting anonymity, told reporters in a conference call on Monday that the US government will not discuss whether they would reveal the method or not. “We can not comment on the possibility of future revelations for Apple.” Only a week ago, Apple told reporters in a conference call that they would insist on a court to know everything about the vulnerability. The Israeli company Cellebrite was potentially working for the US government in order to unlock the phone. The cybersecurity coordinator in the White House, Michael Daniel, announced in 2014 that the authorities would reveal vulnerabilities to some extent and in limited circumstances. This is known as Vulnerabilities Equities Process. Among the drawbacks pointed out by him, as the decision to release the knowledge of some vulnerabilities, which may mean that “we give up an opportunity to collect crucial information that could prevent a terrorist attack, prevent intellectual property theft of our nation, or even discover the most dangerous vulnerabilities that are being used by hackers or other opponents to exploit our networks.” Among others, those principles include, “How much is the vulnerable system used in the core Internet infrastructure, in other critical infrastructure systems, in the US economy, and/or in national security systems?” and another issue spoke by Daniel was “how much damage an opponent, nation or criminal group can cause with the knowledge of the vulnerability?” And another: “We could use the vulnerability for a short period of time before we disclose?”
