James Comey: the Man Who Wants To Outlaw Encryption 241
Patrick O'Neill writes: "There has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security in our response to terrorism in this country and in our efforts to offer security to the people of the United States," said James Comey, now the director of the FBI. Comey was the number two man in the Department of Justice during the Bush years when NSA and law enforcement surveillance of Americans grew to unprecedented heights. Now he's pushing to stop encryption by default on Apple and Android devices.
Seriously...? (Score:5, Insightful)
And this guy is the director of the FBI...for real? :-/
Re:Seriously...? (Score:5, Interesting)
When it's your job to catch bad guys, everyone starts looking like a bad guy. And then after a while you think that only bad guys use encryption, because good people don't have anything to hide. Soon you think it's okay to read everyone's personal communications without a warrant "for the greater good."
He probably also thinks the evil bit [ietf.org] is an excellent idea.
Re:Seriously...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone's broken some law. He's just going through the list of people in the US.
But it's hard to go out and investigate, come up with leads, run them down. Instead, you just have all the major ISPs [wired and wireless] track who is using encrypted communications, and report to you their name, address and current physical location. Then you make up a reason to search through their home, financial records and internet history [thanks for the data, NSA], and you'll find something.
Re:Seriously...? (Score:5, Informative)
A good passage...
“The FBI makes this proposal to look like they’re looking for a simple law to add a simple feature,” says Robert Graham, CEO at Errata Security. “But when you look into it, what they’re really asking for is dramatic, it’s a huge thing. They’d need to outlaw certain kinds of code. Possessing crypto code would become illegal.”
Ask hackers and other cybersecurity experts, and they'll tell you that the entire idea of a “backdoor” is a bureaucratic fantasy with little basis in technical reality.
“You can't build a backdoor that only the good guys can walk through,” cryptographer and author Bruce Schneier explained. “Encryption protects against cybercriminals, industrial competitors, the Chinese secret police, and the FBI. You're either vulnerable to eavesdropping by any of them, or you're secure from eavesdropping from all of them.”
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“The FBI makes this proposal to look like they’re looking for a simple law to add a simple feature,” says Robert Graham, CEO at Errata Security. “But when you look into it, what they’re really asking for is dramatic, it’s a huge thing. They’d need to outlaw certain kinds of code. Possessing crypto code would become illegal.”
Yes, that's the goal. And it's made much easier by the new FCC regulations, which protect only "lawful" content. There is no need to outlaw cryptography - the rules don't use the word "legal", which would be a much higher burden. Instead, you should specify what is allowed, and everything else is subject to blocking. Devices, too, are regulated under the new regime. So, for instance, if your phone uses encryption that is not decipherable by the ISP and/or the central authority (licensed security provid
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If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will be using it.
And no, you won't find me using it. Here is a cute picture of a puppy. Why not put it on your webpage? I can guarantee you that you'll generate lots of traffic with it. Mostly from people I know, who want to look at cute pictures of puppies.
Re:Seriously...? (Score:5, Insightful)
A "backdoor" isn't a fantasy. The quote was "“You can't build a backdoor that only the good guys can walk through,” The key words are "only the good guys." Say I make an incredible encryption tool but build in a backdoor for the FBI to use. (Arguably, this makes the encryption tool no longer "incredible", but just accept it for now.) The theory is that only the FBI uses this backdoor while the hackers try in vain to break into the front door. The reality, though, is that - after trying the front door - the hackers will examine the encryption and will discover the open back door. Then, it's just a matter of time before they figure out how to get into it.
You can make a backdoor to any program. What you can't do is keep "bad guys" from entering that back door while allowing "good guys" in. If a backdoor exists, the bad guys WILL find it and WILL exploit it. It's just a matter of time.
Re:Seriously...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously...? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's true. For the purposes of my comment, I was assuming that the FBI were "good guys" because they keep saying they are the good guys and need a "good guys only" backdoor. Even if we make the huge assumption that they are good guys and would never abuse it, a "good guys only" backdoor would still be used by "bad guys" as well.
