18 ms·
U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- happyscrappy 12y ago>Apple and Google know that they will be losing customers, more and more Until they actually do lose some customers this silly meme should die. Where are these customers allegedly going, back to dumb phones?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- eli 12y agoNo, I have not noticed that. What's their market share?
- matthewmacleod 12y agoNo. I think this might be a bubble effect.
- freehunter 12y agoI've noticed the increase in availability for secure phones (as in, there were zero before and now there is one), but even working in information security, I've never heard of anyone outside of Ars Technica or the like actually buying one, let alone using it. I wouldn't really call that a sharp increase in popularity except, of course, the sharp increase of going from zero to one.
- lnanek2 12y agoMost drug dealers or johns I see just buy a prepaid phone from Walgreens, i.e. a booty phone. Tracfone doesn't verify whatever you activate with, you can just make up whatever name/address.
- freehunter 12y agoThat's not really a secure phone or black phone, that's just a prepaid phone. Nothing inherently secure about it other than it's difficult to trace. The parent was talking about purposefully secured phones with encrypted phone call and messaging, etc.
- visarga 12y agoMaybe not lose customers now, but have customers that censure their own communication over public channels, and generally see these channels as insecure and potentially dangerous. Over years, that makes GMail and GDrive less valuable and their competition more attractive.
- Afforess 12y agoWhat a terrible article. Excerpt: They have created a system that is a free-for-all for criminals So we should give up all rights to privacy to help catch criminals? What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law Maybe that says more about your laws than the desire for privacy?
- MCRed 12y agoMy sympathies for the FBI's concern about people being "beyond the law" is lessened a great deal given the past decade of revelations of illegal actions at FBI forensic centers, and the complete lack of prosecutions, not to mention the NSA spying, etc. Even the TSA is in violation of the law (fourth amendment protects against search without warrant, USC 18-242 makes violating that a federal crime, and a felony if done while armed.) I'd like to see the government stop being "beyond the law".
- pyromine 12y agoOkay the TSA argument is brought up all the time, and the overall consensus as that you are voluntarily giving up your fourth amendment rights by consenting to the search.
- mikeash 12y agoWhich is nonsense. I don't voluntarily and implicitly give up constitutional rights just because I chose a particular mode of transportation. Even if there was some sort of magic implication, surely I could cancel this out by loudly declaring "I decline to forfeit my Fourth Amendment rights and I do not consent to a search".
- dmix 12y agoBut failure to comply = restrictions of freedom of travel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit... It is not voluntary for airports to use TSA. Therefore you have no alternative options when it comes to air travel. Saying traveling by ground is an adequate alternative is nonsense.
- zachdunn 12y agoThis is a bit like protesting door locks because they make it harder to pop in and look around.
- slg 12y agoI don't support what the government is trying to do here, but minimizing this issue like this is not doing us any favors. The issue isn't that law enforcement can no longer "look around" your phone. The issue is that they can no longer get a warrant and use what is on your phone as evidence in an investigation or court case without the phone owner's cooperation. Basically your phone goes from being personal property that can be used against you as evidence to an extension of your mind that is now subject to 5th amendment protection. That is a big shift. In terms of your originally analogy, encryption isn't a simple door lock, it is a magical warrant proof lock. I certainly understand why law enforcement wouldn't be happy about this.
- tlrobinson 12y ago"Basically your phone goes from being personal property that can be used against you as evidence to an extension of your mind" Yes, and...? That sounds about right. An implanted device wired directly to your brain seems like the ultimate conclusion to this age of "wearables" we're just now entering.
- polarix 12y agoA big, crucial shift.
- Zigurd 12y agoThere have always been tools and procedures for destroying documents to prevent unwanted access. What's very very bad about this, in addition to the direct effects on people's privacy, is that it creates a class system of people who are allowed access to strong encryption while the cattle being farmed on this plantation are not.
- icebraining 12y ago
- mullingitover 12y agoGoogle and Apple's marketing teams must be relishing this. I'm guessing it's very dangerous in their departments right now with the champagne corks flying everywhere.
- eli 12y agoI doubt that. I'm sure they anticipated this response, but I think you greatly underestimate how many people subscribe to the "nothing to hide" theory of privacy and/or are genuinely worried this might aid pedophiles or terrorists.
- Ntrails 12y agoI can't see how you'll see a backlash against the companies on the move, if only because there's no real competition and no value in being "the phone the authorities can easily monitor" The worst case scenario is that they get large amounts of press (not all positive), fight for the rights of their users to have private data, and lose to a government they never expected to defeat. That's still a win.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- fnordfnordfnord 12y agoThere is value in not being the pedo/terror phone. That's one of the traditional attacks on information privacy.
