FBI Chief Calls Unbreakable Encryption 'Urgent Public Safety Issue' (reuters.com) 442
The inability of law enforcement authorities to access data from electronic devices due to powerful encryption is an "urgent public safety issue," FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday in remarks that sought to renew a contentious debate over privacy and security. From a report: The FBI was unable to access data from nearly 7,800 devices in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 with technical tools despite possessing proper legal authority to pry them open, a growing figure that impacts every area of the agency's work, Wray said during a speech at a cyber security conference in New York. "This is an urgent public safety issue," Wray added, while saying that a solution is "not so clear cut."
Think of the children (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Think of the children (Score:5, Funny)
As much as these asshole think of the children, I can't help but think that they're pedos.
Re:Think of the children (Score:5, Funny)
No...this is cyberspace, where the men are men, the women are men and the children are FBI agents.
Re:Think of the children (Score:4, Funny)
So... the FBI boss wants us to think of the FBI agents?
Kinda makes sense, but it just doesn't really make for a catchy phrase.
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Re:Think of the children (Score:4, Funny)
It's the Reptilians. They have a penchant for pederasty. That's why so many powerful "people" get found out as being pedophiles. They're just Reptilians.
What can you do to stop the Reptilians? Join the Church of Scientology. The organization's main goal is containing, and eventually eliminating, the Reptilian threat on Earth.
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Spoiled short-term-thinking brat (Score:2)
"I want free access to the cookie jar, waaaaaah!"
I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see it all that short term thinking. This is definitely part of a larger picture, a longer termed plan.
Get this wedge in now, this idea that some authority should have all the keys to the encryption kingdom, and it should be easier to keep it there when the next privacy scheme comes along. Otherwise it's a doubly hard fight the next time. You have to convince more people that the authorities are correct to want it. Do it now, when it is of less concern.
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad.
Breakable encryption is no encryption at all. I guess the 3 letter agencies want to back-door themselves to indeterminism along with the whole world just because they think it'll give them that last 2% of control. Perhaps they don't realize what an asymptote maximizing control is. (With an emphasis on the as)
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or...am I giving them too much credit?
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Interesting)
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If encryption is breakable with a large amount of effort, then it does several useful things...
The definition of a "large amount of effort" regarding computing resources is neither static nor simple. "Large" for LAPD? "Large" for a Chinese bitcoin mine? "Large" for the FBI? "Large" after 5 years of advancements?
Re:Breakable encryption != no encryption (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a nice little excerpt from Bruce Schneier's book Applied Cryptography that puts things in perspective on how to think about it. As an added bonus there is the phrase "orgy of computation" included:
One of the consequences of the second law of thermodynamics is that a certain amount of energy is necessary to represent information. To record a single bit by changing the state of a system requires an amount of energy no less than kT, where T is the absolute temperature of the system and k is the Boltzman constant. (Stick with me; the physics lesson is almost over.)
Given that k = 1.38×10-16 erg/Kelvin, and that the ambient temperature of the universe is 3.2 Kelvin, an ideal computer running at 3.2 K would consume 4.4×10^-16 ergs every time it set or cleared a bit. To run a computer any colder than the cosmic background radiation would require extra energy to run a heat pump.
Now, the annual energy output of our sun is about 1.21×10^41 ergs. This is enough to power about 2.7×10^56 single bit changes on our ideal computer; enough state changes to put a 187-bit counter through all its values. If we built a Dyson sphere around the sun and captured all its energy for 32 years, without any loss, we could power a computer to count up to 2^192. Of course, it wouldn't have the energy left over to perform any useful calculations with this counter.
But that's just one star, and a measly one at that. A typical supernova releases something like 10^51 ergs. (About a hundred times as much energy would be released in the form of neutrinos, but let them go for now.) If all of this energy could be channeled into a single orgy of computation, a 219-bit counter could be cycled through all of its states.
These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space.
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact the story goes back to 1975 (at least). That's when Diffie and Hellman found themselves battling the NSA, which wanted DES to be accepted as the encryption standard simply because NSA could crack it.
