WhatsApp Encryption Said To Stymie Wiretap Order (nytimes.com) 56
bsharma writes from an article on the New York Times: WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, allows customers to send messages and make phone calls over the Internet. In the last year, the company has been adding encryption to those conversations, making it impossible for the Justice Department to read or eavesdrop, even with a judge's wiretap order. [As recently as this past week, officials said,] the Justice Department was discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap, but investigators were stymied by WhatsApp's encryption. (WhatsApp uses Signal software developed by Open Whisper Systems.)
"WhatsApp cannot provide information we do not have," the company said this month when Brazilian police arrested a Facebook executive after the company failed to turn over information about a customer who was the subject of a drug trafficking investigation. "The F.B.I. and the Justice Department are just choosing the exact circumstance to pick the fight that looks the best for them," said Peter Eckersley, the chief computer scientist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital rights. "They're waiting for the case that makes the demand look reasonable."
If they push too hard... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, if the legal system pushes too hard at FB, they should just move off shore. That will be interesting to watch. In fact, FB could easily move [all] their infrastructure offshore, but still remain relevant to its US users.
That way, they can claim not to be an American company and still be able to reap the benefits of being one. How about that?
Re:If they push too hard... (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, if it'll get rid of FB...
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There is no need to ban encryption. If you have a court order for a wiretap, you go to whoever has the keys. For end-to-end encryption, that would be the endpoints - i.e. the phone owner. Now, you usually don't want them to know about the wiretap - but that is simple enough: Snarf his phone and install a backdoored version of the communication app. The install would only take a minute or so - certainly doable by some agent.
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The trump card to this problem may be Switzerland, a country that is not in the EU, has direct democracy, and has citizens who are educated enough to know how to use it effectively. Interesting that both Protonmail and Wire are based there. There are possibilities beyond Europe too.
(I share your feelings about getting rid of Facebook, btw.)
Re:If they push too hard... (Score:5, Interesting)
How can the legal system push on this. Facebook can't comply with the order. A refusal in USA law (and I think virtually all other law) requires that you be able to do something. This isn't a question of law it is a question of fact. Enforcement agencies and much of the legal profession simply disbelieve that encryption is based upon mathematical principles that technology companies have no way of breaking. They will lose because the math of encryption is well known and well understood.
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How can the legal system push on this[?]
Easy. Create propaganda on the 'evils' of encryption and the public itself will demand the back doors to let the authorities in. Old trick, still works. It's a Pavlov thing.
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That's the political system not the legal system. The legal system would be responsible for enforcing a law requiring backdoors.
I have serious question whether such a thing is possible. There are literally millions of people in the world who understand the math of encryption and tens of thousands who know good algorithms (not that texting requires good algorithms, bad will do fine). We have systems that can run sandboxed code everywhere and their use is expanding.
How does the legal system do anything?
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That's the political system not the legal system.
Um, what do you think drives the legal system? The law is pure politics. It doesn't matter. The cat and mouse will just have to run its course until people get tired of the war.
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There is something they can do: They can develop and push out a new version of WhatsApp that doesn't do encryption at all, or does it in a way that is more easily defeated. Our current mobile platforms make it trivial to ship new versions of applications to most devices, since auto-updates are generally enabled by default.
Now of course Facebook does not want to do this, but it seems like the government is keen on applying increasing pressure to do it. It will be interesting to see if companies cave and do w
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What's app stops encrypting but then other apps offer this. Creating a messaging app is something a bright middle school kid can do. That same kid can read how to do basic encryption or compile in a short encryption function. You don't even need companies at this point to do it, just to tolerate it.
Now of course if they can get apple, facebook, google, microsoft... not to tolerate it and foreign companies to feel the same way... then yes you could stop it.
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How can the legal system push on this. Facebook can't comply with the order. A refusal in USA law (and I think virtually all other law) requires that you be able to do something. This isn't a question of law it is a question of fact. Enforcement agencies and much of the legal profession simply disbelieve that encryption is based upon mathematical principles that technology companies have no way of breaking. They will lose because the math of encryption is well known and well understood.
The legal system can force FB (et. al.) to introduce a mechanism for intercepting traffic in the same way that telcos are required to have 'lawful intercept' capabilities and forbid them from providing services without such a mechanism in place.
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The app maker can intercept things all day, but if the messages are encrypted on the client, and the keys are not stored on the app maker's servers, then you will have no way of decrypting them. It's the same thing as if I used an encrypting handset over a POTS line: the phone company may be required to intercept it, but they won't be able to do anything with the results without the keys off the handset.
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The app maker can intercept things all day, but if the messages are encrypted on the client, and the keys are not stored on the app maker's servers, then you will have no way of decrypting them. It's the same thing as if I used an encrypting handset over a POTS line: the phone company may be required to intercept it, but they won't be able to do anything with the results without the keys off the handset.
