28 ms·

FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

175 points by miles 7y ago

docbrown 7y ago
I want to know what changed between 2016, when the FBI bought a tool to hack the San Bernardino shooters iPhone[1] for $900,000[2] and now — with presumably an up-to-date iPhone running 2019 iOS — that forced them to come to this conclusion. 1: https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/07/fbi-iphone-third-party-tool/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/07/fbi-iphone-third-party-t... 2: https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/08/fbi-paid-900000-to-unlock-san-bernardino-iphone/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/08/fbi-paid-900000-to-unloc...
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I didn't see a phone mentioned in the article? Is it an iPhone. Where are modern Android phones at with privacy/encryption?
- matthew-wegner 7y ago
  That was an iPhone 5C, which did not have a Secure Enclave. Apparently it is/was easier to image the device to brute force passcode attempts at high speed. There are technical articles out there explaining it in more detail. On my phone now or would paste some URLs.
  - ghostpepper 7y ago
    The apple security whitepaper is actually a decent place to start https://www.apple.com/business/docs/site/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/site/iOS_Security_Guide.... There is also a blackhat talk from Ivan Krstic (one of the top security people at apple) where he goes surprisingly deep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U
- kburman 7y ago
  It looks like they are trying to take advantage of the situation and force apple to release a tool for fbi to break in.
  - meowface 7y ago
    Could also be that both are true. Maybe they really can't get in and they also want to take advantage of the opportunity.
ericlewis 7y ago
dead people is... the worst... arguing that we should give up freedom is bad... what, do we do here?
- devoply 7y ago
  what is on his phone that can't be found online or through his browsing history tracked by google et. al.? you have all his contacts as well through various nsa pen registers and whatnot. seems like more or less a move to create a "think of the kids or innocents" moment to keep things from "going dark".
- willis936 7y ago
  One could argue that it's harder to make an institution that has the power to access secured devices behave than it is to change society to have fewer mass murderers. To quote the onion: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Yeah. Let’s take away a specifically enumerated constitutional right to better protect, maybe, one that appears only in the “penumbras” of the document.
    - Causality1 7y ago
      I honestly don't know what your position is because the right against unreasonable searches and seizures and right to arms are both specifically enumerated in the fourth and second amendments, respectively.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - 1000units 7y ago
        This guy's a T14 lawyer, maybe we're both missing something. O majestic scholarship how elusive you are! I thought I knew you and yet you are my world!
JKCalhoun 7y ago
Hate to be that guy but anyone know any reason why articles about Marvin Minsky and Jefferey Epstein would not be showing up today on HN? Seems odd to me.
- semicolon_storm 7y ago
  Is it an article that's relevant to technology or the general ethos of HN? My guess is no.
  - joelhoffman 7y ago
    Doesn't Marvin Minsky make it relevant?
- ativzzz 7y ago
  I would say that this topic is more political and less > anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity per the guidelines, hence it got flagged as being off-topic.
sehugg 7y ago
“It is prudent to anticipate that a major incident may well occur at any time that will galvanize public opinion on these issues ... Whether we end up with legislation or not, the best course for everyone involved is to work soberly and in good faith together to craft appropriate solutions, rather than have outcomes dictated during a crisis.” -- AG William Barr, July 23 2019 "Never let a good crisis go to waste" -- Winston Churchill, probably
- lph 7y ago
  > "...best course for everyone involved is to work soberly and in good faith..." Well, AG Barr is probably sober. I'll give him that.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Maybe so. Except perhaps for some prescribed pharmaceuticals. Plus endogenous neurotransmitters, and chemical mediators.
- shawnz 7y ago
  Work soberly and in good faith to implement crisis outcomes now, instead of waiting for a crisis. Brilliant strategy.
- mastry 7y ago
  >> "Never let a good crisis go to waste" -- Winston Churchill, probably Possibly, but Rahm Emanuel said it about 11 years ago [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk
olliej 7y ago
Of course. The FBI always claims this shit because in their opinion no longer having access to everyone’s data is “going dark” and throughout history they have always had complete access to everyone and everything. They don’t stand here saying “we need to deal with white supremecists”, they say “we need the ability to violate everyone’s rights”. They already have a public track record of mass illegal surveillance.
SimeVidas 7y ago
Why is it important that the FBI can access that person’s phone?
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I'm wondering this too. The person already killed a bunch of people. The person is dead. What more to they hope to gain? Some secret cell of others? Unlikely .. and if there is, why not regular warrants, wiretaps, e-mail searches, etc. They already have sooo many tools they can use, both with a warrant and bypassing it via FISA. They had all this domestic spying stuff and still couldn't prevent the shooting! They get nothing with phone access, so why even bother brining up compromising everyone else's security just because they failed to use all their current surveillance means to detect and prevent the shooting to being with?! You want more access? Why? That's fucking unbelievable.
  - mikejb 7y ago
    Probably to understand motive, and check for potential involvement of others. And whilst they have a metric shit-ton of spying capabilities on US civilians, those are not really intended to avoid crime. (Maybe the shift of perception of what is terrorism might change that, though)
    - kennywinker 7y ago
      He posted a manifesto online. Think his motive was pretty clearly outlined in it.
      - stordoff 7y ago
        So far as I can tell, the Dayton shooter didn't leave a manifesto: > The Dayton shooter left no manifesto. https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20758473/trump-invasion-el-paso-shooting-sanders-warren-dayton https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20758473/trump-invasion-el-paso...
      - ethanwillis 7y ago
berndi 7y ago
Does that even make sense from a technical perspective? They are talking about a PIN code to unlock the phone to access the data on the phone. Could they not just remove the memory chip and access it directly? Even if the data on it is encrypted using a 6-digit PIN, brute-forcing that should be a trivial task.
- mikeash 7y ago
  If it’s an iPhone, the data is encrypted with a key derived from the PIN and a random key that is baked into the phone’s CPU. The CPU has instructions for encrypting and decrypting with this secret key but no instruction for reading the key directly. Short of decapping the chip and going in with an electron microscope to figure out what this key is, your only option is to brute force on the phone’s own CPU. But that CPU won’t run software that isn’t signed by the manufacturer, and that software imposes ever-increasing timeouts when unlock attempts fail.
  - nradov 7y ago
