Can’t the Feds exploit San Bernardino shooter iPhone’s chips to break into encrypted data?

The world's most powerful government has locked horns with the world's most powerful corporation in a battle that Apple implies has the potential to affect civil rights for a generation. As you know, the Justice Department gave Apple until February 26 to respond to its court order.

In it, the government is asking Apple's engineers to create a special version of iOS that would allow brute-force passcode attacks on the shooter's phone electronically.

Now, some people have suggested that the government's experts could make an exact copy of the phone's flash memory to brute-force its way into encrypted data on a powerful computer without needing to guess the passcode on the phone or demand that Apple create a version of iOS that'd remove passcode entry restrictions.

While this is technically feasible, the so-called de-capping method would be painstakingly slow and extremely risky, here's why.

San Bernardino victims side with FBI in iPhone decryption fight

Lawyers representing families of the victims of the San Bernardino shooting massacre plan to file a legal brief in support of the United States Department of Justice's demand that Apple help unlock the shooter's iPhone 5c by creating a one-off version of iOS to permit brute-force attacks electronically, without the phone slowing down the process or erasing its contents after 10 failed attempts.

According to Reuters, Stephen Larson, a former federal judge who is now in private practice and represents families of the victims, was contacted a week ago by the Justice Department and local prosecutors about representing the victims, prior to the dispute becoming public.

Apple posts public Q&A on FBI request

FBI and Apple logos

In addition to an all-hands memo issued to troops Monday about the government's demand that it create what would basically be an 'FBiOS,' a software backdoor to help unlock San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, Apple has also posted a public Q&A on its website this morning, showing a company unwavering in its position that fulfilling the request would constitute a dangerous precedent.

Titled “Answers to your questions about Apple and security,” the webpage details the case and provides some more technical information about the government's request, while also answering some of the burning questions such as whether Apple has unlocked iPhones for law enforcement in the past.

Tim Cook writes memo to employees reiterating Apple’s stance on FBI request

After issuing an open letter to Apple users regarding the FBI's request to create an iPhone backdoor to help hack into the San Bernardino shooter's locked iPhone 5c, CEO Tim Cook on Monday reinforced his company's position in an internal memo to troops.

According to the all-hands memo, a copy of which was obtained by John Paczkowski of Buzz Feed, Apple wants the Justice Department to withdraw a court order that would force it to create a special version of iOS with decreased security measures.

Add some protection to your MacBook Pro with the Incipio Feather case

If you travel abroad with your MacBook Pro and don't want to scuff up the factory aluminum finish as you go through every day wear and tear, you should consider adding some protection to it.

Although the slimness of modern MacBook Pro models is one of the nicest features of the notebook, Incipio's Feather cases are beautifully crafted to not only give it a splash of color, but also to protect all of its most sensitive edges from friction and shock that might occur when a notebook is stored in a laptop bag or backpack.

In this review, we'll be taking you through the case's features and show you how it looks on a 15-inch MacBook Pro with retina display from every angle.

Samsung unveils Galaxy S7/Edge with Always-On Display, bigger batteries, better cameras & more

Sticking to its tradition, Samsung today officially announced its next-generation Galaxy smartphones, the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. An evolution of last year's Galaxy S6, the new phones retain Samsung's quad HD Super AMOLED display while fixing some of the annoyances of the Galaxy S6.

Notably, this includes IP68 water and dust-proofing and support for microSD cards via a hybrid SIM card tray to boost storage capacity up to 200GB (in some select countries, the tray can be used with a dual SIM card).

The battery is still non user-replaceable, but the cameras have been improved. Yes, the camera hump is still present on the back, albeit much less pronounced than on the S6. The overall look and feel of the new handsets hasn't changed much from the Galaxy S6's seductive metal-and-glass industrial design.

Wallpapers of the week: mountains

The Wallpapers of the Week section continues with a reader submitted image. Throughout the week, we glean through different repositories, looking for just the right images to feature on Sundays. Considering reader-submitted images is part of the curation process. Wallpapers are best when they are properly formatted for the latest iOS devices and photo quality. Consequently, the most popular wallpapers are not ones someone just happened to snap on their latest beach vacation.

Highlighting a submission from @alexmuench, the mountain themed wallpapers include one of his latest graphics projects. Step inside to download Alex's original and several additional mountain-scape wallpapers.

Why and how to stress test your Mac fans and CPU

How to stress test Mac CPU and fan

As rare as it may be, your processor or CPU cooling fans can fail, and there is a really easy way to test your Mac's hardware with the Terminal app that comes with macOS to ensure everything is working right.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to stress test your Mac using Terminal so you can ensure all your processor's cores are working up to snuff and your cooling fans aren't grinding or failing to cool your Mac as they should.

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Meteor, QuickClear, and more…

Another Sunday, another opportunity to show you what's new in Cydia for the week!

Ranging from free to paid, this week's jailbreak tweak releases in Cydia have been few and far in between; that is, until the Updates tab blew up over the weekend with tons of new releases. Still, there have been some noteworthy releases that we think some jailbreakers will get excited about; others will improve security, and some are even utilitarian.

In this roundup, we'll show you everything that's new in Cydia this week, and we'll also be pointing out our favorite releases.