The FBI paid more than $1.4m to hackers who developed a way to gain access to the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers, leading the law enforcement agency to drop litigation against Apple intended to force the company to help break into the device.

美国联邦调查局(FBI)花了逾140万美元请黑客想办法破解了圣贝纳迪诺枪击案一名袭击者所用的iPhone，这家执法机构因此才放弃针对苹果(Apple)的诉讼，不再一心强迫后者帮它破解该设备。

James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the cost was “worth it”, but added that an accommodation needed to be made with Apple and other technology companies in the future, as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.”

FBI局长詹姆斯•科米(James Comey)周四说，这笔钱“花得值”，但他还表示，未来需要在这方面与苹果及其他科技公司达成和解，因为雇佣外部技术专家想办法获取恐怖嫌疑分子手机上高度加密信息的做法不具“可扩展性”。

Speaking at an Aspen Security Forum event in London on Thursday, Mr Comey said: “We were able to get into the phone because, in an odd way, all the controversy around the litigation stimulated a marketplace around the world . . . for people trying to figure out if they could they break into Apple 5C running iOS9 — and those details matter because that’s the phone that the terrorists left behind.”

周四，科米在伦敦“阿斯彭安全论坛”(Aspen Security Forum)的一次活动上讲话时表示：“我们之所以能够破解这部手机，是因为这起诉讼引发的各种争论以一种离奇的方式，为那些想弄清自己是否能破解运行iOS 9的iPhone 5C的人搭建起一个全球性的交流平台。那些细节也很重要，因为这是一部恐怖分子遗留下的手机。”

He added that: “Somebody approached from outside the government [with a solution]. We tested it and tested it, then we purchased it.”

他接着说：“有外部人士（拿着解决方案）接触了美国政府。我们经过一再测试，然后购买了它。”

Asked how much the FBI paid, he said: “A lot. More than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months, for sure. But it was, in my view, worth it . . . I think it was very, very important that we got into that device.”

当被问及FBI为此花了多少钱时，科米表示：“一大笔。肯定比我在现在这个岗位上干到退休拿得多，我还有七年零四个月退休。但在我看来，这笔钱花得值……我认为最最重要的是我们破解了这部设备。”

Mr Comey’s annual salary was $183,800 last year, suggesting his agency paid about $1.4m to the as-yet-unknown hackers who developed the method to break into the device.

科米去年的年薪是18.38万美元，这意味着FBI向想办法破解了这部设备的黑客支付了约140万美元。黑客的身份至今仍未揭晓。

The FBI director added that he wanted to find a long-term solution with technology groups such as Apple and Facebook, which both used end-to-end encryption on some of their messaging services, to avoid the need to pay outside parties if confronted with a similar situation in the future.

科米还表示，他希望能与苹果和Facebook——这两家公司都在它们的某些信息服务上采用端到端加密——等科技公司一起找到一项长期解决方案，这样未来若再遭遇类似情况就不必再雇佣外部人士了。

“I’m hoping we can get to a sensible solution that doesn’t involve hacking and that doesn’t involving spending loads of money,” he said.

科米说：“我希望我们能找到一个合理的解决方案，既不涉及破解，也不涉及花费大量的金钱。”