    So why don't they decap the chip and go in with an electron microscope? Has that type of exploit ever been successfully used against modern devices, or is it only a theoretical vulnerability?
    - Faark 7y ago
      Usually, you don't want to work with the original, only on copies. Here we are talking about a one shot attempt to get info by destroying the hardware... I can see those people searching for any other way first.
    - dogma1138 7y ago
      Because it’s highly unlikely to work in the first place, not to mention likely cost as much as their annual operating budget.
      - kube-system 7y ago
Zhenya 7y ago
“ultimately measured in a mounting number of victims — men, women and children who are the victims of crimes, crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence," I don't understand this. How would getting into his phone post facto stop the shooting? Do they have a time machine?
- jlgaddis 7y ago
  Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up. You're not supposed to think critically or ask any questions. Just quietly go about your life, be an obedient citizen, don't make any ruckus, and, of course, trust the government -- they know what's best for you and me and have nothing but our best interests in mind! Unfortunately, they won't be able to stop all of the pedophile terrorists from getting to us if they don't have access to everything. They're "going dark", remember!? Why don't you want to give them this access anyways? Just what is it that YOU are hiding? What don't you want them to see? --- > ... crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence. That's an earlier quote from Barr (prior to these shootings). The implication is that if they had access to all of the encrypted communications in real-time (iMessages, WhatsApp, etc.) that law enforcement maybe could have prevented these deaths from happening (nevermind their "track record" for preventing these types of incidents or the fact that most of these shootings are conducted by a single person)... ...but if they aren't able to read all of our messages then of course they can't do anything and so people will continue to die.
- onion2k 7y ago
  Maybe they believe that he was communicating with other people who are planning similar attacks, and they believe they could stop those attacks before they happen if they had access to the Dayton guy's phone.
- Zhenya 7y ago
  Just a fun sidenote. I've been watching the count of up/down votes. Folks are actually downvoting my comment; please carry on. But why I'm the hell do you want the government to be able to have unwarranted access to your devices? Previously any letter you sent was not copied,read and stored in a searchable format by the FBI/via/nsa. Maybe if you were targeted but not wholesale dragnet. Now it is and even more accessibility is being asked. This is a kgb dream machine.
pdkl95 7y ago
> Attorney General William Barr said in a speech last month that encrypted messaging services allow "criminals to operate with impunity." The cost of encryption is “ultimately measured in a mounting number of victims — men, women and children who are the victims of crimes, crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence," This disgraceful, emotionally manipulative statement is an obvious lie. Police/FBI/etc have have access to far more information about criminals than any point in history. The average person (criminals included) leaves behind an incredible amount of "digital exhaust". They should be able to build a complete pattern-of-life easily with 3rd party data (e.g. ad tracking), various side channels, and the massive amount of metadata[1] recorded every time criminals used their phone. Of course, using all of that data to find a criminal requires actual detective work specific to each case. Encryption (especially on a phone examined after a crime) isn't preventing law enforcement from investigating crimes; it is, however, harder to automate. This anti-encryption argument is really about automated mass surveillance, not finding specific criminals. [1] "We kill people based on metadata" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc
- bredren 7y ago
  It isn’t just detective work, it is personnel with the skills to identify and pursue likely evidence. Digital forensics is way outside typical leo training and believe it or not you can make a lot more money in the private sector with IT training. Local, state and federal case loads get backlogged behind, leaving the highest priority cases to get staffed.
  - pdkl95 7y ago
    > Digital forensics is way outside typical leo training That's the problem: attempting to prevent important new technology (actually-secure encryption) from being used is not a substitute for updated training that provides "typical leo" with digital forensics skills that are increasingly needed. Susan Landau's 2016 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee regarding Apple's encryption on the San Bernardino shooter's iphone: >> "Instead of embracing the communications and device security we so badly need for securing US public and private data, law enforcement continues to press hard to undermine security in the misguided desire to preserve simple, but outdated, investigative techniques." >> "We need 21st century techniques to secure the data that 21st century enemies—organized crime and nation-state attackers—seek to steal and exploit. Twentieth century approaches that provide law enforcement with the ability to investigate but also simplify exploitations and attacks are not in our national security interest. Instead of laws and regulation that weaken our protections, we should enable law enforcement to develop 21st century capabilities for conducting investigations." >> "Developing such capabilities will involve deep changed for the Bureau, which remains agent-based, not technology-based."
ben_w 7y ago
Is the American government position “Guns don’t kill people, encryption kills people”, or am I just combining the personal opinions of a bunch of unrelated people who work for the government?
- mirimir 7y ago
  It's a little more nuanced than that. More like "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." plus "Encryption hinders us from finding people who commit crimes."
  - godelski 7y ago
    It's a little more nuanced than that. More like "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" plus "Pareto is a pain and maybe if we fight encryption we can get public support but we don't want to break it because post hoc analysis doesn't actually help us catch the next guy because Pareto is a pain."
- adventured 7y ago
  The position is actually: never let a tragedy or crisis pass by without trying to use it to expand the power of the government. They have no such actual position regarding encryption killing people, they're entirely flexible, able and more than willing to sway with the wind when it presents. Whether or not encryption kills people, so to speak, is not their concern, it's nothing more than the opportunistic excuse framing. They'll use anything that will stick, anything that gets the result they're seeking.
- DiabloD3 7y ago
  It really does seem to be that is the position. There are a lot of backwards nutjobs in the government right now, blaming other backwards nutjobs, while the rest of us sane people are trying to duct tape society together. Guns don't kill people, encryption doesn't kill people, backwards nutjobs kill people. Politics in America, currently, can entirely be summed up as the Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme.
  - 7y ago
01100011 7y ago
We(HN commenters) all know that the demonization of encryption is bullshit. What we need to do is to figure out how to communicate that effectively to the public.
- mattlutze 7y ago