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:4, Insightful)
I strongly oppose government efforts to weaken our protections. I'm relying on unbreakable encryption in my own campaign, notably in my plans to end identity theft and increase voter participation. The most-powerful encryption ever used has been the spoken word, in closed quarters, with a soft noise generator to prevent electronic surveillance: no record of communications. Written and then pulped notes. Anything that destroys the data.
I haven't translated these plans to my new site [johnmoserforcongress.com] yet. I need to, but I've been working alone. My political competitor, Elijah Cummings, has expressed no interest in protecting our privacy from domestic spying.
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, I don't think he's exactly wrong to say that unbreakable encryption is a public safety issue. It's an issue. It's an issue we can debate and think about and talk about. If encryption is unbreakable, then it makes it harder for law enforcement to do certain things that they might validly want to do.
On the other hand, if people can't encrypt their data (or that encryption is breakable), then it creates an entirely different set of problems. People can't safeguard their data or protect their systems. It increases the vulnerability of our infrastructure. It increases the chances that criminals and terrorists can gain access to important and private information.
There are going to be real valid problems either way. There should be open discussions about what all of those problems are, and how we can mitigate them. But ultimately, I don't think breakable encryption (or backdoored encryption) is a viable long-term option, even if we were willing to live in a police state. The ability to break or circumvent encryption will inevitably fall into the hands of criminals.
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, I don't think he's exactly wrong to say that unbreakable encryption is a public safety issue. It's an issue. It's an issue we can debate and think about and talk about. If encryption is unbreakable, then it makes it harder for law enforcement to do certain things that they might validly want to do.
On the other hand, if people can't encrypt their data (or that encryption is breakable), then it creates an entirely different set of problems. People can't safeguard their data or protect their systems. It increases the vulnerability of our infrastructure. It increases the chances that criminals and terrorists can gain access to important and private information.
There are going to be real valid problems either way. There should be open discussions about what all of those problems are, and how we can mitigate them. But ultimately, I don't think breakable encryption (or backdoored encryption) is a viable long-term option, even if we were willing to live in a police state. The ability to break or circumvent encryption will inevitably fall into the hands of criminals.
You want to have open discussions? Fine. We'll start with dismantling the FISA court system that seeks to hide Unconstitutional activity.
I agree, there are issues on both sides. No one is debating the existence of a Catch-22 here. The real problem is those who are asking for the keys to the kingdom cannot be trusted to respect The People or their Constitutional Rights. THAT is the real issue to address.
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't get much data on the FISA courts. What we get shows the promises made to be pure, unmitigated bullshit.
The FISA judges are supposed to be holding the government to standards. They are FAILING, based on 100% FISA court warrant issue rate reported for the initial years of operation.
Rubber stamp court should be abolished immediately, all warrants quashed. All records publicly reviewed and any perjury by feds (or anybody else) prosecuted to _full_ extent of law (after a period of a few years).
I can dream can't I? Not a crime to dream of justice for the justice department, at least not yet.
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Interesting)
Because they are cops and that's what cops do? Adversarial system and all, they're supposed to reach (just not perjure themselves in the process).
It's not a big assumption at all. Assuming that all the applications were good is a HUGE assumption.
A public review (and prosecution for lying cops/prosecutors) is the only remedy at this point. Like I say, give them a couple of years to 'cool down', then it's off to jail for at least a few feds.
Lying to a fed is a crime. Feds lying to themselves _should_ be prosecuted.
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Informative)
To be honest, I don't think he's exactly wrong to say that unbreakable encryption is a public safety issue. It's an issue.
He's absolutely correct that it's a public safety issue. The last century taught us (those who were paying attention, at least) that authoritarian government is the biggest public safety issue that has ever existed, save for maybe the bubonic plague. So, sorry FBI, the bottom line is that we have bigger fish to fry than "encryption".
Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I'm not sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)
Other than that, what's the problem?