Re:Seriously...? (Score:4, Insightful)
More precisely a government only backdoor is a fantasy. Yes, you could try to install some PKI to secure it, but how long 'til someone who has access to the private key is offered enough money? We're talking governments and whole industries more than willing to not only pay you enough to put you on the Fortune 500 list but also ensure you won't be bothered by law enforcement should they ever notice it.
Not to mention that this would be the death spell for any US based software company. If I KNOW that my secrets are the US government's (and, in extension, any rival US corporation's), I CANNOT use software made in the USA anymore for anything remotely sensitive. I can't envision MS, Oracle et al take this without a fight to the point of moving their HQ.
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Everyone's broken some law.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. -Attributed to Cardinal Richelieu
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Provided enough laws, everyone's a criminal. Why do you think we get this influx of silly, outright unexecutable laws? It's for when we find someone who spits in our soup so we can fling some shit at him 'til something sticks.
Re:Seriously...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously...? (Score:5, Insightful)
And some of those bad people work for the government. What's very disturbing to me is the NSA, CIA, and FBI are now shopping their services around to every podunk police department and also largish corporations. With what appears to be no vetting or tracking how the information is used. Nothing but systematic abuse will come out of this.
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Even *IF* that weren't the case, it wouldn't matter at all. You see, if one already knows that the government has keys that can be used to read your private data, then even *IF* you could hypothetically completely trust the government to not do anything unethical, there is absolutely *NO measure of certainty that someone with less noble or honorable intentions could not be secretly utilizing the exact same mechanisms (even if illegally) to monitor your co
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That is a totally wrong approach (Score:2)
When it's your job to catch bad guys, everyone starts looking like a bad guy
Anyone who follows the above approach ain't not going to catch many crooks
You simply do not catch crooks by hammering everybody and their dogs
Top crime investigators throughout history don't treat everybody like criminal. Instead, they put themselves in the shoes of the criminals so that they can get to see what the criminals see, think what the criminals think, and understand what the criminals gonna do next ... and then all they have to do is to set a trap for those criminals
And in the case of this so-cal
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Maybe he didn't see the Sherlock Holmes movie you did.
Re:That is a totally wrong approach (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure why so many of you think that the fbi (etc) actually CARE about solving crimes.
lets be honest, these jobs attract sociopaths. funny (yeah, right) that these are the very people we have trusted to catch those very kinds of people.
quick question: what's the diff between a cop and a thug? ans: one has the legal right to bash your head.
these 'folks' all entered for the wrong reason. if you have any experience with human pyschology you know this. authority jobs attract the worst kinds of people. they enter the field to abuse their power. and they do a 'good job' of it, in almost all cases.
so, they are there to enjoy their power and to watch citizens suffer and plead with them for their freedom and lives. super power trips.
whatever makes them MORE powerful is what they seek. that's why they are all so totally for any kind of spying. it does not save us, it has never helped us but they all seem to enjoy their little LOVEINT spying and all the rest.
and so, when they ask for 'stop using encryption' its not because they think it helps bad guys; it basically stops them from having THEIR FUN at your expense.
everyone here has run into bullies who simply enjoy knocking heads and punching people (or worse). I submit that 90% of the staff of any of those three letter agencies all share the same sociopathic personality trait. they may not be physically big guys or big bullies but they all have the bully 'respect mah authority!' attitude and would simply love to make trouble for you if you don't cower in their presence.
the whole lot of them should be hanged as traitors. and then we can rethink what kinds of people we should HAVE in positions of high authority. what we have now is all the wrong people with all the wrong reasons for being there.
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and so, when they ask for 'stop using encryption' its not because they think it helps bad guys; it basically stops them from having THEIR FUN at your expense.
I agree with this; I honestly do not think that anyone making the 'terrizm/thinkofthechildren' arguments are being intellectually honest. They want to snoop and they'll say whatever the fuck it takes to be allowed to do it. I believe that's the reason why the whole terrorism thing is so overblown despite being, on a geopolitical level at least, a small problem in the west.
