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What if a "terrorist" wrote some "bad words" down on a piece of paper and shredded it before/during a raid? Can the FBI require that paper shredders come with a

What if a "terrorist" wrote some "bad words" down on a piece of paper and shredded it before/during a raid? Can the FBI require that paper shredders come with an auto re-assemble feature? What if a drug dealer keeps a coded ledger, can they go to crypto experts and compel them to work on solving it? The government has in its possession the data, the data is just not in a format the government wants so they are trying to bend the rules for themselves.

Osiris30 11y ago
I think the slightly better analogy would be a manufacturer that creates an unbreakable safe. A box for which they can't make an individual key, only a master-key (at great cost of man-hours).
- zingermc 11y ago
  Honestly, it wouldn't take very much work for Apple to circumvent the lockout mechanism. It might even be possible just by commenting out a couple lines of code. The thing the FBI needs from Apple is the use of their private key.
  - jonlucc 11y ago
    If I'm not mistaken, the FBI wants a version of the OS that circumvents those limits and runs in RAM. Apple said it will take their team something like 2 weeks to build.
    - ChrisBland 11y ago
      What they have to build and how long it will take them are moot points and detract from the overall argument which is can the gvt use the AWA to compel a 3rd party to create something that didn't exist before.
  - mirekrusin 11y ago
    Not with the new iOS, right? There's no Apple's private key. There's only your own private key. If you loose it - you're loosing your data and nothing can help you. I think you have a choice of backing up your keychain in iCloud. If you haven't backed it up there's nothing that Apple can do to access data - except by changing security design. If you backed it up on iCloud then I don't know - maybe the whole keychain is just protected by password, in which case they could try to brute force it or something. Not feasible if your password is too long.
    - zingermc 11y ago
      Apple has a private key for signing software updates. The FBI wants a modified iOS that will allow them to rapidly try all possible passcodes without getting locked out after N attempts.
      - mirekrusin 11y ago
        Ok, right, that makes sense. That's probably doable - making iOS being able to run auto-update when locked. Once for example. Update still needs to be signed of course. It would probably make all crooks use long passwords for keychain, but who knows, maybe it would help in some cases.
      - jessegreathouse 11y ago
        The FBI wants legal precedent. If they truly wanted the data they could have handed the phone over to the NSA have have it hacked before the weekend.
        zingermc 11y ago
        I'm genuinely curious -- how would the NSA would crack it? My understanding is that iOS's filesystem uses AES 256 encryption. Even if you physically removed the disk, brute force is not an option.
        puddintane 11y ago
  - fapjacks 11y ago
    Who cares how much work it takes? That doesn't make what the FBI wants any less fascist (or their reasoning any less sociopathic).
- ChrisBland 11y ago
  The reason I don't like the safe analogy is that it is something physical, which the courts have repeatedly said is fair game. They can compel you to open a safe, they can not compel you to turn over a password. Something you have vs something you know. Which is why I also added the crypto example. The feds can not force me to decrypt my own crypto, I have 5th amendment protection against that. The 5th does not extend to something you have / are, which is why fingerprints to unlock an iphone can be compelled by the courts but they can't force you to turn over your password.
  - Osiris30 11y ago
    Yes thats the key point - but the physical safe analogy is how the DoJ thinks (or wants to think, and wants the public to think) about the issue. crypto = 5th Amendment. Locked safe analogy = search warrant. Thats their simple messaging. Apple needs to do what they do best - market this brilliantly but simply.
  - jkyle 11y ago
    Well, they can "compel" in the sense that they can demand the owner release it. The owner can refuse and suffer the legal consequences. In such a case, has there ever been a precedent of going to the safe manufacturer and compelling them to break into the safe? Have they ever then required all safe makers to make exploitable safes with master keys?
    - lern_too_spel 11y ago
      In the case where the safe maker has special ability to break the existing safe, there is plenty of precedent. Every application of the All Writs Act follows that analogy, including this San Bernardino case.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    > They can compel you to open a safe, they can not compel you to turn over a password. Note that they can, however, force a third party to turn over a password. The privilege against compelled testimony only applies to self-incrimination.