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Even if you assume that they'll do their jobs perfectly, there would still the problem that any back door is essentially guaranteed to eventually be discovered by bad actors and used against the public at large. If the NSA gets their way, we won't be able to do banking online, because it won't be possible to secure the transactions. We won't be able to use credit cards at stores, because it won't be possible to secure the transactions. Basically, imagine a global information apocalypse, and then multipl
Down with the Fourth Amendment! (Score:3, Interesting)
Much as I don't like this idea myself, it is not new.
The Fourth Amendment explicitly allows the Executive Branch — after securiing Judicial Branch's approval — to access all of our possessions and "effects". They have a right to do that, which no one seems to seriously dispute.
The strong encryption has given us the means to lock things up so that even the government can't get them — this part is new. Although t
Re:Down with the Fourth Amendment! (Score:5, Interesting)
While correct, you're missing the point. Ciphers have been around for a very, very long time. They weren't used as extensively in the past as they are today. But they've been around throughout history. A quick wikipedia search references Egyptian hieroglyphs for example. The technology progressed over time and the cost to break the encrypted text increased over time to what we have today.
Nonetheless, encrypted communications were available when the constitution was written and they were in use. Yet the constitution makes no mention of preventing the citizens from using encrypted communications or in forcing the users to decrypt the documents on demand.
The federal government gave itself the rights mentioned, but did not choose to worry about the technology of the day providing documents that they could see, but couldn't decrypt without a lot of work or the help of one of the parties on either end of the transmission. They had just fought a revolution against a government that employed big brother tactics (like garrisoning soldiers in people's homes). They didn't want the government doing any of that type of crap anymore.
The FBI and others might really wish today that the writers had considered encryption, but they didn't choose to. The writer's generation relied on spies and good old footwork to figure things out. They didn't rely solely on documents. Good for them.
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You're still missing my point. An encrypted document in and of itself didn't make you a criminal in those days. The government may or may not have been able to decrypt it eventually, but the most it could do if intercepted was mark you as a person of interest for more resources to be allocated to. Then, if you actually broke the law, they could handle that within the limits of the rest of the amendments. The existence and contents of the original document weren't directly actionable.
With a master key, th
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I'm not of the opinion that the U.S. Constit
Re:Spoiled short-term-thinking brat (Score:5, Insightful)
The other 96% of the world's population will know that they can't trust American products. They might make their own phones, systems, devices, etc even more secure against American TLAs. Thus accomplishing the opposite of what the TLAs want.
Aren't the majority of smartphones already made outside the US? Maybe all they need to do is build their own secure OS with secure encryption that the US won't like. Will the US stop people coming in with foreign made phones that are too secure?
What about economic consequences of American executives traveling abroad using insecure US made equipment and having valuable trade secrets stolen?
But think of the children!
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Right now, you don't trust US products not to have back doors. Wouldn't it be worse if you knew US products were legally required to have back doors?
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Insightful)
If he can find unbreakable encryption to be an urgent public safety issue, can I find him to be an urgent public privacy issue?
Also, no amount of wishing will put the AES-256 toothpaste back in the tube. Because, math.
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This. Even if it was mandated tomorrow that all encrypted communications shall use X cipher to which the government has a backdoor and through magic psychic software it actually cannot be decrypted without proper cause and judicial review, there's not anything that would prevent the payload from being encrypted again using a different system, and there would be no way to tell without actually decrypting the outer wrapper.
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Insightful)
You can just ban it (Score:2)
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Also, no amount of wishing will put the AES-256 toothpaste back in the tube. Because, math.
Which is exactly why I would like to outlaw specific types of math. Nobody needs anything larger than a 32-bit number for anything, nor a decimal point number. Let's ban floating point math and any number larger than 2^31 (for scientific use) and 2^29 (for economic use). This prevents strong encryption (remember that symmetric encryption can be done in far fewer bits than the FBI would like to allow). Problems solved for everyone.