- ghshephard 12y agoWell, until the law gets changed and they have to allow government access to the smartphones. I've giving it better than 70% odds legislation is passed within 4 years that ensures just that.
- gnarbarian 12y agoThey are going straight into "think of the children mode" " Smartphone communication is “going to be the preferred method of the pedophile and the criminal. We are going to lose a lot of investigative opportunities." Apparently "what about the terrorists?" isn't as effective anymore. Let's hope the public will see through their manipulative talking points.
- earless1 12y agoYeah, I let out an audible WTF when I read that. I wish this argument would stop.
- legomylibrum 12y agoOh, it gets better. "The notion that someone would market a closet that could never be opened – even if it involves a case involving a child kidnapper and a court order – to me does not make any sense."
- pdabbadabba 12y agoSeriously. Perhaps one would call this sort of exotic and nefarious contraption a "safe"?
- earless1 12y agoWell we all know that law enforcement gets a copy of every safe key made. you know just in case
- brational 12y agoI don't understand this argument. Wouldn't law enforcement still be allowed to access phone records unecrypted if they have an actual suspect and court order?
- gnarbarian 12y agoYes but they want the data on the mobile device. For example, I use textsecure when texting my friends. Its encrypted locally and over the wire so the records would only help them show who not what I was talking about.
- hyperbovine 12y agoI am actually encouraged by this. I feel like 8-10 years ago they would have never even bothered complaining to the press--just swooped in with some invisible court order and forced tech companies to do their bidding, with (of course) no ability to publicly disclose any of it.
- ary 12y agoOutside of having a plethora of security experts audit and certify these services I'd say this is about as close as you can get to a ringing endorsement. The only way it gets better is if other governments follow up with the same complaints. Ultimately I'm pleased that this kind of thing even makes the news. Ideally government becomes almost totally transparent and private matters become nearly opaque (there will always be the investigative aspect of law enforcement). Any reasonably sharp person can now see that the exact opposite is happening. Governments are demanding an ever increasing amount of secrecy while simultaneously requiring that the public give up all hope of privacy. Just to have had this idea escape the realm of conspiracy theory seems like a miracle to me.
- scintill76 12y ago> I'd say this about as close as you can get to a ringing endorsement Or they just want criminals to think that all they have to do is buy an Apple or Google phone, and they can't be caught.
- ary 12y ago> Or they just want criminals to think that all they have to do is buy an Apple or Google phone, and they can't be caught. There is a greater incentive to let Apple or Google do that kind of marketing and quietly exploit the vulnerabilities (ie, what's been happening with the NSA for some time now). If it had the appearance of working but actually didn't you wouldn't hear a peep from any government.
- AndrewKemendo 12y agoJames Soiles, a deputy chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the stakes in resolving the dispute are high. Stakes for who? For LEA of course they are, they make the job much harder. Maybe this will help end the drug war and some of the other silly things we do.
- mindcrime 12y agoWe could eliminate this guy's concerns by just shutting down the DEA altogether. End of problem.
- biafra 12y agoI have full disk encryption enabled on my Mac since Lion. Why is it such a big deal that I have it on my phone too? Or am I missing something and the keys to my computer storage are leaked to Apple somehow?
- feld 12y agoBy default it is backed up to iCloud through your keychain... This is why I enabled encryption with the fdesetup command manually so the GUI can't "have a bug" that backs it up to iCloud/keychain anyway. https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/Manpages/man8/fdesetup.8.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin... edit: you want to ensure you don't use the -keychain option, and then you want to write down the recovery key it prints out and store that somewhere safe.
- djyaz1200 12y ago"Well I ain't passed the bar but I know a little bit, enough that you won't illegally search my shit!" -Jay Z
- cwal37 12y agoThis seems like one of the most obvious media presses I've ever seen. I can't decide whether it's good to see the press that security is getting, and have the same terrible LE quotes show up, or bad that there is such widespread dissemination that LE is unhappy about this and hey if you're a good citizen you will buy a phone we can more easily unlock. Here are the same or similar articles: -WSJ 8[1] and 5[2] days ago -Washington Post 5 Days ago[3] -NYTimes 4 days ago[4] -TIME 3 Days ago[5] -Fortune 3 days ago [6] [1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/new-level-of-smartphone-encryption-alarms-law-enforcement-1411420341 http://online.wsj.com/articles/new-level-of-smartphone-encry... [2] http://online.wsj.com/articles/fbi-director-raises-concerns-about-smartphone-security-plans-1411671434 http://online.wsj.com/articles/fbi-director-raises-concerns-... [3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-chief-new-phone-encryption-could-cost-lives/2014/09/25/e152383e-44df-11e4-8042-aaff1640082e_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-chief-new-phone-e... [4] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/technology/iphone-locks-out-the-nsa-signaling-a-post-snowden-era-.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/technology/iphone-locks-ou... [5] http://time.com/3437222/iphone-data-encryption/ http://time.com/3437222/iphone-data-encryption/ [6] http://fortune.com/2014/09/27/apple-and-the-fbi-re-enact-the-90s-crypto-wars/ http://fortune.com/2014/09/27/apple-and-the-fbi-re-enact-the...