  In part, we need a better lobby, or more lobbyists, who can break down what the real issues are and effectively explain those to Congress and the government. Though, this reeks of the Executive branch making a scapegoat out of tech to distract from the gun industry, just like getting Walmart to pull game adverts and talking about "red flag" laws.
  - 01100011 7y ago
    The EFF seems to do an ok job of lobbying but I don't think they do enough outreach to the general public.
- jchanimal 7y ago
  Maybe instead of calling it encryption, we should call it “privacy.“
  - naasking 7y ago
    Better yet, "protection from criminals" who will exploit any such circumventions.
- deogeo 7y ago
  Just dig up old cold-war era movies and propaganda showcasing the Stasi and secret police, and preface it with "this, but on a computer.".
  - zucker42 7y ago
    Unfortunately, the public response to this will be "Do you not support law enforcement, who risk their lives for our safety?" Sometimes it feels like we've elevated the common cop to a superhuman status.
mattio 7y ago
If there was such a thing like gun control they wouldn't need to access his phone. Just restrict access to guns.
- kabdib 7y ago
  It is politically more feasible to ban encryption in the US than it is to ban guns (or even significantly restrict them). Wait, I'm wrong. Even essentially insignificant changes to gun laws at the federal level are harder than banning crypto.
  - samsonradu 7y ago
    Can you please elaborate on why guns are so sacred in the US? Is it for cultural/historical reasons?
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      The country was founded after an ~8.5 year long Revolutionary War from a colonial owner with a large, well-funded, well-equipped, occupying army. The founders (aka the treasonous colonists) had a general "the people are individually and collectively supreme to the federal government" attitude (no doubt significantly in reaction to the monarchy that ruled over them immediately prior) and wrote the following text into the founding documents: 2nd amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The first 10 "amendments", which are roughly/essentially contemporaneous with the original document, are referred to as the "Bill of Rights".
      - solidsnack9000 7y ago
        The right to bear arms is also part of the 1689 English Bill of Rights. It is a really old right, dating back to the 900s in various forms on the British Isles.
wpdev_63 7y ago
This is all a pony show - the fusion centers absolutely have access to everything on your phone at any given time.
studentrob 7y ago
Law enforcement needs to go back to old-school detective techniques if they really need that phone data. Encryption is code, code is speech. Encryption keeps banks safe from criminals. Are we going to go through this for every administration now? Even if you do not have a problem with giving government keys to, say, the iPhone, then you have to deal with every piece of software someone writes to enable encryption. You'd literally have to convince every person in the world to not write or use encryption software in "the wrong" ways. And, that's impossible because encryption exists to protect society from criminals. I don't see another way around this.
- iamnotacrook 7y ago
  "Are we going to go through this for every administration now?" No. Nobody cares about this or that shooter (there'll be another one next week) but the next time there's a 9/11 you can be sure encryption will feature in the news and in a subsequent law.
auslander 7y ago
Must be iPhone then, not Android.
fnord77 7y ago
this will escalate quickly. figure 5 years or fewer until we see laws that have insanely harsh penalties (20 years in prison) for using non-backdoored encryption.
auslander 7y ago
I'm curious about Macs. If I have Firmware Password and FileVault enabled, is it same FBI-proof as iPhone? Does T1 and T2 chips or absent Tx chip (older Macs) make difference? Is storing FileVault unlock key in iCloud makes difference?
- snazz 7y ago
  I’m not sure how FileVault is implemented, but so long as your key is derived solely from your passphrase and not stored outside your brain (iCloud can be subpoenaed) the strength of your encryption should be proportional to the strength of your passphrase. Computers have less of a reason to use the baked-in CPU or security chip data in deriving the encryption key because longer passwords are more feasible on a laptop than a phone, so brute force attacks are already not likely to succeed. The only difference I can think of is the ease of an offline brute force attack due to the fact that you can remove a hard drive somewhat easily and then image it and use an entire datacenter’s power at attacking the passphrase. But a strong passphrase (note, not a password) stored only in your head should be quite secure.
  - auslander 7y ago
    FileVault 2 Recovery key is 120 bit, I guess not feasible to bruteforce? Actual low level key is 256-bit XTS-AES. Still unsure what is the process of converting typed login password to low level key.
- oneplane 7y ago
  T1 no, T2 yes. Because T2+NAND as a combined setup does the same as the SE in iOS devices. Heck, it basically runs iOS.
  - auslander 7y ago
    > T1 no No meaning not proof? Say I FileVault my drive and elect not to store my Recovery Key in iCloud, but write it down. Drive should be FBI safe. No?
incompatible 7y ago
I take it that without the phone data they can't prove that the "suspected gunman" was the person who committed the crime? Perhaps the next suspected gunman will destroy his phone before the crime, or maybe not own one in the first place, so perhaps destroying or not owning phones needs to be made illegal.
CPLX 7y ago
They also can’t access his brain. Neither of these situations are ones I feel compelled to fix.
- mentos 7y ago
  I think this is a great analogy and easy for the layman to understand.
  - fortran77 7y ago
    It's not a perfect analogy. The problem with the "back door" is that these keys will leak. They always do. It's a big danger to have a weakness in all our devices that we know, eventually, Russia, China, or Iran will get their hands on.
  - nlh 7y ago
    I agree. BUT - the response will be: “well even if we wanted to, we don’t have the technology to read his brain. we DO have the technology to read his phone, but you nerds are keeping it from us.” (Disclaimer: I don’t agree with this position but I have a lot of friends who think the government can do no wrong)
    - andrerm 7y ago
      And if we had the technology to read the brain we would demand to read everyones brain 24/7
- throwawaywego 7y ago
  You can't be forced to give your password (self-incrimination), but, depending on the jurisdiction, the police can force your finger on the unlock screen. The technology is a bit hush-hush, but it is already possible to read brainwaves, and "interrogate" someone through fMRI. Just thinking about your password may reveal it, if they are allowed to force your brain near a reader. The first serious (public) ventures into this technology was around 2000. Advances in machine learning then made it possible to read objects and concepts that were not in a training set. It was used and tested extensively in Guantanamo Bay. The legal status is still ambiguous, but I guess that it is used just in very special cases (where the detainment itself may be legally ambiguous, such as at a black site). The Legality of the Use of Psychiatric Neuroimaging in Intelligence Interrogation (2005) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/906b/8afdd39ecda3a265987a0947ab2da5e1facc.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/906b/8afdd39ecda3a265987a09... [pdf]
newshorts 7y ago
Now imagine if the gunman had been complaining about restricted access to guns... That would have been a more suitable situation, I’m sure.
