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FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill
- nathan_long 9y agoYour device has private data on it. Who has final say on whether someone can access it? - Option 1: you - Option 2: somebody else Those are the only two options. Option 1 protects people from criminals and tyrants, but impedes law enforcement. Option 2 enables law enforcement but makes people vulnerable to criminals and tyrants. Any suggestion that we can get the best of both worlds is confused or disingenuous. We have to choose. Do you get final say on who can access your device's data, or does somebody else?
- RichardHeart 9y agoLaw enforcement is tasked with putting people in jail, not so much preventing future abuses of bad laws by governments. This is why checks and balances must be maintained, for when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
- rdxm 9y agogeeeez, how long is Cali going to foist Feinstein on the rest of the country. The level of idiocy is just beyond painful... Edit to add: of course the same could be said about the remaining 49 states and their reps/sens as well...
- cylinder 9y agoAdd Pelosi to that too.
- tanderson92 9y agoShe has a primary challenger, who just put out a gosh-darn good attack ad: https://twitter.com/ZTOESQ/status/859872420915810308 https://twitter.com/ZTOESQ/status/859872420915810308
- pdelbarba 9y agoYea, here is Colorado we have Cory Gardner. Rank and file republican in an increasingly deep blue state. Currently leading the pack as most hostile to his constituent's interests: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/
- nathancahill 9y agoCan't wait to vote him out. Incredible that he won't hold town halls. He knows what's coming for him.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bdamm 9y ago"The high profile court battle ultimately ended after the FBI paid a third party company to gain access to the device via an exploit in the security system." Why isn't this an acceptable solution?
- neuland 9y agoIt cost a lot of money, basically (AFAIK on the order of a million dollars to Celebrite). One funny outcome of the San Bernardino iPhone cracking debate was the Government double speak: To Apple ... > We only want to force you to build a custom iOS so we can get into this iPhone. To DA's across the country ... > Send us all your iPhones for ... reasons. But comedy aside, they really do care about the cost / time of un-encrypting things. They're position seems to be that anything outside of your brain (5th amendment and all) should be available with a court order in a reasonable time and at reasonable cost. I don't agree with that, because manufacturers should be able to produce whatever software they damn well please. But, they have a logical position if you look from the right angle.
- mlindner 9y ago> They're position seems to be that anything outside of your brain (5th amendment and all) should be available with a court order in a reasonable time and at reasonable cost. I'm looking forward to the first court cases that deal with somebody who implanted a memory chip into their body and are storing information in it (only accessible through a wirelessly sent password) that the court wants to access. Could the court order surgery to remove it.
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoDue to the fact that stuff crosses state borders - manufacturers are able to import and sell only the devices and firmware that congress allows them.
- Esau 9y agoColor me surprised.
- utternerd 9y ago> saying such legislation would be “better from a public safety perspective” According to whom, we the people or a bunch of authoritarians who'd like to be able to access every nook and cranny of our personal lives?
- omginternets 9y agoForgive me, as this is completely tangential to your point, but it should be "according to whom". A simple explanation: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/who-vs-whom-its-not-as-complicated-as-you-might-think/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/who-vs-whom-its-not-as-compli... :) Call me silly, but I think grammar is important. I hope you don't take this the wrong way! Edit: lol, I thing I made a typo earlier.
- eliudnir 9y ago"I thing" <-- while knocking OP's grammar? Yes, I'm silly too :)
- bamurphymac1 9y agoI thing so too, friend.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoThing of this as the logical extension of the analysis "you've got another thing coming". ;D
- averagewall 9y agoCan it be ambiguous to only use who instead of whom? If not, then it's probably not important, just feels painful for people who know the rules. That's as much an indictment of the rule itself as it is of people breaking it.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoNo, it can't[1]. However, vestigial marking of present-tense third-person-singular verbs is going strong and pretty much nobody considers the fact that it's completely useless as an argument against doing it. The difference is that nearly everyone doesn't know the who/whom rule -- it is dead -- while nearly everyone does know the living pres.3sg rule, and they have trouble violating it even if in the abstract they might like to. [1] The strongest argument in this direction is that no one in the modern day knows what whom means or under what circumstances it appears, meaning that when a whom is encountered it can only make them more confused.
- ardit33 9y agoDiane Feinstein is old and needs to retire. She is completely out of touch with the needs of her constituency, and comes off more like an old guard republican rather then a democrat that she is supposed to be.
- masterleep 9y agoShe is such a ghastly warmonger.
- callahad 9y agoHer term is up in November of next year. Time to start prepping a suitable challenger.
- rhizome 9y agoAFAIK, Ted Lieu is the only person that any opposition has produced, and I'm not sure who else is even in a position to primary Feinstein. Starchild ain't gonna cut it.