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Re:Seriously...? (Score:4, Informative)
The two shooters in Texas were "on the FBI's radar" yet they managed to drive all the way to Texas and attempt to carry-out their plot. I guess the FBI will claim they needed more massive surveillance to prevent this incident. Bastard liars all.
What's even better is one of those was a previously convicted terrorist, been jailed and released, and was actively tweeting/posting on *public* social media his intentions, and still "they managed to drive all the way to Texas and attempt to carry-out their plot." Exactly what in excess of what the FBI/NSA/CIA had do they need to "prevent terrorism"? I'd say this points out to the complete and utter uselessness of the entire concept of mass surveillance to prevent terrorism, so let's start there with dismantling this democracy killing concept.
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So what you're saying is that the US has the highest number of crooks in the world. Makes you wonder whether the people are bad or whether the law is.
If 90% of the class is failing, are the students to blame or the teacher?
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Heres what I think of this guy: (Score:5, Funny)
BWgSZ9ZYLw5I kmoBvJiRvnO7uQU9x6NoYlKBOaO vmb3df8lNwkgeFc30rNPB9kh09Fr61CxW24IkH3YWKRe8H YdTd8YHzpRBMQJcwyxn+O3cUPQ4sP2dN4GEA/9v17IipHz12Bon8o7dc0o8UaOj3tl Pr19cq3meoufARx7PLJ0SKclb3LG7SxW+GTISS1cRGpDRr d0NvdC8lHHkfyDx5YGnIp DUgQa9lMCpQbHSln40 LCosKrQamj4Ni27wIbikaSWV+IiDsn jyfc7eLKlq QSOgCFzMsBglGzC2+j9HifrKU/z9Fzc8HZ3UiaQahMiOj EnohZdYQqCdPAmeZlEkK/qaZBtwA13A BLrbolhR0C/NSgvA hPZzh7oj33/LHPY8tC TP7zXULYP/RsccmOc aS88VzbzOAaRwEf9KCu1YtKICdVyGlYhn5IN4q vM80+vNtkc0QiRUdKW
And I'll tell him that again to his FACE!
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You might want to check twice what you're talking to. Considering just what he's saying, he might be talking with the other end.
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He's a lawyer, a theologian and a chemist.
You would think at least the chemist would realize this is impossible.
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He's a lawyer, a theologian and a chemist.
You would think at least the chemist would realize this is impossible.
He sounds like a terrorist according to the government definition. Weapons of Mass Destruction + Religion = terrorist. The fact he is a lawyer raises further suspicions.
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That "chemist" is a red flag for sure. Making IEDs in his basement, no doubt.
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Hmm... a religious person who know his way 'round chemicals and who also knows how to avoid having his home searched...
Why didn't that trigger a profiling alarm?
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America loves to say "innocent until proven guilty" but our Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies have always taken the stance that everyone is a criminal
Why should we let criminals have secure and encrypted communication?
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Re:Seriously...? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an idea. How about instead of wiping his ass with the Constitution, burning it, then shitting on the ashes for good measure, maybe this Stalinist assclown could try to protect us from some real threats to the American people.
Terrorism? Fucking idiot. Terrorism isn't a threat. Heart disease is a threat. Obesity and complications related to obesity are a threat. Car accidents are a threat. Cancer is a threat.
In fact, just about everything in life is more of a threat to the average American than terrorism, from accidentally dropping an electrical appliance in the tub while you're in it to falling down the fucking stairs. Even getting struck by lightning is more of a fucking threat.
Terrorism? This guy needs to get some fucking perspective.Terrorism is an excuse. It's a cash cow. It's a blunt object to club over the collective head of the populace. The fear of terrorism is doing more to destroy this country than any terrorist or terrorist organization could ever hope to accomplish on their own. In fact, if terrorists really want to bring down America all they need to do is open cheap shops of deep fried donut wrapped sausages and watch us die by the millions from strokes and heart attacks. They can laugh their asses off watching us drop like flies while we chant "protect us from the terrorists!".