- AJ007 12y agoWhether or not its a coordinated media blitz or just journalists piggybacking on each other for content I don't know. That it is coming out at the same time new iPhones could go either way. Things that people are completely missing about this story: -Big difference between domestic & local law enforcement and NSA/DoD/CIA. Nothing prevents backdooring of a phone or someone spying as the user enters their simple password. Local law enforcement doesn't have these resources and has gotten used to access to all kinds of evidence that never existed. What Apple may or may not have done just pushes the cost up. -I think Apple is very scared about being locked out of the Chinese market right now. The new iPhones have not been approved yet last I heard. This is a big fucking deal that would wipe out a huge chunk of Apple's market cap. They are not going to budge because some local law enforcement officers claim only child molesters use iPhones. -Google is in a similar boat except they are already locked out of China, likely will get locked out of Russia soon. They would like to be able to still make money in Brazil and the EU. -I think it is a good trend for the pushback from tech companies. There is no good answer for international legal compliance for user records. Records should be accessible once an account has been compromised locally, not because any judge in any country on earth can search all of your user data on any user in any other country. Between Dropbox, Dropcam & all of these other cloud services, right now a user has no idea who has access to all of their data all of the time. Time travel back two decades, no one is stealing all of your data over a dial up modem. Nor is a device recording every square foot of where you are at every moment. The tools law enforcement have access to right now are godlike
- slavik81 12y ago"Law enforcement officials emphasized that they get court orders, and that they aren’t seeking to randomly root through phones." Right. Rooting through phones without a court order is the NSA's job. That makes me feel better.
- ChuckMcM 12y agoAgain, I find the narrative interesting. It would be more compelling if the government had shown that it could be trusted with the ability to snoop, too bad they screwed that up.
- erichurkman 12y ago> Their requests to the companies may include letters, personal appeals or congressional legislation, said a federal law official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue. I love that, in an article arguing against secure privacy, the official requested anonymity.
- sarciszewski 12y agoThis happens so frequently that I've become numb to it, but now that you point it out it's still ironic.
- BillFranklin 12y agoThe Chicago Chief of Police genuinely said this: >"Apple will become the phone of choice for the pedophile. The average pedophile at this point is probably thinking, I’ve got to get an Apple phone."
- donohoe 12y agoWell, if I was trying to break the law then, yeah, I would absolutely go an get an Apple phone if I didn't already have one.
- mikeash 12y agoI'd also buy a Toyota or a Honda car, since it's less likely to break down while fleeing the police. Clearly, reliable automobiles are part of a pro-crime agenda.
- BillFranklin 12y agofantastic.
- conformal 12y agoi hear they are going to ban air soon because pedophiles can use it prey on children.
- whistlecrackers 12y agoSo is that why the federal government poured our money into GM and Chrysler? Oftentimes those with an anti-firearms agenda point out that Glocks are preferred among mass murderers. Glock is to guns as Toyota is to cars; reasonably priced and notoriously reliable.
- mikeash 12y agoThere's so much stupidity in the gun debate on all sides. It's rare to see a cogent argument anywhere. The basic idea applies to any dual-use technology, of course: criminals will prefer the better items for the same reason law-abiding citizens prefer the better items. Thus, "criminals prefer X" is not, by itself, any reasonable argument against X in a dual-use technology.
- JacobEdelman 12y ago"Beyond lobbying the companies, there is little law enforcement can do without congressional action. " Wait, what? Even with the privacy Apple and Google are offering there are huge amounts of ways to access data useful to law enforcement and the law enforcement seems to have the tools to force the companies to give it.
- icebraining 12y agoI think the point is that these companies literally can't unlock the phones and give access to the data, since (according to them) they no longer have the keys to do so.
- sitkack 12y agoIt shouldn't be legal for the government to request companies to do things that aren't codified in laws. No "asking" or "buying". We decide what and how the government functions. If the gov wants to do things differently, it can ask congress. Not apple or google.
- donohoe 12y agoSo.. its revealed that the NSA is abusing our privacy, and people react accordingly, and now legitimate law enforcement efforts are being thwarted. Don't blame the tech sector, let them blame the NSA's over-reaching charter
- chaz72 12y agoExactly. The world has had some time to react to last year's revelations, and this is just getting started!