- mikeash 11y ago
  That's a tough analogy, because unbreakable safes aren't real and are probably impossible to make. I prefer to look at the history of cryptography. Unbreakable cryptography isn't new. PGP is 25 years old. Classic techniques like one-time pads and book ciphers go back a very long time. Yet they never forced these things to be made insecure. The government can listen, we can try to hide things, and they can try to un-hide them (with a warrant). Their ability to un-hide them depends on how well we do the hiding. It has always been this way, but they're not happy with it.
  - jessegreathouse 11y ago
    Unbreakable cryptography isn't real either. It's not impossible to reverse engineer a private key it's just impractical. It would require immense computing power and only yield that individual private key broken. What the president is proposing would allow a key for law enforcement that would, presumably, work on many or all devices. Once cracked, it would give hackers access to all of those devices. This elevates risk considerably because it's no longer impractical to reverse engineer the encryption.
    - richardthered 11y ago
      Unbreakable cryptography is real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad "If the key is truly random, is at least as long as the plaintext, is never reused in whole or in part, and is kept completely secret, then the resulting ciphertext will be impossible to decrypt or break"
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        That's not a great example in this case, because any useful system that incorporated OTP would have to store the really long secret keystream somewhere. That somewhere would be vulnerable to subpoena.
    - ChrisBland 11y ago
      This debate is not about the direct ask imo, but more about the precedent that it would set and what the fbi could compel a tech company to do under the AWA. While in tech we tend to turn up our noses to the 'its always been done that way' mentality, the law takes a different approach, once you comply with the first request, it makes it harder, if not impossible to stop the subsequent requests. Which is why the fbi waited until something related to 'terrorism' to make this ask. I would be willing to be every last dollar I have in the bank that there is no useful info on that phone, and that if there were useful info, the nsa would have already had access to it. To me, the really fun mental exercise is to identify when this would be acceptable. If there was a bomb about to go off and hypothetically the location was written on the phone, and only on the phone, would we agree that apple should break in? What if the bomb was a dirty bomb, what about a nuke? Now the slippery slope is where does that stop, a backpack bomb? Bomb making materials, texts to people about a bomb, what about a gun? What about a knife....
nxzero 11y ago
Next they'll be asking China to share backdoors; clearly they already agree with China that Apple needs to give them a backdoor: http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11244396/apple-vs-fbi-encryption-china-source-code-backdoor http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11244396/apple-vs-fbi-encr...
jpgvm 11y ago
It's pretty clear that the laws need to be different for a device that goes with you everywhere and for all intents and purposes records your entire life. I like the "extension of the brain" analogy. Where by searching your phone should be tantamount to thought policing.
- rayiner 11y ago
  I don't think that's pretty clear at all. Back when people wrote down their daily activities and most intimate thoughts in their journals, one might have argued those were an "extension of the brain." Yet, peoples' desk drawers have always been subject to search with a warrant.
  - adamnemecek 11y ago
    But they have access to the phone. It's like if you wrote the diary in a language that no one understood. What would the gov't do then?
  - jessegreathouse 11y ago
    No, it's more like mandating that those journals have to be written in english instead of sanskrit. The government has the authority to reasonable search and seizure, but they don't have the authority to mandate how we express ourselves in written word or data.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      I'm referring to this part of OP's comment: "Where by searching your phone should be tantamount to thought policing."
  - r0m4n0 11y ago
    Having a warrant for a desk drawer doesn't put every person on the planet at risk for possible access of intimate personal life details.
    - 11y ago
bpchaps 11y ago
They don't need to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011
gambiting 11y ago
"What if a drug dealer keeps a coded ledger, can they go to crypto experts and compel them to work on solving it?" This is a very interesting question, because crypto experts would love to work on a challenge like this. I am fairly certain that they would refuse if they were forced to work on it though.