Sad.
Re:Seriously...? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Humans tend to be terrible at weighing actual risks.
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It is law enforcement's job to try to make catching bad guys easier.
It is up to the community to make sure law enforcement has only what it needs.
American Justice system is based on the ideal, that it is better for a criminal to go scott free, vs. an innocent getting convicted.
However we let fear of criminals take over, so we want the bad guy caught, even at the expense of our own freedoms.
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This is what the war on terror gives us. (Score:5, Insightful)
More and more surveillance of Americans instead of the supposed enemies. This is the US after 9/11 and the Boston bombing. Welcome to 1984.
Re:This is what the war on terror gives us. (Score:4, Insightful)
Notice that it's the "War on Terror" and not the "War on Terrorists."
Step 1: Government instills fear into the populace. (e.g. There are terrorists behind every corner waiting to blow you up!)
Step 2: The Government wages war on the terror it created by making the people feel safe (while actually gathering more powers for itself).
Step 3: Repeat Steps 1 & 2 until "terror" is destroyed. (Which, since they keep creating more terror to combat, mean repeat ad infinitum.)
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You're not the person that the government is targeting in their "War on Terror." They're targeting the majority of folks who see "cool news device in TSA line... it must be keeping us safe by buzzing if a terrorist passes through" and not "invasion of privacy combined with company-government kickbacks for selecting this device."
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Funny. I don't feel any safer than I did before 20010911.
Why not? The airplane pilots' doors are now locked. Now most people can no longer commandeer a missile and fly it into a large building at their whim. That is the most dramatic improvement in security that has happened in response to 9/11. The rest is show business designed make it easier to find statistically improbable patterns of behavior in order to identify flanking threats (rather than the face-frontal attack threats that they purport to thwart).
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Oh? 1984 did not have data-nets and rather the old forms of surveillance (cameras, spies), but the intent and effects of surveillance are rather accurate. Of course we are not full there yet.
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Oh? Winston did not strike me as "with enough political connections to potentially topple the inner party" at all. And he had permanent surveillance in his flat.
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1984 revolved around the surveillance of bureaucrats; those who knew the truth. The working class were distracted with government-approved music, television and pornography. The novel doesn't really address the middle class; like communist economies, only government employees had luxuries. But I assume the high-end middle-class will be monitored. As the story itself admits, any revolution must be supported by the middle-class to succeed. So a totalitarian state will search the middle class for dissenters. That's the real purpose of national security.
The novel differs from reality because real-life bureaucrats aren't being surveilled, just the voters: Because you are the problem. Yet the voters consistently forget this vilification and erosion of freedom at election time.
I think I'd have to classify Winston Smith as "middle class". And he certainly didn't have luxuries above and beyond basic things like the chocolate ration.
The Proles were supposed to be lower-class, I think. Strictly manual labour and cannon fodder. There were no corporations mentioned and the implication was that all office (white-collar) work was in some way or form done for the Party by Party members.
The Party being what it was, of course, the only way to actually have white collars was to be a member
correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct, there has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security in our response to terrorism in this country and in our efforts to offer security to the people of the United States. What there has been is a complete and utter disregard for liberty and destruction of individual rights. Forget tradeoffs, the Constitution was abolished, that is what happened.
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Since when did law enforcement or intelligence agencies ever care about people's Constitutional rights? Are you just horribly naive of history?
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Did you mean 'age of the narcissistic, entitled, easily butthurt millennial'? The 1st was meant to protect the rest of us sane people from victimhood crybabies becoming defacto tyrants who would otherwise use the state to censor expression (of any kind) that hurts their easily bruised feelings. The 'oppression quest' nature of net culture these days suggests the 1st is needed every bit as much, now, as in the past.
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2nd: you get guns to defend your worthless crap (Score:5, Interesting)
And the feds probably know it too, or else they wouldn't be doing it....
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Re:Where were gun nuts during Occupy? (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't for unpaid taxes. He was grazing on public lands and then refused to pay the grazing fees. He was basically being a mooch and the right only jumped to his defense because they could make up this story about he was a victim of government overreach.
