No, the FBI isn't going to use a corpse's fingerprint to hack the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone

Flickr/Kārlis Dambrāns

You may have heard that Apple CEO Tim Cook has refused a court order for help hacking an iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The device, which is an iPhone 5c, may contain information useful to the FBI's investigation. But the agency can't hack it without Apple's help. And Cook says that if his company created such a backdoor, it could threaten the security of millions of devices.

Covering this story, Forbes reporter Thomas Fox-Brewster pointed out that on iPhone models with TouchID sensors, the FBI would have a simpler option: use the fingerprint of the dead attacker to unlock the phone. But he pointed out correctly that the attacker's phone was an iPhone 5c, which doesn't have a fingerprint sensor. The FBI cannot use a dead shooter's fingerprint to open a phone without a fingerprint sensor.

Nonetheless, the idea that the FBI might do just that is now floating around the web, with some stories citing Fox-Brewster's report as a source. (The headline "FBI Can Use Dead Suspects' Fingerprints To Open iPhones – It Might Be Cops' Best Bet" may have contributed to the confusion.)

We just wanted to straighten out the record: it's not true, and his story doesn't say it is.

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