According to hardware-security experts, there are at least three ways the FBI could try to remove information from the phone of San Bernardino killer Syed Rizwan Farook without asking Apple for assistance.
THREE HACKS
The first method uses tiny changes in radio frequency and power consumption as a phone is powered on and off. This helps in guessing the passcode.
The second method rearranges the phone’s counter so that after each attempt to unlock it, the security feature’s internal counter is turned back to 1, tricking the phone into believing multiple attempts to unlock it have not been made.
However, the third method, which is the most aggressive, involves taking apart the chip where the cryptographic keys are stored so they can be read with an electronic scanning microscope.
Experts say that all are much easier said than done. Paul Kocher, president of Cryptography Research, a division of security firm Rambus which works on security for semiconductors, chips and IP products said that the main restrictions are their cost and time, “and if you mess up, you destroy the chip.”