- chroem- 12y agoNobody's law enforcement efforts are being thwarted. They just want to convince demographic A that their devices are unhackable and completely NSA-proof, and convince demographic B that anyone who values their civil liberties is a terrorist pedophile that hates freedom. These companies are documented data providers for the NSA.
- jxf 12y agoI don't think they care so much about preventing encryption --after all, you can already encrypt your iPhone or Android device, if you really want to. What they're much more concerned about, IMO, is that this could now be the _default_. No longer would there be a presumption that someone has "something to hide" if they're encrypted when everyone else is, too.
- matthewmacleod 12y agoSo this does actually pose an interesting conundrum, I think. Setting aside the specifics of this matter, I think that most people would accept that in some circumstances, covert surveillance of suspected criminals is an acceptable law enforcement tool. Of course, it must be subject to suitable (not rubber-stamped) judicial approval, rigorous guidelines, limitations etc. From that perspective, secure and encrypted communication channels that are now becoming more generally available and usable by the public reduce the ability of law enforcement to gather evidence using traditional surveillance tools. It's no wonder that they would react negatively to them, even assuming there were no malicious intentions. I wonder what the balance will be? Does law enforcement have to simply accept that surveillance of this sort will no longer be possible? I can't see any logical way of simultaneously retaining useful control and allowing regulated legal access to communications.
- guelo 12y agoGetting access to your personal life recorder, which is what smartphones are, is not a "traditional surveillance tool" as you call it. It's a new surveillance tool that has shown up over the last 7 years. Before cops had access to every single thing you do via the smartphone, civilization did not collapse.
- avn2109 12y agoYou're making a thoughtful point here (though one that I happen to strongly disagree with), so I'm not sure why the downvotes. But anyway, it's worth noting that the publicly switched telephone network, email, SMS, etc. are all wholly compromised and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The reduction in law enforcement snooping ability being contemplated here is tiny by comparison, and they're making an incredible amount of noise about it.
- tedks 12y agoIf you support this sort of system, you are saying that individuals should be able to place themselves above democracy. Like it or not, we have a legal system that entitles the government to execute lawfully obtained warrants. Tech companies seeking to make this harder are acting against democracy. It's time for Silicon Valley to decide what side it's on: Democracy, or the alternative.
- lutorm 12y agoOur democratic system has enacted laws that say encryption is legal. Why do you think following the law is somehow "acting against democracy" here?
- tedks 12y agoIt's in the intent. I don't think anyone is denying that Apple and Google are doing this to make it harder for police to search through user files. They could have implemented this at any point since the inception of AES, and are doing it now because of the backlash against PRISM. They want to demonstrate to users that they care more about them as individuals than they do about their role in a democratic society. Notice also that your comment, and others respondents to me in this thread, are not disputing my actual point, i.e., that bundling crypto features in products is meant to put individuals above the reach of the democratic legal system.
- alasdair_ 12y ago>Like it or not, we have a legal system that entitles the government to execute lawfully obtained warrants. The same legal system also says using encryption is perfectly legal.
- Zigurd 12y agoSome people would say they are putting themselves above oligarchy.
- tedks 12y agoBut they're wrong. The United States is, whether you like it or not, a democracy. Voters can be influenced, but they still decide the outcome. Everything backends to them. If you disagree with that, there are legal avenues. This is an example of an extralegal avenue of political change.
- saul_d 12y agoYou can never trust any "encryption" that you don't handle entirely yourself. This seems to be some more theater, aiming to deceive the general public with regards to the "safety" of this "encryption".
- lotu 12y agoOf course if you implement encryption yourself you almost certainly did it wrong and are leaking data. This assumes you even know how to "do it yourself".
- saul_d 12y agoI didn't mean "write your own solution", I meant: You can only trust public key encryption and you need to create all keys yourself and you need to have 100% exclusive access to the private key. And then, you need to pray and hope that the NSA hasn't figured out a way around it and won't too soon.
- edwhitesell 12y agoIf the government had proven itself trustworthy enough to follow it's own processes for accessing information only after obtaining a warrant, I could agree with the argument. However, things escalate when one side can't trust the other. Encryption is needed.
- dmfdmf 12y agoThis is my view. Law enforcement from the Feds on down have lost the trust of the American people. They have lied to us, misrepresented what they are doing and now use the scoundrel's argument "what about the children?". The growing threat of a mass surveillance govt is real and in the long run a bigger threat to freedom than the so-called terrorist. I find the idea of a mass surveillance govt more terrifying than a few religious nuts with bombs or even hijacked planes.
- silveira 12y agoThey always pull the pedophile card.