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Oh and the best part was when all the right-wing pundits, etc. basically dropped supporting him when he started making racist statements to the press.
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The US government has pissed on people's rights since the Alien and Sedition Acts from the presidency of John Adams. Are people like you just extremely ignorant of the long history of the US government, law enforcement, etc. ignoring Constitutional rights when it suits them? Did you never learn about J. Edgar Hoover? Never learn about the Church Commission and rampant abuses it made public? Did you not learn about how just a hundred years ago the Supreme Court upheld a law passed by Congress that made anti-
Liberty? (Score:5, Insightful)
False, although mostly true so far. Notably, the intrusiveness of airport security has gone way up, for the big example on the false side.
Mostly what there's been so far has been a tradeoff between *privacy* and security. As in none of the former.
I feel for the guy--his job is to prevent another 9/11. He gets the call if a city blows up. And he probably really cares about defending liberty.
But unfortunately, pervasive surveillance without amazingly well-engineered procedural oversight and security will inevitably lead to tyranny. Anyone who doesn't see that isn't stepping far enough back. He's concerned about the next five years; I'm concerned about the next twenty or fifty.
I suppose there's an AI issue, too--a singularity is going to get into this data in a few decades. I can't predict what an AI a hundred times smarter than any of us might do with it.
Re:Liberty? (Score:5, Insightful)
America is gradually turning into China (Score:5, Interesting)
In order to trade off some of A to get some of B, you have to actually get some of B. In this case, we've given a lot of A and gotten nothing for it
I have read many comments here and what you have said is so very true I just need to add to what you have written
I came from China
I left China back in the early 1970's, way back when the entire Chinese society was in a turmoil, where nobody can live in peace because the social contract between the government and the people had broken down
A political struggle at the top echelon resulted in a power-struggle at every level, and power grab was everywhere ... the so-called 'Red Guard' was a by-product of power-grabbing exercises, mostly at the local level
Anyway, people at large in China had no say --- they kept on losing their liberty, their livelihood, even their lives, --- with some driven into madness and many simply committed suicide since they couldn't take it anymore
To put it in simple terms, to the average Chinese citizens, what they had gone through in between the late 1950's and the early 1970's was that everything they had was taken away, just like that ... yep, without any tradeoff
Now that I am an American, I am alarmed at the current development within the United States of America
The people in the USA will be facing the same thing the people in China faced, if nothing is being done to stop TPTB
What happened back in China was that there was no one who could stop Mao. Zhou En Lai tried his best to slow Mao's incessant hunger for power but he just couldn't muster enough strength to halt Mao in his track. All Zhou could do was to do patchworks here and there
Even Zhou suffered greatly during the social turmoil. His own daughter was brutally slaughtered by Jiang Qin, that feisty wife of Mao, and even with his own daughter slaughtered, Zhou couldn't do anything
The experience from China should be a lesson to the Americans ... that is, even if you have someone who has conscience INSIDE the power structure, it is still NOT ENOUGH when TPTB turns ugly
And if the Americans don't do something now --- frankly, even now, it may be too late --- they and their children will eventually be facing a similar fate the Chinese faced some 50 years ago
I certainly don't wish that to America, my adopted country, but I am afraid that too many of the Americans are way too brainwashed to be able to comprehend what is going on and what is going to come
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The AI issue is irrelevant because it's never going to happen. It's certainly not going to happen within a few decades. You might want to consider not looking like a complete and utter moron.
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Some progress has been made on _general_ intelligence but probably not enough for this work. But enough progress has been made on special purpose intelligence who should be able to categorize anyone and send a signal to the intelligence people to keep an eye on these categorized as suspicious. But as long as the false negatives are near zero and the false positives are low there is a possibility to investigate...