- dv_dt 9y agoThere are at least two announced Democratic primary challengers to Feinstein.
- guelo 9y agoI don't believe that is true. A quick Google search turned up nothing.
- dhfhduk 9y agoI'm confused about this. I'm hurried at the moment, but this seems to a bill that orders tech companies to provide a solution to encryption without having a backdoor? Isn't this like legislating a violation of mathematics or something?
- sillysaurus3 9y agoYes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo is a pretty good video for persuading people why this legislation is a bad idea. We might still be able to beat it by rallying support.
- pdkl95 9y agoSusan Landau's congressional testimony - with Comey siting one table away - applies to this as well. She explains in detail not only the problem with backdoors, but also how the FBI badly needs to update their methods. The quote from the NSA that legal access doesn't mean that access will be easy should have ended this brouhaha last year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw&t=3h35m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1GgnbN9oNw&t=3h35m50s
- cracell 9y agoSounds like the thinking is "Anyone can use backdoors so they are bad but we have to have access to everything. So give us access without a backdoor." I suppose tech companies could give them a backdoor and call it a front door?
- abritinthebay 9y ago> I suppose tech companies could give them a backdoor and call it a front door? They're more likely to go "LOL, no" and as it's both impossible AND compelling speech is impossible per 1st Amendment the Government would end up losing in the courts.
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- feld 9y ago“I don’t think Congress intended that distinction but what it does do us is in our most important investigations it requires us that if we want to find out the subscriber info to a particular email to go and get an order from a federal judge in Washington as part of the FISA court. An incredibly long and difficult process. And I’m worried about that slowing us down — and I’m also worried about it being a disincentive for our investigators to do it at all.” Hurdles to protect privacy are important. If it's not an arduous process we have a problem.
- bogositosius 9y ago>and I’m also worried about it being a disincentive for our investigators to do it at all How "important" can the investigation possibly be if this serves as a "disincentive"?
- adrr 9y agoPutting in backdoors is sure fire way to kill US based mobile phone producers. Criminals will just use foreign produced phones and only way to counteract that is to outlaw those phones. Can't wait till they criminalize having certain firmware on your phones.
- jjawssd 9y agoIt's already a violation of the law to import and sell routers with unlocked firmware
- abritinthebay 9y agoIsn't that due to FCC regulations. It's not illegal if you work out how to do it yourself (hard, not always impossible).
- Larrikin 9y agoWhy is this illegal?
- SXX 9y agoBecause if you can control or modify radio firmware then it's can usually operate outside of certified range and power. Most of routers use same hardware for all markets while radio regulations are different. So limits are enforced per-country in software and it's easier for manufacturers to completely lock down devices.
- noir_lord 9y agoYup, I'm in the UK and dd-wrt allows me to push my router power output far beyond the legal spec (since the actual router can support that but is software limited). I didn't because I'm a good neighbour and it's not a massive apartment.
- mnw21cam 9y agoUm. So, if I have a laptop, running Linux, with a built-in ethernet port, and plug in a USB ethernet adaptor, it is suddenly illegal to import it? Crazy.
- benevol 9y agoIf you want to lose all of your tech monopolies, then go ahead with your backdoors (the ones whose existence will be publicly known, that is).
- bsder 9y agoRight after the Intel security disclosures. Hmmmmmm.
- grandalf 9y agoFrom his perspective as the head of the FBI whose job it is to achieve outcomes within the law, of course Comey advocates encryption backdoors. He would likely also advocate allowing the FBI to suspend the bill of rights for any suspect during the duration of an investigation, and he'd quite likely prefer that the FBI be legally allowed to torture suspects if extreme techniques were viewed as likely to result in useful information. To law enforcement, the rights of a suspect are a barrier to many convictions. How did we get to this point? Nobody would reasonably argue that extreme surveillance measures, patriot act, etc., is necessary to stop the vast majority of crimes from occurring, so why is it so easy for seemingly serious/intelligent people to think this nonsense is reasonable? Members of our government are so indoctrinated about stopping "terrorism" that they have lost all sense of perspective. Terrorism is a political word to describe political enemies of the state, yet the patriot act and surveillance machinery has been used in enforcement of many other kinds of (less serious) crime. I am surprised anyone can still use the word "terrorism" with a straight face anymore after it's become so clear that there is no large existential threat (merely the occasional zealot who acts out due to his/her own mental health issues). And in spite of a historically unprecedented global surveillance system there have been no attacks thwarted. Comey is a symptom of the kind of cowardly, authority-respecting society we've become. I look forward to the day when our FBI director is not someone whose gaffes and judgment calls we read about in the newspaper on a regular basis.