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Insightful)
pigs just keep on piggin'.
each month is a new cry about their lack of ability to STROLL THRU OUR LIVES and even plant shit on our computers.
we will not give in. but I suspect we'll lose anyway, because they have infinite money, power, almost people, who want to invade our privacy for lulz (mostly).
its sad that we are now in a perpetual state of WAR with our own governments on this very issue. and they show no signs of giving in.
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The question might better be phrase 'is it unreasonable to require breakable encryption that may expose all of a person's 'papers and effects' despite their intention to be private in such?'
Because we recognize a right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures.
The benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
What the law enforcement clambering for a back door or weaker encryption forget or fail to see is that the 7k cases they are talking about isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to the 17 million identity thefts each year
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Re:The benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the IRS cancelled that contract and went with Experian. How much better that is is up for debate, of course :)
Apparently they suspended the contract on 10/12, Equifax protested, and the GAO denied the protest. [arstechnica.com]
Re:The benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
The real safety issue is the lack of respect our government has for the Constitution. I for one am not happy with the whole secret court, secret warrant and other "Patriot Act" nonsense. The government has immense power and only wants more and more. The most dangerous thing in any society is a government that forgets it rules for the people and not OVER them.
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I guess I just wonder how the FBI made any other case, ever, without the ability to post-facto dig through any and all communication from the accused. It's not like secure communications are some new concept - it literally goes back many hundreds of years.
What did the FBI forget about investigation since the smartphone era began? And why?
There is no middle choice here (Score:5, Insightful)
Either encryption works for everyone, or it works for no one.
In the end, calling unbreakable encryption an "urgent public safety issue" is pointless.
Why are cars lacking security features against terrorists?
Why are guns lacking security features against terrorists?
Why is cash lacking security features against terrorists?
The FBI/CIA/NSA does not only want to access the devices thieves/killers/terrorists, they want to spy on EVERYONE.
Adversarial Justice (Score:2)
The justice system in the US is for the most part adversarial. The prosecutors and police are on one side and the alleged criminals and their lawyers on the other. I think this works well in some cases. In other cases I think it doesn't work at all. In France and other places, there are no sides and what matters to the courts is that the truth gets out.
There are many cases where I think the French way is a better solution, such as organized crimes. Mafiosos, gangs, paedophile rings, etc should n
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If secure, then the hackers can't break it, but neither can the government.
If insecure, then the government can read your data, but so can the hackers.
If US made products are known to have mandated weak encryption, the rest of the world will take note of that. It will put US products at a competitive disadvantage relative to other products not subject to mandatory weak encryption. US travelers abroad can have their valuable
Re:There is no middle choice here (Score:5, Insightful)
How many Children Would Have Been Saved? (Score:2)
Just ask Cisco how the government mandatedo backdoors worked for them and how much it cost them?
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If 30% of the population enable optional encryption, and 70% do not. That's 70% of potential "dumb" criminals to be caught. 30% is still enough to prevent targeted monitoring, privacy channels remain intact and effective, and more crimes get solved. Over time, the news will spread, and the majority of people will consciously choose to enable encryption on their devices.
Having an informed population helps the l
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I'd settle for that option.
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so we're going to be selecting for smarter criminals, yes? Nothing could possibly go wrong with that.
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Re:There is no middle choice here (Score:5, Insightful)
How many children could we have found if torture had been an option so we could make the kidnapper talk?
How many children could we have found if that whole search warrant thing wasn't a problem and we could simply break into every home with impunity and pry the house apart?
How many children could we have found if every person would get chipped at birth, like a dog, so we can track there whereabouts at every moment of their life?
How many...
tell me when it's getting close to home, ok?
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Encryption is nothing new. All that's changed is that now ordinary people are using it too - not just people with something to hide. Odd that it's suddenly a problem - it's almost like the FBI has some ulterior motive.
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What do you think is on these phones that is so important?
- The last few numbers you dialed? They could easily get that from the phone provider
- The last few locations you were at? Again, the phone provider can give that to you
- The last few emails or text messages you sent? Again, providers will cooperate with a legitimate investigation
Criminals that are smart enough will not get caught by anything on their phone regardless of encryption. The only thing that they could want on these phones is in the pursui
Re:There is no middle choice here (Score:5, Informative)
No downvotes for you at the moment, so I'll have to settle for pointing out how stupid your argument is.