I, by far, prefer to have a 'black boxed' AI that go through all that data even if the IA is not
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Exactly this. It would likely take the terrorists at least a generation of "pre-911 hijackings" (where you fly to another country, have your hijacker make a big political statement, and then you all go free unharmed) before another 9-11 would be possible. The hijackers weren't even able to complete their 9-11 plans. By the time United Airlines Flight 93 was en route to the White House or Capital Building, passengers found out what had happened with the other 3 planes. Knowing that this wasn't your norma
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I suppose there's an AI issue, too--a singularity is going to get into this data in a few decades. I can't predict what an AI a hundred times smarter than any of us might do with it.
Don't worry about that. :) If the AI is Friendly, it won't hurt us no matter how much it knows, and if it's Unfriendly, it won't matter how much it knows; it would hurt us just as bad anyway.
Comey:"justice may be denied" (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA: Comey said in an Oct. 2014 speech "Justice may be denied because of a locked phone or an encrypted hard drive." I can somewhat understand that from an investigator's perspective.
But my take is that lots of people are constantly attacking my devices, from the petty skript kiddies to corporations wanting secrets to the NSA who wants everything. Most of the attacks never see justice, they are never prosecuted. There is no justice in most cases, only criminals who break in.
If my devices are properly hardened in advance, I don't need to wait for the government to apply "justice".
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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because we might need to look in your house for terrorists. Also get rid of locks on car doors because we might want to randomly search your car
Or because we believe there's a kidnapping victim in your house and we got a warrant. The cops would have a problem if every door was the only way in to an unbreakable fort and they couldn't compel the key because it's in your mind and protected by the 5th amendment. Real world analogies fail because in the real world, they would get blowtorches, bolt cutters and whatnot to execute the search one way or the other. The lock will stand up to casual burglars, but not a full-out assault.
That's the shade of gray
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The proper way is to use cryptanalysis to break those cyphers. It's a hard task but government has access to supercomputers.
Remember the part where some things are supposed to be so complicated it is supposed to take billions of years to crack with computers far better than is possible now?
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It's pretty simple, they can crack the crypto. It's expensive and should be reserved for the most extreme cases. Sure that makes his job harder, making a police forces job harder is a good thing nearly allways. The real bad guys are smart enough not to trust default base level crypto, code books and OTP's are still unbreakable assuming they were made and used correctly. Hell code books look like normal unencrypted communications.
This is about low hanging fruit, turning a car stop into a full digital dum
Re:Keep all your doors unlocked too (Score:5, Funny)
Are you suggesting that chastity belts should remain unlocked?
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No, but clothes clearly only inhibit police investigations and thus should be banned. Plus, it's well known that terrorists wear clothes. If you've got nothing to hide why are you wearing clothes?
Yawn. (Score:2)
I never understand why people consider it news when someone takes a position that is 100% predictable given who they are.
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Only terrorist would want to ban encryption (Score:2)
so they can have access to and control your life. Fuck those who want to control anyone with laws that go above natural and common sense laws.
Whats the point of FBI pretending to care? (Score:3)
The government has all the power here. They can easily OFAC the crap out of any security chip that can't be owned by side channel attacks. Judging from laptop TPM scene where vendors have gone as far as enumerating list of vectors they don't even try to defend against... seems to me like open season for anyone with the resources to pull it off.
Anything protected directly by user entry into a smart phone is bound to have no usable entropy by itself anyway.
Failing this we have baseband processors with full read write access to OS memory to reduce material costs. I would be surprised if there was a consumer baseband on the planet without capability of being field "upgraded" by Agent Smith... at least from various accounts of ancient feature phones being turned into bugs.
While I don't doubt encryption will make things more difficult if/when it catches on you can bet the feds will invest in beating it and they will win at least for the subset of people who don't really care about security.
I have a feeling the bigger issue with ubiquitous encryption for TLAs is that when everyone uses encryption then the ability to use the fact that encryption was used to justify suspicion evaporates... that's what I think they are really afraid of.
once again (Score:5, Interesting)
James Comey: the Man Who Wants To Outlaw Encryptio (Score:2)
> "There has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security in our response to terrorism in this country and in our efforts to offer security to the people of the United States," said James Comey, now the director of the FBI. Comey was the number two man in the Department of Justice during the Bush years when NSA and law enforcement surveillance of Americans grew to unprecedented heights. Now he's pushing to stop encryption by default on Apple and Android devices.
