At gunpoint not only Apple. Government forces other developers to show source code

It turns out the US authorities have repeatedly attempted to obtain the source code of numerous programs. Now they are trying to get the source iOS from Apple, but the same requirements were put forward in relation to other companies, writes ZDNet with reference to an anonymous source .

Having the source code in exclusive possession, it is much easier for special services to search for vulnerabilities in programs. These vulnerabilities are then used in the interests of intelligence and to protect national security.

The authorities receive the source code in civil cases that are being considered by 11 judges of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Observation Act 1978 (FISA).
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Cases are considered in closed session, and it is prohibited to disclose information. The source said that in such processes, companies lose "in most cases."

The US Department of Justice officially confirmed that they had previously received the source code of programs in court proceedings. In the process against Apple, the government referred to the case of 2013 against Lavabit , where the court satisfied the requirements of the Ministry of Justice and requested the source code and secret encryption keys from the secure email provider Lavabit.

In the same way, based on the Lavabit precedent, Apple’s source code is now required.

ZDNet requested comments from a dozen major IT companies on the Fortune 500 list, but none of them agreed to directly answer the question whether they received requests from the FISC secret court to issue the source code or did not receive such requests. Certain conclusions can be drawn from the silence of IT companies.

Cisco said that it “has never transmitted and will not transmit the source code to customers, especially to governments.” IBM cited a similar statement from 2014 .

Microsoft, Juniper Networks and Seagate have officially refused to respond. Dell, EMC, Lenovo, Micron, Oracle, Texas Instruments and Western Digital did not receive any response.

Note that some of these companies are mentioned in the 50-page catalog of bookmarks and backdoors of the NSA , which Edward Snowden declassified in 2013.

Apple, in the San Bernardino case, said it did not provide any government with proprietary iOS source code, although government agencies in different countries, including the US, regularly audit new versions of the iPhone — Apple sends them samples for auditing.

However, if the iOS source code were provided to the special services at the request of FISC, then even Apple’s top management might not have known, because the court operates in strict secrecy. It processes 99% of all requests related to intelligence and surveillance. For example, in past years, he approved the collection of metadata of all US mobile subscribers, wiretapping of communication channels in other countries , as well as conducting targeted hacker operations of the NSA .

Court decisions are so classified that even the very existence of such decisions is not subject to publicity, in accordance with FISA law.