You're missing the point which is that the legislation can move up that layer to the provider of the encrypted handset (physical or virtual) being required to enable lawful intercept.
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First off telcos remember are utilities and make heavy use of government they are thus much more regulated. How would you write a law given the keys are for the client. The clients are the ones encrypting. Facebook is just letting them know how to get in touch. You are basically arguing for a system that would require Facebook to ensure that no encrypted traffic exists that references their system. That's a pretty high bar. Moreover that connection service can easily migrate off Facebook.
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First off telcos remember are utilities and make heavy use of government they are thus much more regulated. How would you write a law given the keys are for the client. The clients are the ones encrypting. Facebook is just letting them know how to get in touch. You are basically arguing for a system that would require Facebook to ensure that no encrypted traffic exists that references their system. That's a pretty high bar. Moreover that connection service can easily migrate off Facebook.
There are greatly shrinking differences between telcos and internet providers today and most of the regulation is to protect companies against each other, not to protect people from companies (which is sadly very weak in the US).
In communication, you have a the following layers (simplified):
User
Application
Network
Transport
Legacy:
Application POTS - now almost completely converted to VoIP where the client is perhaps a fixed line phone into a dsl model
Network IPoX
Transport Copper/Fiber/4G/etc
New:
Application 'so
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In this case: the legal system's interests it isn't terrorism so much as routine criminal investigation. Strong encryption does in fact break something that law enforcement has had for a long time.
Now take the rest of your argument. Software is math. Software is information. It isn't a product. In today's world software is increasingly not sold but given away. How do you make software into contraband effectually?
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I mean, if the legal system pushes too hard at FB, they should just move off shore. That will be interesting to watch. In fact, FB could easily move [all] their infrastructure offshore, but still remain relevant to its US users.
That way, they can claim not to be an American company and still be able to reap the benefits of being one. How about that?
You mean like they already do in order to avoid paying their taxes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:If they push too hard...(You mean this?) (Score:2)
You mean like they already do in order to avoid paying their taxes?
You mean like they already legally do in order to avoid paying their taxes?
Funny strange not funny ha-ha (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only are they now not hiding the fact that your everyday electronic conversation is subject to surveillance, the governors are openly attempting to quash any resistance.
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This is with a warrant. The government was always free to listen in to communications with a warrant. What changed under Bush and expanded greatly under Obama until Snowden was the use of general warrants to at least partially monitor all communications.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Bull excrement (Score:1)
adding encryption to those conversations, making it impossible for the Justice Department to read or eavesdrop, even with a judge's wiretap order.
Bullshit - nothing prevents them from reading / listening in. Encryption might however prevent them from understanding the content, no different from exercising a search warrant and finding papers with incomprehensible text which they might believe be for instance a ledger of drug sales.
Drug trafficking? (Score:1)
Cops won't get any sympathy from me on that one. Ah well, the good thing is when the big chat companies fall down on privacy, any developer can fill in with their own. I don't see a problem in that regard. Of course that only means anything if the encryption is truly effective.
How to proceed? (Score:1)
"the Justice Department was discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap, but investigators were stymied by WhatsApp's encryption"
Sounds like a team on a stakeout discussing the frosted glass in one of the suspect's windows.
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What are you going to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
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you have valid points.
but - wall-o-text is hard to read. some line breaks might help...
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Try becoming an inconvenience to the government and see how fast they utilize the panopticon surveillance machine to find you and destroy your life in extra-legal ways.
Oh, I am well aware of that. The joke is on them, though; I have little enough of a life to 'destroy'. There is a certain power in having nothing to lose. Even if I were killed for daring to speak out, my last words would be of defiance, and I'd spit in their faces if I could. You can kill me, but you'll never defeat me. XD
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There is no such thing as a law-abiding citizen. Everyone has committed criminal acts, without exception. The only distinction is between those who have been caught and those that law enforcement does not consider sufficiently serious to pursue.
Phone scrambler (Score:2)
Are phone scramblers illegal now?
They've been selling those for, what, 50 years?
Absolutely Fake. (Score:1)
So fake it's not even funny.
Iphones are busted wide open, so is whatsapp and any other major service that people think is secure.
This is basically cops pretending they can't hear you on your walkie-talkie bought from Walmart as you read off coordinates for drug meetups.
They are literally all over these systems and simply telling you via some well crafted media stories that it's secure using reverse psychology.
They are steering you towards the broken services rather than complaining about true security. It's
How to proceed is easy (Score:2)
the Justice Department was discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap, but investigators were stymied by WhatsApp's encryption
Easy, issue a statement saying "This is what you assholes get for all the illegal wiretaps, what did you expect would happen?" It's not like people are using encryption for the fun of it.
Why would one need Whatsup messages for this? (Score:2)