exo762 7y ago
Why is this even an FBI case? What exactly makes this an FBI case? Why we want this to be an FBI case? I don't know much about American law. I was under impression that things are reserved to states unless important reason for them to be handled on federal level.
- kube-system 7y ago
  Terrorism is in the FBI’s jurisdiction to investigate, so it makes sense they would be involved to determine whether or not terrorism was involved. It also appears some federal legislation has been passed that directs the FBI to provide assistance to state authorities in this cases: https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-resources https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-eng...
shoes_for_thee 7y ago
Okay, good. I'm glad that we've now tested out the security of our devices and found that they are secure enough to vex government entities.
- asdkhadsj 7y ago
  Some government entities. As with all strategic information, they could still possess the ability to backdoor / crack this phone but deem that ability a strategic asset. Only using it in private or when the stakes are much higher than an already committed crime.
- dymk 7y ago
  This situation is indistinguishable from one where the government can crack the encryption, but wants you to think it can’t.
unstatusthequo 7y ago
Lies: https://graykey.grayshift.com/ https://graykey.grayshift.com/
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vmh1928 7y ago
There was just a thread on here about the attack surfaces of an iPhone. While the article didn't mention the brand of phone one wonders if it's possible to access the phone or at least plant phone unlocking malware via an sms or mms message.
squarefoot 7y ago
FTA: "The cost of encryption is “ultimately measured in a mounting number of victims — men, women and children who are the victims of crimes, crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence,". By the same reasoning, had the shooter ran away because he drove a car faster than police ones, we should ban all sports cars then?
oneplane 7y ago
Here we go again. This will not work for many reasons, most importantly: - Key escrow or government-enabled crypto doesn't work - Creating classes of encryption doesn't work (Excluding a group and not allowing them to use the same crypto as another group) - If someone is going to do something unlawful, they will use something else that isn't accessible by the government; take away phone encryption and they will simply use something else Unless those points are solved, the whole 'should we allow it' discussion is pointless anyway. Tacking on to that: most of that stuff doesn't work because you can't really physically enforce it; it's an intellectual barrier which due to the way we can simply talk to each other as humans is super easy to circumvent. This was tried with export controls, but that didn't actually work for the information itself; only for commercial products.
merpnderp 7y ago
If the NSA can’t keep foreign intelligence from stealing its encryption keys, how can we expect the government to protect any backdoor into our devices? I’m not willing to trade ownership of my phone and my bank accounts to the government on some promise they’ll use it to keep me safe. Only an idiot would take that bargain.
coldtea 7y ago
> FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone Lawmakers tell FBI it's too late the dead don't come back to life, and ask what the fuck were they all doing before the massacre given all the warning signs (regarding both the shooter and the readily availability of firearms for purchase)...
coldtea 7y ago
>In the US, there are more firearms than people. About one-third of all households have at least one firearm Nothing than 1) a total banning of sales, 2) a law that requires existing owners to return them for destruction, 3) 5 years jail minimum time for anybody even seen with one (and 20 years if they were involved in any criminal act while carrying it, regardless of the act), 4) and a mass confiscation campaign can't fix...
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  Basically mass incarnation?
  - giardini 7y ago
    9HZZRfNlpR says> "Basically mass incarnation?" "mass incarnation"? Like https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.dL31G5Y3BQIg5Xv075saegHaHa&pid=Api&rs=1 https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.dL31G5Y3BQIg5Xv075saegHaHa&pi... ?? Is this some new Internet meme (e.g., "spam") that I missed?
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Obviously means "mass incarceration" (throwing everybody to jail).
  - coldtea 7y ago
    No, there will be a one year grace period, during which there would be voluntary turn in of guns + mass confiscation. If they still wont comply after one year, mass incarceration is an option. Alternatively people could be executed on sight.
    - vageli 7y ago
      > If they still wont comply after one year, mass incarceration is an option. Alternatively people could be executed on sight. Surely this is in jest?
hedora 7y ago
Is the argument that, without access to his phone, they can’t stop this guy from killing more people? Is it that they need the phone to tell them that white supremacy and assault rifles are things that exist in the US? Do they need the phone data for a conviction? I don’t understand what they expect to do with whatever they find that they can’t get from other sources. They can get location history and a pretty good idea what and who he communicated with from ISP and cell logs, etc.
- neetdeth 7y ago
  The Dayton shooter was not a white supremacist. He was Antifa affiliated.
segmondy 7y ago
If they got access but don't find anything of interest, it's of no use to them to let folks know they can access the phone. It will only make the paranoid more paranoid. Access to the phone I think is overrated. Getting access to social media accounts, email accounts, text message, chatting apps, and cloud backup probably gives them more than 80% of what they need.
alistproducer2 7y ago
To reframe the common argument against banning guns: when u ban encryption, only criminals, computer geeks, and mathematicians will have encryption.
algaeontoast 7y ago
This is maybe the only response to a heinous act like a mass shooting that is more despicable and pathetic than wrapping an event like this around a politically charged baseball bat. More so than even using this event to claim that "guns are the problem" or the sole factor in this issue. We all know the FBI can access the information on this phone, they're just playing into the hands of emotional trauma and emotionally driven people who are ill informed to de-value the perceived sanctity of privacy and data security...
bro25 7y ago
50 years from now: AG Joe Bare said in a speech last month that FBI couldn't access recordings of the felons thoughts because the opted out from brain chip implant; he further said that the practice of letting some individuals hiding their thoughts from authorities has a high cost of mounting number of victims, some of whom are kids. He added that the 1st amendment gives far too much freedom and needs to be rethought in the changed society.
bjowen 7y ago
Seems like the EFF’s analysis from when this happened last time is still relevant. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/fbi-could-have-gotten-san-bernardino-shooters-iphone-leadership-didnt-say https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/fbi-could-have-gotten-...
brokenmachine 7y ago
Yes, that encryption on phones is really a big problem. No, definitely not the easy access to military weapons for any disillusioned nutjob. That's nothing to worry about. Move along, nothing to see here.
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175 points by miles 7y ago