First, "think of the children" is a shitty, fear-mongering argument designed to play to people's base instincts, and trap them in a corner so they can't produce a good argument against you. How do you argue against protecting children without seeming like a monster?
Second, if there is a switch to flip, that can and will be abused. Between nation states and malware, if you want it on there's the chance that it will get turned off without your notice, and if you want it off there's a chance it will get turned on without your notice.
Third, enabling authorities to invisibly snoop on anyone not smart enough to turn on their encryption is stupid and wrong. It sets up an expectation that they can check in on anyone when they want to, and creates the "why are you encrypting if you have nothing to hide" line of thought.
Last, technology isn't some magic shit that prevents law enforcement from doing it's job. It's the opposite, actually. Not only can they can do the same damn job the same damn way as they always have, we now live in a world with cameras everywhere, face identification, cell phone tracking, OnStar and other car tracking and remote control abilities, etc., etc., etc.
Law enforcement already has orders of magnitude more tools with which to catch bad guys than they had even a decade ago. There is absolutely no reason to allow them invisibly monitor every facet of a large percentage of people's lives, data mine and machine learn, heuristically profile, and otherwise pry into their lives without a trace because there's a vanishingly small chance they might be up to something. I don't care how bad or stupid those people are - that's abusive fascist secret police shit right there.
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And encryption has one called private key. No terrorist on the planet can read my email. Not even that goofball calling this an urgent public safety issue.
Where is the mass danger? (Score:3)
An urgent public safety issue? Talk about first world problems. Even if one person gets through and kills 50 people, Its a sad day, but certainly not the end of the world.
--
We had every right to shoot him. - G. Gordon Liddy
Legal authority to pry them open (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, there is absolutely nothing I have ever seen anywhere that says you must hand over the keys to your house if someone has a search warrant. You may choose to do so instead of h
'Urgent Public Safety Issue' (Score:2, Insightful)
Another encryption ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... is our fucking brains.
"Our inability to get inside people's heads is an "urgent public safety issue."
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I talk to them. They don't answer, like they ain't even there.
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Government agencies throughout the ages had no problem with cracking skulls open.
Granted, it wasn't usually done when they wanted to get information out of said skulls. More if they wanted said information to cease existing.
The FBI Chief (Score:2)
send mulder and scully to the apple spaceship! (Score:2)
send mulder and scully to the apple spaceship!
GOOD! My data is PRIVATE (Score:2)
Sure (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as you can prove to me that you use the same encryption for everything at the FBI.
If you are not willing to do that. GO FUCK YOURSELF
Dumb and arrogant (Score:2)
What those people are overlooking is that if encryption is weak enough (or subverted) that NSA can crack it, it is weak enough for other government agencies and criminals to do likewise.
They may still believe that good ol' American know-how leads the world - but if so, they are just plain wrong. Mathematics is international.
Cry me a river (Score:2)
To be honest, Law Enforcement and their " kill everyone who doesn't comply with our demands " is an urgent Public Safety Issue.
Encryption, on the other hand, hasn't killed any innocent people as far as I know so I think their priorities are a bit skewed.
Back on topic:
Encryption, when properly inplemented, does exactly what it's supposed to do. It keeps unauthorized eyes off of private data. Just because you wear a badge doesn't give you the right to spy on everyone.
If our government could be trusted, we w
Why Not Try? (Score:5, Interesting)
What puzzles me is, with all of the resources that the US federal government has at their disposal, why aren't they actually trying to crack encrypted phones?
As I understand it, the older iPhones could likely be cracked by desoldering a chio and interrogating it. The newer ones have their entire security apparatus encased in a single chip but I don't see why the chip couldn't be removed, disassembled, and its partial private key extracted. It's probably not something that could be done by hand and would probably involve contracting with a chip-fabricating outfit. The outlay costs would be enormous but once a "Federal Bureau of Device Recovery" was established and operational, they could make back money by cracking phones for state and local law enforcement.
