Apple reveals critical new detail in its encryption battle with the government

A critical new detail has emerged in Apple's ongoing battle with the FBI and, now, the US Department of Justice.

According to senior Apple executives, speaking anonymously on a call with reporters, someone reset the Apple ID password linked to the iPhone 5C used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook soon after the government seized device.

A San Bernardino Health Department employee (Farook worked for the department and the iPhone was its property) seemingly changed the password. This eliminated any chance of the phone backing data up to iCloud, the Apple executives said.

In its motion filed Friday, the DOJ indicated a San Bernardino Health Department worker had changed the Apple ID password, but it offered no more than a mention of this in a single footnote.

"[N]either the owner nor the government knew the password to the iCloud account, and the owner, in an attempt to gain access to some information in the hours after the attack, was able to reset the password remotely, but that had the effect of eliminating the possibility of an auto-backup," the footnote read.

Now, Apple finds itself resisting government demands that it build a backdoor into its iPhone software. The DOJ's motion, filed Friday, asks a court to compel Apple to comply with an earlier court order that it assist the FBI as outlined, and calls Apple's refusal a "marketing strategy."

Apple spoke out in response to the DOJ's motion. It said that it began working with the government in January, and that it proposed four options to recover the iPhone data (which are outlined the same DOJ footnote).

One suggestion was to connect the iPhone to a known Wi-Fi network, possibly triggering a backup. Apple suggested the government first try Farook's home and then his office. Apple engineers assisted in the process, the executives said, but they discovered it wasn't possible.

It was then that they learned the password had been changed, and with it went probably the government's best chance of accessing the encrypted data it's now asking Apple to help it retrieve.

The executives said they decided to reveal these details because the government made the recovering methods it discussed with Apple public in today's filing.

The company execs reiterated that creating a backdoor would put all Apple customers' privacy at risk, creating a master key for encryption that could be used to on any number of phones.

There's a chance a backup never would have happened after the government seized the phone. The last backup occurred on October 19, 2015, and authorities think Farook may have disabled the backup feature. However, there's no way to know that, and now, it's too late.