Asshole.
we have already lost to terrorists (Score:3)
What is encryption defined by law, exactly? (Score:3)
No Verification, No Trust (Score:2)
"There has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security..."
We have no way of validating this. So, based on previous experience, it is a lie.
James Comey: Quit (Score:2)
You fail to realize that peaceful democratic political change sometimes happens behind closed doors, like hopefully, the firing of you.
Read the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and check again to see if what you are doing agrees, or if you should go somewhere else.
Get real (Score:2)
Go suck an egg, Mr. Comey.
Last night's flood at DFW airport proves him wrong (Score:3, Informative)
"There has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security in our response to terrorism in this country and in our efforts to offer security to the people of the United States,
Last night the parking-lot exit from one of the terminals at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport was flooded.
This meant there were now only 2 ways to get out of the terminal: walk through the rain, or take the tram that connects the terminals.
The tram was inside security and most passengers had already existed security, either to get their bags or for other reasons.
Prior to 9/11, they had the liberty to re-enter security, take the tram to another terminal, and arrange for their ride to pick them up there.
Thanks to a "tradeoff between liberty and security" they were forced to either sit in the terminal for several hours while the flood cleared or walk out in the rain to get to another terminal (the buses that connect the terminals couldn't operate due to the floods).
James Comey is a hero (Score:3)
Re:Hyperbole Much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but the reason he wants the default of 'no' is to make it easier to monitor communications. He doesn't give a shit about the 4th, naturally. The government shouldn't be dictating the default setting either, which is what he wants.
What they really want. Just annother Clipper... (Score:2)
" They only want backdoorsâ"to break encryption, but just for the good guys."
And
"âoeThe FBI makes this proposal to look like theyâ(TM)re looking for a simple law to add a simple feature,â says Robert Graham, CEO at Errata Security. âoeBut when you look into it, what theyâ(TM)re really asking for is dramatic, itâ(TM)s a huge thing. Theyâ(TM)d need to outlaw certain kinds of code. Possessing crypto code would become illegal.â
But that boat has sailed, just a
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Secure by default should ALWAYS be the policy pursued in software. People are afraid to change the default setting and if that default setting compromises their safety, privacy or otherwise puts them at risk then the default sucks.
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No, he also wants that encryption to contain flaws which will be guaranteed to be found and exploited by more than just the "good" guys. Just as we have seen done with other backdoors that criminals have found and exploited.
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I wouldn't want just anyone to know my bank password for example. Even if the feds weren't going to do anything malicious with it, if *THEY* can see it, then so can people with less honorable intentions.
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This is why we need encryption to be ON by default. So we don't let these idiots use that argument. The peasant public will always fall for it, it's for the children after all.
No matter how wrong they are they will always argue that encryption is suspicious until it is always activated by default. And with Snowden's revelation that is far from unreasonable to expect that from our software.
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You do not rise to a high position by actually being good at your job, you raise by understanding infighting, being part of the right circles and having the right opinions. Of course nobody in such a position has any clue.
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Actually, you're a complete and total moron.
The difference between encryption and encoding is that encryption is designed to hide the content from those without specific knowledge of the encoding. The standard such as Unicode, ASCII, etc. are designed to make the content available to anyone who receives the content. It may be only a matter of intent, but that makes it different.
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What have languages got to do with it? Languages are just like standards the GP mentioned (Unicode, ASCII, etc) - you need to understand the language to read the message, just like you need to understand how ASCII encoding works. Using a [non made-up] language means that you are designing the message to be read by anyone who receives the content - just because they may need to do some work to understand it doesn't make it encryption.
And yes, I'm aware that the US used Navajo radio operators during WW2, and
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Don't say that. Your terms are perfectly acceptable to them. And they will help your fingers become cold and dead.