Osiris30 11y ago

I think the slightly better analogy would be a manufacturer that creates an unbreakable safe. A box for which they can't make an individual key, only a master-key (at great cost of man-hours).

zingermc 11y ago
Honestly, it wouldn't take very much work for Apple to circumvent the lockout mechanism. It might even be possible just by commenting out a couple lines of code. The thing the FBI needs from Apple is the use of their private key.
- jonlucc 11y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, the FBI wants a version of the OS that circumvents those limits and runs in RAM. Apple said it will take their team something like 2 weeks to build.
  - ChrisBland 11y ago
    What they have to build and how long it will take them are moot points and detract from the overall argument which is can the gvt use the AWA to compel a 3rd party to create something that didn't exist before.
- mirekrusin 11y ago
  Not with the new iOS, right? There's no Apple's private key. There's only your own private key. If you loose it - you're loosing your data and nothing can help you. I think you have a choice of backing up your keychain in iCloud. If you haven't backed it up there's nothing that Apple can do to access data - except by changing security design. If you backed it up on iCloud then I don't know - maybe the whole keychain is just protected by password, in which case they could try to brute force it or something. Not feasible if your password is too long.
  - zingermc 11y ago
    Apple has a private key for signing software updates. The FBI wants a modified iOS that will allow them to rapidly try all possible passcodes without getting locked out after N attempts.
    - mirekrusin 11y ago
      Ok, right, that makes sense. That's probably doable - making iOS being able to run auto-update when locked. Once for example. Update still needs to be signed of course. It would probably make all crooks use long passwords for keychain, but who knows, maybe it would help in some cases.
    - jessegreathouse 11y ago
      The FBI wants legal precedent. If they truly wanted the data they could have handed the phone over to the NSA have have it hacked before the weekend.
      - zingermc 11y ago
        I'm genuinely curious -- how would the NSA would crack it? My understanding is that iOS's filesystem uses AES 256 encryption. Even if you physically removed the disk, brute force is not an option.
        puddintane 11y ago
- fapjacks 11y ago
  Who cares how much work it takes? That doesn't make what the FBI wants any less fascist (or their reasoning any less sociopathic).
ChrisBland 11y ago
The reason I don't like the safe analogy is that it is something physical, which the courts have repeatedly said is fair game. They can compel you to open a safe, they can not compel you to turn over a password. Something you have vs something you know. Which is why I also added the crypto example. The feds can not force me to decrypt my own crypto, I have 5th amendment protection against that. The 5th does not extend to something you have / are, which is why fingerprints to unlock an iphone can be compelled by the courts but they can't force you to turn over your password.
- Osiris30 11y ago
  Yes thats the key point - but the physical safe analogy is how the DoJ thinks (or wants to think, and wants the public to think) about the issue. crypto = 5th Amendment. Locked safe analogy = search warrant. Thats their simple messaging. Apple needs to do what they do best - market this brilliantly but simply.
- jkyle 11y ago
  Well, they can "compel" in the sense that they can demand the owner release it. The owner can refuse and suffer the legal consequences. In such a case, has there ever been a precedent of going to the safe manufacturer and compelling them to break into the safe? Have they ever then required all safe makers to make exploitable safes with master keys?
  - lern_too_spel 11y ago
    In the case where the safe maker has special ability to break the existing safe, there is plenty of precedent. Every application of the All Writs Act follows that analogy, including this San Bernardino case.
- rayiner 11y ago
  > They can compel you to open a safe, they can not compel you to turn over a password. Note that they can, however, force a third party to turn over a password. The privilege against compelled testimony only applies to self-incrimination.
mikeash 11y ago
That's a tough analogy, because unbreakable safes aren't real and are probably impossible to make. I prefer to look at the history of cryptography. Unbreakable cryptography isn't new. PGP is 25 years old. Classic techniques like one-time pads and book ciphers go back a very long time. Yet they never forced these things to be made insecure. The government can listen, we can try to hide things, and they can try to un-hide them (with a warrant). Their ability to un-hide them depends on how well we do the hiding. It has always been this way, but they're not happy with it.
- jessegreathouse 11y ago
  Unbreakable cryptography isn't real either. It's not impossible to reverse engineer a private key it's just impractical. It would require immense computing power and only yield that individual private key broken. What the president is proposing would allow a key for law enforcement that would, presumably, work on many or all devices. Once cracked, it would give hackers access to all of those devices. This elevates risk considerably because it's no longer impractical to reverse engineer the encryption.
  - richardthered 11y ago
    Unbreakable cryptography is real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad "If the key is truly random, is at least as long as the plaintext, is never reused in whole or in part, and is kept completely secret, then the resulting ciphertext will be impossible to decrypt or break"
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      That's not a great example in this case, because any useful system that incorporated OTP would have to store the really long secret keystream somewhere. That somewhere would be vulnerable to subpoena.
  - ChrisBland 11y ago
    This debate is not about the direct ask imo, but more about the precedent that it would set and what the fbi could compel a tech company to do under the AWA. While in tech we tend to turn up our noses to the 'its always been done that way' mentality, the law takes a different approach, once you comply with the first request, it makes it harder, if not impossible to stop the subsequent requests. Which is why the fbi waited until something related to 'terrorism' to make this ask. I would be willing to be every last dollar I have in the bank that there is no useful info on that phone, and that if there were useful info, the nsa would have already had access to it. To me, the really fun mental exercise is to identify when this would be acceptable. If there was a bomb about to go off and hypothetically the location was written on the phone, and only on the phone, would we agree that apple should break in? What if the bomb was a dirty bomb, what about a nuke? Now the slippery slope is where does that stop, a backpack bomb? Bomb making materials, texts to people about a bomb, what about a gun? What about a knife....

nxzero 11y ago

Next they'll be asking China to share backdoors; clearly they already agree with China that Apple needs to give them a backdoor: http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11244396/apple-vs-fbi-encryption-china-source-code-backdoor http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11244396/apple-vs-fbi-encr...

jpgvm 11y ago

It's pretty clear that the laws need to be different for a device that goes with you everywhere and for all intents and purposes records your entire life. I like the "extension of the brain" analogy. Where by searching your phone should be tantamount to thought policing.

rayiner 11y ago
I don't think that's pretty clear at all. Back when people wrote down their daily activities and most intimate thoughts in their journals, one might have argued those were an "extension of the brain." Yet, peoples' desk drawers have always been subject to search with a warrant.
- adamnemecek 11y ago
  But they have access to the phone. It's like if you wrote the diary in a language that no one understood. What would the gov't do then?
- jessegreathouse 11y ago
  No, it's more like mandating that those journals have to be written in english instead of sanskrit. The government has the authority to reasonable search and seizure, but they don't have the authority to mandate how we express ourselves in written word or data.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    I'm referring to this part of OP's comment: "Where by searching your phone should be tantamount to thought policing."
- r0m4n0 11y ago
  Having a warrant for a desk drawer doesn't put every person on the planet at risk for possible access of intimate personal life details.
  - 11y ago

bpchaps 11y ago

They don't need to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Shredder_Challenge_2011

gambiting 11y ago

"What if a drug dealer keeps a coded ledger, can they go to crypto experts and compel them to work on solving it?" This is a very interesting question, because crypto experts would love to work on a challenge like this. I am fairly certain that they would refuse if they were forced to work on it though.