- activepeanut 12y agoReminds me of this: http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/12/20/iraq-scores-hordes-of-ps2s-at-us-gamers-expense http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/12/20/iraq-scores-hordes-of...
- shmerl 12y agoFirst the government puts itself above the law by engaging in unconstitutional surveillance. And then they complain that some companies retaliate by tightening up the encryption? Even though they have some valid point, it's very hypocritical. I doubt this would have happened if not for the Big Brother's behavior to begin with.
- donniezazen 12y agoMy expectation is anyone participating in illegal activities would already be using encryption. Encryption is readily available and and isn't very tedious as long as someone walks you through it. It is not like terrorists use Google docs and write their plans in plain text. What am I missing? The best I can infer from desperation of government is that they want to control people by collecting as much info as possible.
- vinceguidry 12y agoYour intuitions and reality are very different. In general terrorists and the like aren't savvy like your average HN-reader. They're savvy like that weird kid in school who had all the Anarchist Cookbooks and likes to build and set off pipe bombs for fun. They can teach you how to not blow off your hand, that's about it. I don't know how many times you've tried to 'walk someone through' using moderately complicated software, but I've had to do it enough times to realize that there's no such thing as foolproof. I once advised a lady who kept three phones because she was worried that her ex-husband was breaking into her communications. At one point she called me frantic that her husband had broken into her phone. I calmed her down and asked her what had happened. He'd called/texted her at a number she had been trying to keep secret from him. I surmised that she had accidentally sent him a text from the secret phone and had her go through her recent communications until she'd found it. Information security is something that doesn't seem terribly hard to most geeks, because many of us have an intuitive understanding of threat models and how things work underneath. We can be skeptical of companies that say that they take security seriously. Most everyone else is utterly reliant on commercial solutions and has no idea how to understand how following a set of procedures makes them safe, or what happens when they fail to follow them, what the failure modes are. It is completely unsurprising to me that criminals use their cell phones to document criminal acts, it falls totally in line with how people tend to think about technology. So I believe law enforcement when they say that cell phone searches have become an important tool to help them investigate crime. Do I believe they should have that access? To me the answer is unclear. It would be easy to conflate LE with the NSA and say hell no. But there are some very bad people out there that cell phone searching gives us a critical advantage over. If it were up to me, I'd say to solve this problem at a different level by legalizing the drugs whose trade promotes criminality. In absence of that, legal searches procured through warrants seems to be better than nothing, and we should fix abuses through regulatory action rather than blanket, reactionary bans on useful enforcement techniques.
- Arjuna 12y agoMy reply is... "What about the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution?" Would we really be having these discussions if Americans (speaking as an American here) were better-educated on our own rights, our own foundation, the very fibers of our own history? I mean, this is such a simple amendment, so crystal-clear and eloquent. After reading it (see below), how can there possibly be any doubt as to how the proverbial wool is being pulled over our eyes? Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
- happyscrappy 12y agoYou should better educate yourself, the article is about seizure with a warrant, with which Apple and Google will no longer be able to help them.
- TheRealDunkirk 12y agoDon't worry, though, Microsoft and their NSAKEY will be there for them.
- mikeash 12y agoWhy should Apple even be involved in a warrant served against my phone? When you serve a warrant against a house, do you expect that the builder of the house will be able to give you access to the interior even after they no longer own it?
- krapp 12y agoYou're implying that Apple doesn't own the content people store on their devices? I thought the entire point of their walled garden OS was that they did, and were quite willing to add, delete or modify it as they please. Going to the actual owners of the content makes perfect sense.
- suprgeek 12y agoClassic Fear mongering at its finest. Blatantly violate the public trust repeatedly by Blanket illegal surveillance, discredit anyone who reveals it, call them a traitor. Then when people & companies get pissed at this over-reach and the gloating (smiley faces on NSA slides) and start putting up technological fixes to ward-off against this bullshit begin fear mongering. I think all manner of Masks, Steel doors, etc should be immediately outlawed -after-all some one can kidnap children wearing a mask and WE CANNOT CATCH THEM! Steel doors slow down access by law enforcement THINK OF THE CHILDREN! BS at its finest.
- venomsnake 12y agoThat cat is out of the bag. People wan't encryption that is why Apple is offering it. And even if they thwart the effort on ios, android will be much harder to tame.