It's just so strange because it seems likely that eventually other countries will have this capability, if they don't already. My guess is that if the FBI hasn't figured out how to crack encrypted iPhones themselves in the next 5 years, they'll be a company in Israel that will be happy to do it for them.
Re:Why Not Try? (Score:5, Informative)
Decapping a chip is difficult, expensive and not guaranteed. Most TPMs and security-chips are almost impossible to open without damage.
Go look at the arcade-ROM decapping efforts. Even 30-year-old ROMs have protections that mean some games are now permanently lost forever, and the ones that are successful rely on "seeing" (via X-Ray etc.) the data as a visible effect on the image. That doesn't work for anything modern at all, you'd need new kinds of instruments or something to measure the individual charge on an individual transistor from billions of them on a tiny sliver of silicon.
Modern chips, especially those designed to be secure and avoid tampering? Not a chance. Nobody has yet demonstrated an attack on a modern TPM chip like that, and the private keys aren't exactly just sitting there in plain-text even if you could.
And then updating for EVERY technology change, nm-advancement, etc.? Cost would not just be prohibitive but astronomical.
Do you believe that those 7800 devices a year are all just one read away from stopping a terrorist attack each? Highly unlikely. If anything one arrest could result in 20-30 devices, not even worrying about whether it was a drug-deal or a telecoms violation or whatever else the FBI might deal with.
The value just isn't there, even if the technology could exist.
To my knowledge, literally NO-ONE in the world has read a key from a physical iPhone security chip, for instance. There have been software flaws, and things found in publicly available firmware that are quickly patched out but even those don't cause the processor to magically give up all its private keys. That's not how those chips work. Even Apple themselves may not be able to do it (only replace the device in question and reset it, not bring across the private keys).
This is part of the "problem". The system is secure. And that means secure from all attackers, including the people who want access to the devices for legitimate reasons (e.g. the owners in some cases!). If it wasn't, it would be insecure, against both those categories of people, and thus not be fit for purpose.
Sure, at some point, someone will find a hole. And then the next round will devices will counter that. But the FBI expecting to have something that nobody else in the world has, possibly even the manufacturer, which can only be given by weakening the whole purpose of the system for everyone, and for it to be cost-effective, to handle a boat load of enquiries that they presumably have NO OTHER evidence for? That's just silly.
I'm sure if it was "go to war or not" territory, someone would find a way. But there, no expense is spared. As a run of the mill "let's see what this terrorist suspect texted via WhatsApp" enquiry? Not a chance.
If they COULD do this, they would be. And they'd be keeping very quiet about it. Because the second it was public, every new phone, chip and computer would be redesigned to stop it in the future.
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Lack of warrants. If they had the warrants to do that to these phones, they would've done it. The reason they want easy access is so that they can get arrests made without getting in trouble about breaking the phone. Right now, the phones are just bricks with potential damaging information on a presumably innocent suspect.
Although a well designed security chip won't be easy to break, they self-destruct when attempts are made to get physical access.
Re:Why Not Try? (Score:4, Insightful)
We now have:
Secret Laws
Secret Interpretations of Laws
Secret Courts
Secret Warrants
Secret Court Orders
Secret Arrests
Secret Trials
Secret Evidence (not made available to the defense)
Secret Convictions
Secret Prisons
Secret "enhanced interrogation" programs
Gee, it sounds like we've become everything we were fighting against in the previous century.
Meanwhile at the NSA (Score:3)
The director paged through the packet logs from the FBI director's machine and smiled to himself.
Trojan (Score:2)
If they've got a wiretap warrant, then they can put a trojan on the suspects phone _before_ the arrest to gather evidence.
Just send a 'copy all data to FBI server' command when you're ready to make the arrest so that even if the phone is locked/destroyed they've got the data.
The real issue... (Score:2)
The inability of law enforcement authorities to gain convictions due to legal rights is an “urgent public safety issue,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday in remarks that sought to renew a contentious debate over privacy and security.