- Spooky23 9y agoComey is a bureaucrat looking for more power to do his job. He's the runny nose. The flu is Feinstein. From the ridiculous controls that treat cold medicine like contraband, the Patriot act, and bullshit like this, the Senator is a wellspring of bad law and disrespect for the American people. Why do Californians keep electing this person?
- Mendenhall 9y agoIs there any good information on what has been accomplished through such access etc ? What have they stopped using such methods? I think if they wanted to get anything like this moving forward they need to show results. Not too many trust the government these days. I do not like the idea of "backdoors" but I can see realistic need for such things. I think many are against such things "until" some massive WMD type attack then the tune will change.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoIf it worked, they probably wouldn't tell us (don't want your targets to wise up). And if it didn't work, they probably wouldn't tell us (just in case it might sometime...)
- Mendenhall 9y agoThats my thinking as well, but I dont think they will change anyones minds if they dont show some sort of results.
- jjawssd 9y agoWhy do California Democrats vote this person in year after year?
- ubernostrum 9y agoSenators serve a term of six years.
- mahyarm 9y agoBecause they vote for their party, and california is a blue party state.
- jjawssd 9y agoIs it possible to effectively publicize what candidates stand for and have historically voted for? Or is this impossible?
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y agoSo, the NSA and the CIA were recently hacked, yet these numbskulls think we can create a system that will only be accessed by "the good guys" How many hacks, leaks etc will it take for them to understand that if this passes, that will be the end of online security? New Rule: If you want to propose cybersecurity legislation, you need to pass the fizz buzz test.
- j05huaNathaniel 9y agoFizzBuzzIzz
- pavement 9y agothey think we can create a system only available to them Because there are civilian consumer systems, and state apparatus systems. The civilian consumer systems just leave shit out in the open, all over the place, and make a mess, with no obligation to common, clueless people. Everyone knows that no effort is made to retain military operational security for sloppy, undisciplined non-combatants. Anyone with clearance to actual hardened systems, sees a clear difference from the other side of the wall, and questions why the charade must go on, when it'd be so much easier to dispose of the pretense that there's "privacy" to be had, and see investigations forced to prosecute with so much parallel construction. The state apparatus systems, in their minds, deserve preservation of secrecy, because it puts the owners at an advantage. They seek advantage by crippling consumer civilian systems. This is the line of reasoning from their perspective. Render outsiders defective. Create real systems for themselves. Maintain authority by denying useful systems to unknown quantities.
- jacquesm 9y agoNice bill. Maybe they should finally get around to declaring Pi to be 3 too, two birds with one bill.
- markvdb 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill always makes me smile...
- pgodzin 9y ago> We all love privacy, we all care about public safety and none of us want backdoors — we don’t want access to devices built in in some way. What we want to work with the manufacturers on is to figure out how can we accommodate both interests in a sensible way How is this possibly reconcilable?
- white-flame 9y agoIt's not, but notice his wording. He has no clue if it's possible or not, he wants a mandate for the tech companies to "figure it out". There have been voices from the tech industry saying it's impossible, but Comey doesn't want to hear that. He's literally called that response "emotional" and believes tech lovers simply are clinging to encryption and privacy irrationally. He's not going to stop until he can hear what he wants to hear. I think the only thing that will satisfy him is a beltway bandit lying to him about their technology.
- peterwwillis 9y ago> "What nobody wants to have happen is something terrible happen in the United States and it be connected to our inability to access information with lawful authority." But they're not asking for that. They're asking for the ability to force companies to grant them access to information without something terrible happening. The only way you could prevent something terrible happening, and have that prevention be "connected to [their] ability to access information with lawful authority", is to have the ability to inspect private data. And the only reasonable way they would do that is to do it surreptitiously. They could try just asking the user to unlock their iPhone, or demand it with a court order (where I assume they can plead the 5th), but either would tip the suspect off. So they have to do it without the user's knowledge. And the only way to do that is if the company has a backdoor, or makes it so incredibly insecure as to no longer guarantee privacy at all. The only logical way to give the FBI what it wants is to compromise user privacy. > During the session, Comey also made repeat plays for expanding the scope of national security letters (NSL) — arguing that these administrative subpoenas were always intended to be able to acquire information from internet companies, not just from telcos. The FBI claims that they would always get permission from a judge for invading user privacy. In the next breath, they want to expand NSLs, which is invading user privacy without requiring a judge's approval. Both Lavabit and Silent Circle have had to close down their businesses after Lavabit was unreasonably demanded by the government (in a gag-ordered search warrant) to give up its private TLS keys, exposing all its users' privacy. But no law enforcement agency gives a shit about privacy; only secrecy.
