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Comment by Bjartr | Hacker News Reader

"Federal court says merely repairing a seized device isn't a search"

I think that's a bit better

Is it a "mere" repair when they crack open your device swap out the main board and replace the firmware? Imagine that their "search" turned up nothing? You'd still be left unable to get your device back intact or unaltered. Should the government be able to swap out hardware components and install whatever firmware they like on them without a court order? People have their own reasons for selecting the hardware that they do and for not installing certain firmware. Should the police be able to install firmware that isn't official?

"merely repairing" seems misleading given what this allows for.

They clearly hacked the device.

In fact, maybe they "repaired" it by installing an older, hackable firmware.

To my understanding this was a routine repair operation. Yes, if forensic firmware had been installed or something like that, that's be different, but that's not what happened and doesn't appear to be part of the ruling.

I guess an equivalent scenario, and I don't know how this would land in court, would be picking the front door of a house, but not entering. It facilitates the search, bit isn't one? Wherever that falls under the law, this should probably be consistent with it.

> To my understanding this was a routine repair operation.

Even if that's the case, I think that the repair shouldn't have been performed by a detective (a government official whose stereotypical role is searching, not fixing) in a forensic lab.

“federal court decides that repairing a phone’s firmware during a period of lapsed warrants is not an unconstitutional search” maybe?

That’s awfully long for a headline but I do agree it’s clearer

This ignores the fact that the repair was done by a government detective at a forensic laboratory [1]:

> Detective Sheldon Clay, an HSI Task Force Officer at that laboratory was able to repair the iPhone 6 by replacing its circuit board and re-flashing the device's firmware. Mot., ECF 106, EX. D at 2. At that time, Detective Clay also determined that new forensic software was likely able to bypass the iPad's passcode.

[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25423841/no-disassemb...

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