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By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A cellphone expert overrode the lock function on an Apple iPhone to help Los Angeles police in a homicide investigation around the time U.S. authorities were battling the company to open other phones in criminal cases, court records showed on Thursday. The successful hack of the iPhone 5s in the Los Angeles case is another sign U.S. authorities are turning to third-party contractors to unlock smartphones rather than relying on manufacturers like Apple Inc , which helped in the past. The third-party hacks have Apple racing to strengthen its encryption technology.

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Israel's Cellebrite, a provider of mobile forensic software, is helping the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's attempt to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California shooters, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Wednesday. If Cellebrite succeeds, then the FBI will no longer need the help of Apple Inc , the Israeli daily said, citing unnamed industry sources. Apple is engaged in a legal battle with the U.S. Justice Department over a judge's order that it write new software to disable passcode protection on the iPhone used by the shooter.

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By Julia Edwards WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Monday sought to overturn a ruling which protects Apple from unlocking an iPhone in a New York drug case. A magistrate judge in Brooklyn last week ruled that the Justice Department could not compel the tech giant to unlock the phone. Prosecutors are relying on the same law in its fight against Apple in a California court, where a judge ordered Apple to unlock an encrypted phone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters.

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By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. spying program that systematically collects millions of Americans' phone records is illegal, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, putting pressure on Congress to quickly decide whether to replace or end the controversial anti-terrorism surveillance. Ruling on a program revealed by former government security contractor Edward Snowden, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the Patriot Act did not authorize the National Security Agency to collect Americans' calling records in bulk. Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch wrote for a three-judge panel that Section 215, which addresses the FBI's ability to gather business records, could not be interpreted to have permitted the NSA to collect a “staggering” amount of phone records, contrary to claims by the Bush and Obama administrations.

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China's Defense Ministry on Friday denied that it had anything to do with a cyber attack on Register.com, a unit of Web.com, following a report in the Financial Times that the FBI was looking into the Chinese military's involvement. “The relevant criticism that China's military participated in Internet hacking is to play the same old tune, and is totally baseless,” the ministry said in a fax to Reuters in response to a question about the story. It is not clear what the Chinese military would be looking for or what it would gain from Register.com's data. China and the United States regularly accuse each other of hacking attacks.