- mgleason_3 9y agoUnbelievable. Just happened to see a clip today (https://goo.gl/F9XeQU https://goo.gl/F9XeQU) where Feinstein was "grilling" Comey about announcing the investigation into Clinton right before the election. When Feinstein totally let him off the hook I was floored?!? He interfered worse than the Russians - how does he still have a job? Ahh, she wants his support for the decrypt bill. I'll never understand why the Democrats have zero interest in protecting personal privacy.
- kasey_junk 9y agoSome Democrats are fairly strong proponents of protecting personal privacy, as are some Republicans. Conversely members of each party are down right anti privacy. When standagainstdpying.org was still active you would see very little correlation between party and score. Our 2 party system leads to widely erratic results on issues like this, as we are seeing with this Comey Feinstein partnership.
- Rapzid 9y agoDo you mean the politicians or the people who would vote for Democrats?
- unityByFreedom 9y agoRidiculous. When will these numbskulls understand that you can't regulate people's use of encodings? It's right there in human language. You can't force everyone to use the same one.
- phkahler 9y agoI still don't understand. They want to be able to have a court order a device maker to decrypt data, but today they can already get a court to order the device owner to decrypt it. The device owner actually has the password or key. The truth is that they want to do this without the device owner knowing it's being done.
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoPasswords so far are somewhat protected under the fifth. And you have to go trough contempt of court. Firmware signing keys that belong to a third party are not.
- phkahler 9y agoSo what's your point?
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoThat it is easier to mandate mandatory decryption to the vendors than to power trough the fifth and get password from a defendant. All writs on steroids.
- defined 9y ago> The device owner actually has the password or key. The device owner might be dead. Given that the context is law enforcement, that's reasonably likely (I forget - wasn't that the problem with San Bernardino?)
- rietta 9y agoI was watching the hearing during lunch, had to attend to work meetings, and then saw this article which is what spurred me to post my open letter to Congress tonight and share it here on HN at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14261423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14261423. We have to get this information out there in a format that Congress and our non-techie friends and family understand.
- scardine 9y agoThere is another big problem with mandatory decryption laws. If someone want to incriminate you, they don't need to plant a file with child porn anymore: they just need to plant a file composed of random bytes and acuse you of having encrypted child porn there. Now good luck providing the court an encryption key that does not exist.
- AJ007 9y agoCan someone call out these alleged encryption back doors for what they are? Junk science. If Apple and Google aren't legally able to build as secure as devices & infrastructure as possible, the DOJ, FBI, NSA, and CIA sure as hell won't be secure. Merry Christmas to Assange.
- 0xfeba 9y ago"Backdoor" is such a loaded term. But it could be done relatively securely with a dual key system. Apple (or you/your device), has one key; the government has some other key. Either one unlocks the phone. But then you need the government to securely store a few master keys. Given the latest CIA, NSA and OPM leaks I doubt this is possible long-term. However, maybe changing the devices keys based on year of manufacture is a reasonable step to have some sort of safeguard.
- microcolonel 9y ago> We have to figure out a way to optimize those two things: privacy and public safety. Given how safe the public is, you'd think that this would mean "we need to focus on privacy". That is the public's priority. The FBI, whose mandate is abviously not to protect the privacy of citizens, is obviously going to advocate for the public safety, or more specifically his organization's degree of visible success in ensuring it. Obviously the director of the FBI is not who you should be asking for a balanced recommendation regarding safety and privacy.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoWhat are the tech companies he has been having a "growing consensus" with? I want to boycott them.
- thegayngler 9y agoI don't know why California Democrats elected Diane in the first place. Were there not any real liberals in California to choose from preferably with some expertise in Californias most valuable export?
- DarkKomunalec 9y agoWould it be okay to mandate spy microphones in all cars, spy cameras in all rooms, and make it illegal to remove or disable them, as long as only the 'good guys', with a warrant, could access the info? What if doing this would save N people/year from terrorist attacks? What other rights should we sacrifice for a 'safer' society? Surely we shouldn't let terrorist recruit people, so there goes free speech. We also shouldn't let them gather together to plot their wicked plots, so there goes freedom of association. And if we could bar people at risk of committing terrorist acts, from vulnerable locations, such as subways, airports, parks with a lot of people in them, well, I'm sure that would save a few lives too.
- cmdrfred 9y agoWhy is someone who is 83 years old and likely has to call her grandson for help paying a bill online writing law about encryption?
- cprayingmantis 9y agoIf you're wondering how it got to this point I'd like to remind you that you (If you live in the US) don't own this country. The people in charge don't care about you. They care about money, power, and stability of their system. It's hopeless to resist because they own your home, your bank account, and all your money. The only way we'll ever change it is getting scientists, nerds, and engineers into congress. I don't know how we'll do it but we have to do it to ensure freedom for everyone in the USA.