I want to know what changed between 2016, when the FBI bought a tool to hack the San Bernardino shooters iPhone[1] for $900,000[2] and now — with presumably an up-to-date iPhone running 2019 iOS — that forced them to come to this conclusion. 1: https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/07/fbi-iphone-third-party-tool/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/04/07/fbi-iphone-third-party-t... 2: https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/08/fbi-paid-900000-to-unlock-san-bernardino-iphone/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/08/fbi-paid-900000-to-unloc...

djsumdog 7y ago
I didn't see a phone mentioned in the article? Is it an iPhone. Where are modern Android phones at with privacy/encryption?
matthew-wegner 7y ago
That was an iPhone 5C, which did not have a Secure Enclave. Apparently it is/was easier to image the device to brute force passcode attempts at high speed. There are technical articles out there explaining it in more detail. On my phone now or would paste some URLs.
- ghostpepper 7y ago
  The apple security whitepaper is actually a decent place to start https://www.apple.com/business/docs/site/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/site/iOS_Security_Guide.... There is also a blackhat talk from Ivan Krstic (one of the top security people at apple) where he goes surprisingly deep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U
kburman 7y ago
It looks like they are trying to take advantage of the situation and force apple to release a tool for fbi to break in.
- meowface 7y ago
  Could also be that both are true. Maybe they really can't get in and they also want to take advantage of the opportunity.

ericlewis 7y ago

dead people is... the worst... arguing that we should give up freedom is bad... what, do we do here?

devoply 7y ago
what is on his phone that can't be found online or through his browsing history tracked by google et. al.? you have all his contacts as well through various nsa pen registers and whatnot. seems like more or less a move to create a "think of the kids or innocents" moment to keep things from "going dark".
willis936 7y ago
One could argue that it's harder to make an institution that has the power to access secured devices behave than it is to change society to have fewer mass murderers. To quote the onion: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
- rayiner 7y ago
  Yeah. Let’s take away a specifically enumerated constitutional right to better protect, maybe, one that appears only in the “penumbras” of the document.
  - Causality1 7y ago
    I honestly don't know what your position is because the right against unreasonable searches and seizures and right to arms are both specifically enumerated in the fourth and second amendments, respectively.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - 1000units 7y ago
      This guy's a T14 lawyer, maybe we're both missing something. O majestic scholarship how elusive you are! I thought I knew you and yet you are my world!

JKCalhoun 7y ago

Hate to be that guy but anyone know any reason why articles about Marvin Minsky and Jefferey Epstein would not be showing up today on HN? Seems odd to me.

semicolon_storm 7y ago
Is it an article that's relevant to technology or the general ethos of HN? My guess is no.
- joelhoffman 7y ago
  Doesn't Marvin Minsky make it relevant?
ativzzz 7y ago
I would say that this topic is more political and less > anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity per the guidelines, hence it got flagged as being off-topic.

sehugg 7y ago

“It is prudent to anticipate that a major incident may well occur at any time that will galvanize public opinion on these issues ... Whether we end up with legislation or not, the best course for everyone involved is to work soberly and in good faith together to craft appropriate solutions, rather than have outcomes dictated during a crisis.” -- AG William Barr, July 23 2019 "Never let a good crisis go to waste" -- Winston Churchill, probably

lph 7y ago
> "...best course for everyone involved is to work soberly and in good faith..." Well, AG Barr is probably sober. I'll give him that.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Maybe so. Except perhaps for some prescribed pharmaceuticals. Plus endogenous neurotransmitters, and chemical mediators.
shawnz 7y ago
Work soberly and in good faith to implement crisis outcomes now, instead of waiting for a crisis. Brilliant strategy.
mastry 7y ago
>> "Never let a good crisis go to waste" -- Winston Churchill, probably Possibly, but Rahm Emanuel said it about 11 years ago [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk

olliej 7y ago

Of course. The FBI always claims this shit because in their opinion no longer having access to everyone’s data is “going dark” and throughout history they have always had complete access to everyone and everything. They don’t stand here saying “we need to deal with white supremecists”, they say “we need the ability to violate everyone’s rights”. They already have a public track record of mass illegal surveillance.

SimeVidas 7y ago

Why is it important that the FBI can access that person’s phone?

djsumdog 7y ago
I'm wondering this too. The person already killed a bunch of people. The person is dead. What more to they hope to gain? Some secret cell of others? Unlikely .. and if there is, why not regular warrants, wiretaps, e-mail searches, etc. They already have sooo many tools they can use, both with a warrant and bypassing it via FISA. They had all this domestic spying stuff and still couldn't prevent the shooting! They get nothing with phone access, so why even bother brining up compromising everyone else's security just because they failed to use all their current surveillance means to detect and prevent the shooting to being with?! You want more access? Why? That's fucking unbelievable.
- mikejb 7y ago
  Probably to understand motive, and check for potential involvement of others. And whilst they have a metric shit-ton of spying capabilities on US civilians, those are not really intended to avoid crime. (Maybe the shift of perception of what is terrorism might change that, though)
  - kennywinker 7y ago
    He posted a manifesto online. Think his motive was pretty clearly outlined in it.
    - stordoff 7y ago
      So far as I can tell, the Dayton shooter didn't leave a manifesto: > The Dayton shooter left no manifesto. https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20758473/trump-invasion-el-paso-shooting-sanders-warren-dayton https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20758473/trump-invasion-el-paso...
    - ethanwillis 7y ago

berndi 7y ago

Does that even make sense from a technical perspective? They are talking about a PIN code to unlock the phone to access the data on the phone. Could they not just remove the memory chip and access it directly? Even if the data on it is encrypted using a 6-digit PIN, brute-forcing that should be a trivial task.