The FBI was unable to force convictions of nearly data from nearly 7% of the accused [wikipedia.org] in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, despite possessing proper legal authority to lie, trick, and deceive [popehat.com], a figure that impacts every area of the agency's work, Wray
Crooks...of what magnitude? (Score:5, Insightful)
They want to catch crooks. Meanwhile, billions in dictatorships are kept down with the assistance of breaking crypto.
Are we to sacrifice them so a prosecutor can get a notch or two on his belt once in a great while?
And what are those hundreds of millions of children living with a boot on their face...forever...worth?
Torture and murder some, you are a nasty criminal. Torture and murder hundreds of thousands, and people in free countries say you are practicing self-rule.
And what happened? (Score:3)
7800 terrorists went free? 7800 deals for pot were consummated? Or 7800 sets of hot nude pics were not drooled over by FBI agents?
Hey, nobody said... (Score:3)
Nobody said your job was going to be easy.
No one has granted you carte blanche to access our data, our lives, our thoughts.
The big problem here is the effort to prevent a crime vs solving a crime.
The government, the police, the feds, etc. want access to prevent a crime, but that in itself is quite fluid because, as Trump is demonstrating, it can be a "crime" just to say he is a foolish, petulant child. So they want access to everything to "prevent" this kind of thing.
While I might support cracking something open for additional evidence to solve a crime, where at least one or more judges agree that a crime has been committed and where the courts can be used to argue whether or not to force the opening, I would never consent to allowing any so-called authority a pass key to dig around in my stuff in a preventative fishing expedition.
Studies show ... (Score:2)
... that crime has increased exponentially in sync with the exponential rise in smart device sales.
Just kidding and stuff.
Today [fbi.gov], the FBI released its annual compilation of crimes reported to its Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program by law enforcement agencies from around the nation. Crime in the United States, 2015 reveals a 3.9 percent increase in the estimated number of violent crimes and a 2.6 percent decrease in the estimated number of property crimes last year when compared to 2014 data.
According to the report, there were an estimated 1,197,704 violent crimes committed around the nation. While that was an increase from 2014 figures, the 2015 violent crime total was 0.7 percent lower than the 2011 level and 16.5 percent below the 2006 level.
Accountable Anonymity is Possible (Score:3)
While we want privacy and anonymity, we don't want it used for nefarious purposes. Such things tend to serve people generally but also terrorists, pedophiles, drug cartels, etc. I strongly believe we need a system that provides accountable anonymity, such as a Reputational Identity Service.
That is, create an identity that enables others it interacts with to rank its reputations along a rubric. This could be used for determining if the identity is a good citizen on comment boards, doesn't cheat people in business, etc. It could act as a form of credit check... Does the entity have a strong reputation for dependability in paying what it owes? Just like with ordinary credit, an identity would begin with no reputation and slowly build one over time. If the identity has a long history of being a certain way then the risk is low that that will change any time soon. This is true, even if the same person holds two identities--one for good and one for evil. You will know which one is safe to deal with, and how much it is..
Each person's must have a limit as to how much he/she can give to others, to prevent undue reputation inflation or deflation. So each time you score another, you have a percentage of your total to give and that takes away proportionally from those you have already given to. So one's reputation can build but it will also fade over time. One's reputation score is measured by its average over time... This is LIKES++.
On message boards, filter and allow privileges based on reputations. Do business based on reputations. Deny certain information based on reputation. Reputation may always be earned or lost.
What issue? (Score:3)
Since there is no such thing as unbreakable encryption, I fail to see the problem here. Sure, it might take you a trillion years but all encryption can eventually be broken. Just takes time.
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some bama guy lost an election because he was thinking TOO MUCH about the children....
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Big brother also doesn't have to play nice and pretend he's the good guy anymore.
The Soviet Union protected our rights by its mere existence. At least as long as you didn't live there, of course, but as long as they existed, our regime had to act as if the Reds are the only ones who would ever do something like this to their population.
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Now the way our schools are heading makes a lot more sense.