- EGreg 12y agoOnce again this is an issue of centralization. Imagine everything is decentralized - mesh networks, open source server software, social networks etc. How is a government going to enforce that no one runs a private encrypted network? And using one step of tunneling how would it make sure no one runs a VPN? Short of a total physical police state like the USSR under Stalin the only thing they could do is mandate backdoors in physical devices. Because manufacturing is going to be the last bastion of centralization. If you think I'm joking, see this and this: http://www.popularresistance.org/new-intel-based-pcs-permanently-hackable/ http://www.popularresistance.org/new-intel-based-pcs-permane... http://wccftech.com/intel-possibly-amd-chips-permanent-backdoors-planted-nsa-updated-1/ http://wccftech.com/intel-possibly-amd-chips-permanent-backd... http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519661/nsas-own-hardware-backdoors-may-still-be-a-problem-from-hell/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519661/nsas-own-hardwar... And lest you think only governments do this, a lot of hardware DRM has been almost entirely the result of the entertainment lobby and licensing: https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13qtnxhuojytbjbr04ci3cowrmtehsy324 https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13qtnxhuojytbjbr04... As you can see the main targets are still INSTITUTIONS. Once they are decentralized it will be harder to control who makes the software. If you want to read my own thoughts on these things, see these two links: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169
- fab13n 12y ago"What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law." This guy has it exactly wrong: it allows people to place themselves beyond the illegal snooping of NSA et al. The one to blame here is the NSA, together with those who failed in their duty as counter-power to administrative abuse.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Istof 12y agoIs that to provide users with a false sense of security since US law enforcement can secretly ask for the decryption keys?
- underbluewaters 12y ago"“This is a fundamental tension,” Howe said. The “balance between how much privacy you’re allowed to have and how many rights the government has” is a question that has continued historically in the U.S., he said." Uh.. I thought I had unalienable rights as a human being, from the Creator or whatever. It's not about privacy the government "allows" me to have.
- blackaspen 12y agoThe Director of the FBI James B. Comey says: "What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to hold themselves beyond the law." See, that's funny. Because what concerns me is that the government thinks they are beyond the law.
- xnull 12y agoI hypothesize that this is a coordinated yet simple ruse to rebuild trust in these brands post-Snowden [1][2]. There was similar press coverage regarding the DEA and iCloud encryption that was misreported in a similar way [3]. The Intercept (where Glenn Greenwald is now reporting from) has a story on what data Apple can still easily give away if you do believe they can't decrypt individual machines [4]. But maybe you don't believe it given the report from the ACLU on backdoors built into iPhones that circumvent encryption [5], and the Hope X talk on backdoors security researchers independently discovered [6]. More importantly, Apple's warranty canary was removed which either means they were served by National Security Letter or (if you're optimistic sort of person) that they are no longer committed to notifying consumers in the event that have been, which flies directly in face of all the PR talk of security commitment recently [7]. Plus remember, Apple can push whatever software they want to your personal device. That's how smartphones work. We are led to two questions: A) Why wouldn't the same tactics, National Security Letters and ORCHESTRA-type attacks work [8]? Don't we remember from the Snowden leaks that NSA agents infiltrate tech companies and backdoor software at the source when other avenues are closed or gridlocked? B) Why all of the publicity about about how secure Apple's product are from snooping? Do we really think we can get away from ubiquidous global surveillance that easily? I'm sorry. Investigative bodies don't publicly announce what technologies they can't track. There is no phone you can buy on the mass market that will keep your data safe with the exception of - perhaps? - the BlackPhone [9]. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-google-meet-with-obama-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-google-meet-with-obama-... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/obama-tech-executives_n_4460967.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/obama-tech-executiv... [3] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/apples_imessage.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/apples_imessa... [4] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/22/apple-data/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/22/apple-data/ [5] https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-criminal-law-reform-immigrants-rights/new-document-sheds-light https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-criminal-la... [6] https://pentest.com/ios_backdoors_attack_points_surveillance_mechanisms.pdf https://pentest.com/ios_backdoors_attack_points_surveillance... [7] https://gigaom.com/2014/09/18/apples-warrant-canary-disappears-suggesting-new-patriot-act-demands/ https://gigaom.com/2014/09/18/apples-warrant-canary-disappea... [8] http://mirror.as35701.net/video.fosdem.org//2014/Janson/Sunday/NSA_operation_ORCHESTRA_Annual_Status_Report.webm http://mirror.as35701.net/video.fosdem.org//2014/Janson/Sund... [9] https://www.blackphone.ch/ https://www.blackphone.ch/ Additional reading: (1) https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_problems_wi_3.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_problems_... (2) https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/defending_again_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/defending_aga... (3) https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/is_iphone_secur.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/is_iphone_sec...
- richardlblair 12y ago“going to be the preferred method of the pedophile and the criminal. We are going to lose a lot of investigative opportunities.” - Cathy Lanier, chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department Oh, the delusional world Cathy lives in...
- jcromartie 12y agoOf course the anti-privacy crusaders lead with "think of the children!"
- ma2rten 12y agoWe want to attack command-and-control structures of drug organizations, and to do that we have to be able to exploit their communication devices. This doesn't make sense on so many levels. If a law was passed so than Apple and Google had to reverse their decision, no drug cartel is going to store incriminating data on their iPhones anymore.