mikeash 7y ago
If it’s an iPhone, the data is encrypted with a key derived from the PIN and a random key that is baked into the phone’s CPU. The CPU has instructions for encrypting and decrypting with this secret key but no instruction for reading the key directly. Short of decapping the chip and going in with an electron microscope to figure out what this key is, your only option is to brute force on the phone’s own CPU. But that CPU won’t run software that isn’t signed by the manufacturer, and that software imposes ever-increasing timeouts when unlock attempts fail.
- nradov 7y ago
  So why don't they decap the chip and go in with an electron microscope? Has that type of exploit ever been successfully used against modern devices, or is it only a theoretical vulnerability?
  - Faark 7y ago
    Usually, you don't want to work with the original, only on copies. Here we are talking about a one shot attempt to get info by destroying the hardware... I can see those people searching for any other way first.
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    Because it’s highly unlikely to work in the first place, not to mention likely cost as much as their annual operating budget.
    - kube-system 7y ago

Zhenya 7y ago

“ultimately measured in a mounting number of victims — men, women and children who are the victims of crimes, crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence," I don't understand this. How would getting into his phone post facto stop the shooting? Do they have a time machine?

jlgaddis 7y ago
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up. You're not supposed to think critically or ask any questions. Just quietly go about your life, be an obedient citizen, don't make any ruckus, and, of course, trust the government -- they know what's best for you and me and have nothing but our best interests in mind! Unfortunately, they won't be able to stop all of the pedophile terrorists from getting to us if they don't have access to everything. They're "going dark", remember!? Why don't you want to give them this access anyways? Just what is it that YOU are hiding? What don't you want them to see? --- > ... crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence. That's an earlier quote from Barr (prior to these shootings). The implication is that if they had access to all of the encrypted communications in real-time (iMessages, WhatsApp, etc.) that law enforcement maybe could have prevented these deaths from happening (nevermind their "track record" for preventing these types of incidents or the fact that most of these shootings are conducted by a single person)... ...but if they aren't able to read all of our messages then of course they can't do anything and so people will continue to die.
onion2k 7y ago
Maybe they believe that he was communicating with other people who are planning similar attacks, and they believe they could stop those attacks before they happen if they had access to the Dayton guy's phone.
Zhenya 7y ago
Just a fun sidenote. I've been watching the count of up/down votes. Folks are actually downvoting my comment; please carry on. But why I'm the hell do you want the government to be able to have unwarranted access to your devices? Previously any letter you sent was not copied,read and stored in a searchable format by the FBI/via/nsa. Maybe if you were targeted but not wholesale dragnet. Now it is and even more accessibility is being asked. This is a kgb dream machine.

pdkl95 7y ago

> Attorney General William Barr said in a speech last month that encrypted messaging services allow "criminals to operate with impunity." The cost of encryption is “ultimately measured in a mounting number of victims — men, women and children who are the victims of crimes, crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence," This disgraceful, emotionally manipulative statement is an obvious lie. Police/FBI/etc have have access to far more information about criminals than any point in history. The average person (criminals included) leaves behind an incredible amount of "digital exhaust". They should be able to build a complete pattern-of-life easily with 3rd party data (e.g. ad tracking), various side channels, and the massive amount of metadata[1] recorded every time criminals used their phone. Of course, using all of that data to find a criminal requires actual detective work specific to each case. Encryption (especially on a phone examined after a crime) isn't preventing law enforcement from investigating crimes; it is, however, harder to automate. This anti-encryption argument is really about automated mass surveillance, not finding specific criminals. [1] "We kill people based on metadata" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc

bredren 7y ago
It isn’t just detective work, it is personnel with the skills to identify and pursue likely evidence. Digital forensics is way outside typical leo training and believe it or not you can make a lot more money in the private sector with IT training. Local, state and federal case loads get backlogged behind, leaving the highest priority cases to get staffed.
- pdkl95 7y ago
  > Digital forensics is way outside typical leo training That's the problem: attempting to prevent important new technology (actually-secure encryption) from being used is not a substitute for updated training that provides "typical leo" with digital forensics skills that are increasingly needed. Susan Landau's 2016 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee regarding Apple's encryption on the San Bernardino shooter's iphone: >> "Instead of embracing the communications and device security we so badly need for securing US public and private data, law enforcement continues to press hard to undermine security in the misguided desire to preserve simple, but outdated, investigative techniques." >> "We need 21st century techniques to secure the data that 21st century enemies—organized crime and nation-state attackers—seek to steal and exploit. Twentieth century approaches that provide law enforcement with the ability to investigate but also simplify exploitations and attacks are not in our national security interest. Instead of laws and regulation that weaken our protections, we should enable law enforcement to develop 21st century capabilities for conducting investigations." >> "Developing such capabilities will involve deep changed for the Bureau, which remains agent-based, not technology-based."

ben_w 7y ago

Is the American government position “Guns don’t kill people, encryption kills people”, or am I just combining the personal opinions of a bunch of unrelated people who work for the government?

mirimir 7y ago
It's a little more nuanced than that. More like "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." plus "Encryption hinders us from finding people who commit crimes."
- godelski 7y ago
  It's a little more nuanced than that. More like "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" plus "Pareto is a pain and maybe if we fight encryption we can get public support but we don't want to break it because post hoc analysis doesn't actually help us catch the next guy because Pareto is a pain."
adventured 7y ago
The position is actually: never let a tragedy or crisis pass by without trying to use it to expand the power of the government. They have no such actual position regarding encryption killing people, they're entirely flexible, able and more than willing to sway with the wind when it presents. Whether or not encryption kills people, so to speak, is not their concern, it's nothing more than the opportunistic excuse framing. They'll use anything that will stick, anything that gets the result they're seeking.
DiabloD3 7y ago
It really does seem to be that is the position. There are a lot of backwards nutjobs in the government right now, blaming other backwards nutjobs, while the rest of us sane people are trying to duct tape society together. Guns don't kill people, encryption doesn't kill people, backwards nutjobs kill people. Politics in America, currently, can entirely be summed up as the Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme.
- 7y ago

01100011 7y ago

We(HN commenters) all know that the demonization of encryption is bullshit. What we need to do is to figure out how to communicate that effectively to the public.

