John McAfee Says He "Played a Role" in DoJ's New Plan to Unlock San Bernardino iPhone
But he's "not saying" what that role was.
Earlier today, the government called off Tuesday’s hearing with Apple, claiming that an “outside party” had given them an alternate way to break into an iPhone connected to the San Bernardino shootings.
While we don’t know for sure who, or what, the “outside party” is, Libertarian Presidential candidate and cybersecurity mogul John McAfee is not ruling himself out.
Update, Tuesday, March 22: John McAfee tells Inverse that Tim Cook won’t be happy with this “outside party.”
McAfee previously offered to hack the iPhone in question for the government, saying he and a crack team could do it in three weeks. He told Russia Today that one method could take as little as half an hour. After news broke of the government’s “outside party,” McAfee started fielding questions on Twitter.
Cybersecurity expert Christopher Soghoian brought up the fact that “outside party” could mean any number of government agencies.
And it wasn’t long before McAfee got roped in.
He stuck with “not talking,” or “not saying,” but also made pretty strong assertions that he was involved.
The government isn’t saying what its new plan to crack the San Bernardino phone is, but it must be good, because it threw out a major point in its case — that they directly needed Apple’s help to get into the phone. Inverse interviewed McAfee earlier this month, but he did not immediately respond to requests for comment this evening. McAfee is supremely confident in his hacking abilities, so it’ll be interesting to see if he played a role in the government’s sudden change of direction.