- Athens 12y agoThis is a cost saving measure with a good PR component to it. Its expensive to comply with requests and uses up important resources. By taking the technical ability out of the equation for getting into the device itself Apple is saving itself time money and resources and looking good to the public for doing so with no legal damages. This does not actually fully protect any ones data though. Government has full access to the cell phone companies that can with warrant provide location information including dates and times, SMS information, and can still monitor any un-encrypted traffic from a users phone. At worst Apple is providing a false sense of security to individuals that do not understand the other part of the equation, which is the Cell Phone companies and the Interweb can monitor and log stuff. But I do believe Apple that iMessage, FaceTime and the device itself is not intentionally open for spying on. But what about the other apps. Whatapp, and Blackberry messenger and Skype and all the other apps that sends data to 3rd parties. None of that is protected. But Apple only ever talks about itself not 3rd party. Take a iPhone and use only Apple software on it you will probably have the best protection in the industry for consumers. But its limited to that. END OF REPLY ------------------------------------- ----Start of slightly off topic but still on topic rant ----- Apples business model isn't based on data either. So when they say they don't scan your emails to profit from it I believe them. They are probably the only major ecosystem that does not need to do that. Yahoo Mail, Outlook (hotmail) mail, Gmail all have business models that provide a free service in exchange for your information. Its rooted into how they make money. Apple makes money from the sale of Hardware and direct cost services. At the end of the day anything NOT in your head is exposed and a potential security risk. Even writing something on paper creates something to be discovered. Not putting thoughts into a tangible readable and accessible form is the first line of personal security. Followed by absolute control of what ever you do put those thoughts onto. Paper, paper goes in pocket. Paper is burned when no longer needed. Computer, no wifi, no blue-tooth, no always on connection in your physical possession is as secure as you will get with encryption in case you lose physical possession. A smart phone can reach this level of security but defeats all of the abilities it which makes it a smart phone. You can disable data and wifi and use the phone only as a phone but at that point why do you even bother owning it. As the CEO of Google once said, if its something that can hurt you don't do it. In this case don't make a record of it. Dont take pictures, dont text about it, don't use a calender to plan it out. Keep it in your head. No one ever takes responsibility for there own stupidity when it comes to security. Go back to a book and pen if you are worried. But that can be seized and read if arrested. Technology used right can offer better protection then ever before.
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoI remember reading about Hal Finney about a year ago, and then about the cypherpunks and all, including about PGP. And I was surprised to see how recently an encryption standard was deemed a weapon, and sharing the algorithm was deemed exports of weapons, a punishable offense, particularly if say, an Iranian would come to read the algorithm on some forum post! That meant jail-time, treason! Ridiculous, I thought surely we'd be a bit more enlightened about these things in the 1990s. It felt almost comical, as if it was a joke. Now this. Two consumer companies we all know and love, implement an encryption standard by default that has been openly available to the world for many years, and we already see talk of preventing it through congress. It feels like we're back in 1993. Just gonna leave this here: http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/how-would-you-like-this-wrapped.jpg http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/how-would-... How would you want it wrapped? Protect the kids or anti-terrorism. They literally wrapped this one up twice, mentioning both the terrorism and the pedophiles. Sigh.
- rrrx3 12y agoGet a fucking subpoena you asshole motherfuckers.
- declan 12y agoI was living in DC during the first Crypto Wars of the late 1990s and covering them as a reporter (I've since shifted to working on recent.io, of course). It sure looks like this will be Crypto Wars II: the Feds Strike Back. From my experience a key question to ask is: What would the eventual law say? Will it make it a federal felony to possess an encrypted phone? Or a federal felony to sell one? The FBI endorsed H.R. 695 the last time around, which would have done the latter. Read it for yourself: "Whoever, after January 31, 2000, sells in interstate or foreign commerce any encryption product that does not include features or functions permitting duly authorized persons immediate access to plaintext or immediate decryption capabilities shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, fined under this title, or both..." "After January 31, 2000, it shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture for distribution, DISTRIBUTE, or import encryption products intended for sale or use in the United States, unless that product-- `(1) includes features or functions that provide an immediate access to plaintext capability... requiring any person in possession of decryption information to provide such information to a duly authorized investigative or law enforcement officer..." (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/T?&report=hr108p4&dbname=105& http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/T?&report=hr108p4&dbna...) Note the distribution ban above. That would have hit open-source and free software projects. Put another way, implementation details matter. A lot of voters might agree with the general proposition that law enforcement should have a way to snoop on terrorists|child pornographers|drug kingpins. They might not agree that a 14-year HN reader with a forked version of Android|AOSP on Github should go to prison for 20 years because he dared to distribute an unencrypted OS.