mattlutze 7y ago
In part, we need a better lobby, or more lobbyists, who can break down what the real issues are and effectively explain those to Congress and the government. Though, this reeks of the Executive branch making a scapegoat out of tech to distract from the gun industry, just like getting Walmart to pull game adverts and talking about "red flag" laws.
- 01100011 7y ago
  The EFF seems to do an ok job of lobbying but I don't think they do enough outreach to the general public.
jchanimal 7y ago
Maybe instead of calling it encryption, we should call it “privacy.“
- naasking 7y ago
  Better yet, "protection from criminals" who will exploit any such circumventions.
deogeo 7y ago
Just dig up old cold-war era movies and propaganda showcasing the Stasi and secret police, and preface it with "this, but on a computer.".
- zucker42 7y ago
  Unfortunately, the public response to this will be "Do you not support law enforcement, who risk their lives for our safety?" Sometimes it feels like we've elevated the common cop to a superhuman status.

mattio 7y ago

If there was such a thing like gun control they wouldn't need to access his phone. Just restrict access to guns.

kabdib 7y ago
It is politically more feasible to ban encryption in the US than it is to ban guns (or even significantly restrict them). Wait, I'm wrong. Even essentially insignificant changes to gun laws at the federal level are harder than banning crypto.
- samsonradu 7y ago
  Can you please elaborate on why guns are so sacred in the US? Is it for cultural/historical reasons?
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    The country was founded after an ~8.5 year long Revolutionary War from a colonial owner with a large, well-funded, well-equipped, occupying army. The founders (aka the treasonous colonists) had a general "the people are individually and collectively supreme to the federal government" attitude (no doubt significantly in reaction to the monarchy that ruled over them immediately prior) and wrote the following text into the founding documents: 2nd amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The first 10 "amendments", which are roughly/essentially contemporaneous with the original document, are referred to as the "Bill of Rights".
    - solidsnack9000 7y ago
      The right to bear arms is also part of the 1689 English Bill of Rights. It is a really old right, dating back to the 900s in various forms on the British Isles.

wpdev_63 7y ago

This is all a pony show - the fusion centers absolutely have access to everything on your phone at any given time.

studentrob 7y ago

Law enforcement needs to go back to old-school detective techniques if they really need that phone data. Encryption is code, code is speech. Encryption keeps banks safe from criminals. Are we going to go through this for every administration now? Even if you do not have a problem with giving government keys to, say, the iPhone, then you have to deal with every piece of software someone writes to enable encryption. You'd literally have to convince every person in the world to not write or use encryption software in "the wrong" ways. And, that's impossible because encryption exists to protect society from criminals. I don't see another way around this.

iamnotacrook 7y ago
"Are we going to go through this for every administration now?" No. Nobody cares about this or that shooter (there'll be another one next week) but the next time there's a 9/11 you can be sure encryption will feature in the news and in a subsequent law.

auslander 7y ago

Must be iPhone then, not Android.

fnord77 7y ago

this will escalate quickly. figure 5 years or fewer until we see laws that have insanely harsh penalties (20 years in prison) for using non-backdoored encryption.

auslander 7y ago

I'm curious about Macs. If I have Firmware Password and FileVault enabled, is it same FBI-proof as iPhone? Does T1 and T2 chips or absent Tx chip (older Macs) make difference? Is storing FileVault unlock key in iCloud makes difference?

snazz 7y ago
I’m not sure how FileVault is implemented, but so long as your key is derived solely from your passphrase and not stored outside your brain (iCloud can be subpoenaed) the strength of your encryption should be proportional to the strength of your passphrase. Computers have less of a reason to use the baked-in CPU or security chip data in deriving the encryption key because longer passwords are more feasible on a laptop than a phone, so brute force attacks are already not likely to succeed. The only difference I can think of is the ease of an offline brute force attack due to the fact that you can remove a hard drive somewhat easily and then image it and use an entire datacenter’s power at attacking the passphrase. But a strong passphrase (note, not a password) stored only in your head should be quite secure.
- auslander 7y ago
  FileVault 2 Recovery key is 120 bit, I guess not feasible to bruteforce? Actual low level key is 256-bit XTS-AES. Still unsure what is the process of converting typed login password to low level key.
oneplane 7y ago
T1 no, T2 yes. Because T2+NAND as a combined setup does the same as the SE in iOS devices. Heck, it basically runs iOS.
- auslander 7y ago
  > T1 no No meaning not proof? Say I FileVault my drive and elect not to store my Recovery Key in iCloud, but write it down. Drive should be FBI safe. No?

incompatible 7y ago

I take it that without the phone data they can't prove that the "suspected gunman" was the person who committed the crime? Perhaps the next suspected gunman will destroy his phone before the crime, or maybe not own one in the first place, so perhaps destroying or not owning phones needs to be made illegal.

CPLX 7y ago

They also can’t access his brain. Neither of these situations are ones I feel compelled to fix.

mentos 7y ago
I think this is a great analogy and easy for the layman to understand.
- fortran77 7y ago
  It's not a perfect analogy. The problem with the "back door" is that these keys will leak. They always do. It's a big danger to have a weakness in all our devices that we know, eventually, Russia, China, or Iran will get their hands on.
- nlh 7y ago
  I agree. BUT - the response will be: “well even if we wanted to, we don’t have the technology to read his brain. we DO have the technology to read his phone, but you nerds are keeping it from us.” (Disclaimer: I don’t agree with this position but I have a lot of friends who think the government can do no wrong)
  - andrerm 7y ago
    And if we had the technology to read the brain we would demand to read everyones brain 24/7
throwawaywego 7y ago
You can't be forced to give your password (self-incrimination), but, depending on the jurisdiction, the police can force your finger on the unlock screen. The technology is a bit hush-hush, but it is already possible to read brainwaves, and "interrogate" someone through fMRI. Just thinking about your password may reveal it, if they are allowed to force your brain near a reader. The first serious (public) ventures into this technology was around 2000. Advances in machine learning then made it possible to read objects and concepts that were not in a training set. It was used and tested extensively in Guantanamo Bay. The legal status is still ambiguous, but I guess that it is used just in very special cases (where the detainment itself may be legally ambiguous, such as at a black site). The Legality of the Use of Psychiatric Neuroimaging in Intelligence Interrogation (2005) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/906b/8afdd39ecda3a265987a0947ab2da5e1facc.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/906b/8afdd39ecda3a265987a09... [pdf]

newshorts 7y ago

Now imagine if the gunman had been complaining about restricted access to guns... That would have been a more suitable situation, I’m sure.

exo762 7y ago

Why is this even an FBI case? What exactly makes this an FBI case? Why we want this to be an FBI case? I don't know much about American law. I was under impression that things are reserved to states unless important reason for them to be handled on federal level.

kube-system 7y ago
Terrorism is in the FBI’s jurisdiction to investigate, so it makes sense they would be involved to determine whether or not terrorism was involved. It also appears some federal legislation has been passed that directs the FBI to provide assistance to state authorities in this cases: https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-resources https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-eng...

shoes_for_thee 7y ago

Okay, good. I'm glad that we've now tested out the security of our devices and found that they are secure enough to vex government entities.

asdkhadsj 7y ago
Some government entities. As with all strategic information, they could still possess the ability to backdoor / crack this phone but deem that ability a strategic asset. Only using it in private or when the stakes are much higher than an already committed crime.
dymk 7y ago
This situation is indistinguishable from one where the government can crack the encryption, but wants you to think it can’t.

unstatusthequo 7y ago

Lies: https://graykey.grayshift.com/ https://graykey.grayshift.com/

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

vmh1928 7y ago

There was just a thread on here about the attack surfaces of an iPhone. While the article didn't mention the brand of phone one wonders if it's possible to access the phone or at least plant phone unlocking malware via an sms or mms message.

squarefoot 7y ago

FTA: "The cost of encryption is “ultimately measured in a mounting number of victims — men, women and children who are the victims of crimes, crimes that could have been prevented if law enforcement had been given lawful access to encrypted evidence,". By the same reasoning, had the shooter ran away because he drove a car faster than police ones, we should ban all sports cars then?

oneplane 7y ago

Here we go again. This will not work for many reasons, most importantly: - Key escrow or government-enabled crypto doesn't work - Creating classes of encryption doesn't work (Excluding a group and not allowing them to use the same crypto as another group) - If someone is going to do something unlawful, they will use something else that isn't accessible by the government; take away phone encryption and they will simply use something else Unless those points are solved, the whole 'should we allow it' discussion is pointless anyway. Tacking on to that: most of that stuff doesn't work because you can't really physically enforce it; it's an intellectual barrier which due to the way we can simply talk to each other as humans is super easy to circumvent. This was tried with export controls, but that didn't actually work for the information itself; only for commercial products.

merpnderp 7y ago

If the NSA can’t keep foreign intelligence from stealing its encryption keys, how can we expect the government to protect any backdoor into our devices? I’m not willing to trade ownership of my phone and my bank accounts to the government on some promise they’ll use it to keep me safe. Only an idiot would take that bargain.

coldtea 7y ago

> FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone Lawmakers tell FBI it's too late the dead don't come back to life, and ask what the fuck were they all doing before the massacre given all the warning signs (regarding both the shooter and the readily availability of firearms for purchase)...

coldtea 7y ago

>In the US, there are more firearms than people. About one-third of all households have at least one firearm Nothing than 1) a total banning of sales, 2) a law that requires existing owners to return them for destruction, 3) 5 years jail minimum time for anybody even seen with one (and 20 years if they were involved in any criminal act while carrying it, regardless of the act), 4) and a mass confiscation campaign can't fix...

9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
Basically mass incarnation?
- giardini 7y ago
  9HZZRfNlpR says> "Basically mass incarnation?" "mass incarnation"? Like https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.dL31G5Y3BQIg5Xv075saegHaHa&pid=Api&rs=1 https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.dL31G5Y3BQIg5Xv075saegHaHa&pi... ?? Is this some new Internet meme (e.g., "spam") that I missed?
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Obviously means "mass incarceration" (throwing everybody to jail).
- coldtea 7y ago
  No, there will be a one year grace period, during which there would be voluntary turn in of guns + mass confiscation. If they still wont comply after one year, mass incarceration is an option. Alternatively people could be executed on sight.
  - vageli 7y ago
    > If they still wont comply after one year, mass incarceration is an option. Alternatively people could be executed on sight. Surely this is in jest?

hedora 7y ago

Is the argument that, without access to his phone, they can’t stop this guy from killing more people? Is it that they need the phone to tell them that white supremacy and assault rifles are things that exist in the US? Do they need the phone data for a conviction? I don’t understand what they expect to do with whatever they find that they can’t get from other sources. They can get location history and a pretty good idea what and who he communicated with from ISP and cell logs, etc.

neetdeth 7y ago
The Dayton shooter was not a white supremacist. He was Antifa affiliated.

segmondy 7y ago

If they got access but don't find anything of interest, it's of no use to them to let folks know they can access the phone. It will only make the paranoid more paranoid. Access to the phone I think is overrated. Getting access to social media accounts, email accounts, text message, chatting apps, and cloud backup probably gives them more than 80% of what they need.

alistproducer2 7y ago

To reframe the common argument against banning guns: when u ban encryption, only criminals, computer geeks, and mathematicians will have encryption.

algaeontoast 7y ago

This is maybe the only response to a heinous act like a mass shooting that is more despicable and pathetic than wrapping an event like this around a politically charged baseball bat. More so than even using this event to claim that "guns are the problem" or the sole factor in this issue. We all know the FBI can access the information on this phone, they're just playing into the hands of emotional trauma and emotionally driven people who are ill informed to de-value the perceived sanctity of privacy and data security...

bro25 7y ago

50 years from now: AG Joe Bare said in a speech last month that FBI couldn't access recordings of the felons thoughts because the opted out from brain chip implant; he further said that the practice of letting some individuals hiding their thoughts from authorities has a high cost of mounting number of victims, some of whom are kids. He added that the 1st amendment gives far too much freedom and needs to be rethought in the changed society.

bjowen 7y ago

Seems like the EFF’s analysis from when this happened last time is still relevant. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/fbi-could-have-gotten-san-bernardino-shooters-iphone-leadership-didnt-say https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/fbi-could-have-gotten-...

brokenmachine 7y ago

Yes, that encryption on phones is really a big problem. No, definitely not the easy access to military weapons for any disillusioned nutjob. That's nothing to worry about. Move along, nothing to see here.

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