- diminoten 12y agoI may be as naive as hell here, but when you go from, "we don't want US citizens selling crypto devices to terrorists" to "Timmy's going to see the inside of a jail cell for 20 years for giving Mark a copy of TailsOS" I just can't see how a judge or jury would let it go that far, and I don't think unintended consequences have ever gotten that bad. It just smacks of fear-mongering. "They'll literally lock up your children!"
- declan 12y agoYep, sorry, you're naive. :) The law != common sense. If a law is on the books, it may be applied broadly, even to Timmy and Mark. That's why it's important to ensure the laws are sensible before they're enacted. Here's one example. Let's say there's a 16-year old girl and a 17-year old boy who are in a consensual dating relationship and, you know, take some racy photos of one other. The photos were taken consensually, not shared with anyone else, and stored only on their own computers/accounts. And let's say they're living in Florida and under state law, they're legally old enough to have sex with each other. It would be fear-mongering to expect that these two happy teenagers would ever be prosecuted and convicted on "child pornography" charges, right? Except they were. And, as I wrote in 2007, a Florida appeals court upheld their criminal conviction: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1030_3-6157857.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1030_3-6157857.html Yes, sorry, Timmy and Mark, sometimes a judge and jury will let it go that far. Sometimes they will "literally lock up your children..."
- mark_l_watson 12y agoI remember in the 1990s when the FBI and NSA were doing the good work: going after organized crime syndicates on the web, making public advice for US businesses to secure their networks, releasing Linux and Windows security patches, etc. Times have changed.
- bad_user 12y ago> Smartphone communication is “going to be the preferred method of the pedophile and the criminal. We are going to lose a lot of investigative opportunities.” Wow, the think of the children lines are so overused, I wonder why they aren't obnoxious for regular folks. And I'm a father of a 4-year old and I can really understand the natural urge to protect children from pedophiles, but this is becoming ridiculous, plus as a father I also don't want my child to grow up in a world in which he has no privacy rights. If a device for reading one's mind would be invented, it would instantly be used by government agencies, because investigative opportunities and if law enforcement could do that, than so could criminals and oligarchs - yet our laptops and phones are an extension of our mind and we really aren't far from such a dystopian future. These people act as if this technology existed since the dawn of men. What on earth did people do before being able to snoop on our digital footprint? And is there any evidence that these investigative opportunities are lowering criminality or are we talking hypothetically?
- drcube 12y agoI assume they're going after the manufacturers of safes, paper shredders and burn barrels, next?
- SEJeff 12y agoWatch every Android vendor and Apple stock go down massively if this actually happens due to all non US companies switching phone vendors.
- nanoscopic 12y agoIf this annoys you at all, you should check out the 'blackphone'. It's not cheap, but if you value your privacy and security it is the phone for you. Full disclosure: I have nothing to do with this phone; it's just a cool related project.
- zobzu 12y agoI like how cliche this is. They would have written word for word "think of the children" that it would have been exactly the same.
- coldcode 12y agoIt doesn't matter what these articles say. Under what Constitutional law is law enforcement going to force Apple and Google to change their encryption systems? Perhaps the NSA and the (still unconstitutionally vague) FISA court can force them by putting a secret gun to Tim's head but ordinary non-secret law enforcement organizations have no legal way to challenge this that would pass even this Supreme Court which is where anything would eventually wind up years from now.
- kristofferR 12y agoI'm amazed at the how FBI and the Justice Department somehow managed to not notice that Apple was improving their security in iOS 8 until after iOS 8 was launched, despite months of public beta testing.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- xxdesmus 12y agoGoogle and Apple to law enforcement: hah, funny, no.
- tn13 12y agoAm I the only one who thinks this is just a farce ? Apple and Google probably simply claimed this to save their reputation and "Law Enforcement" is putting up a fight which it has already planned to lose publicly but Google and Apple will co-operate through the backdoor while giving a false sense of security to its user base ?
- Shivetya 12y agoOkay, so we know this will be changed, Apple will be forced to allow government the ability to access the information on the phone. the question I have is, will we be told before this fix is pushed out to phones and can be not update the phone to prevent its installation?
- golemotron 12y agoWas there ever a law forcing the manufacturers of safes and locks to provide access to law enforcement?
- fndrplayer13 12y agoI think this adage puts it best: You reap what you sow. If the NSA hadn't so deeply and fundamentally violated our personal privacies in addition to US and International law, I don't think we'd even need to have this conversation. But now we're having it.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- kabdib 12y agoI read the article without noticing who wrote it. Stewart Baker. Yeah, that figures.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]