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> Searching a cell phone is much more than what they would get from searching a home. What I was trying to get at was that we interact with other people in a v

> Searching a cell phone is much more than what they would get from searching a home. What I was trying to get at was that we interact with other people in a very different manner than we did two decades ago. I don't see any reason that the means through which police gather evidence shouldn't reflect such a change. Is it your opinion that searching a cell phone is so invasive that we shouldn't allow it with a warrant? > Encryption has existed longer than the United States. A warrant grants them the ability to look at your stuff, it doesn't imply that they'll be able to understand it, or even that you'll have kept any stuff worth looking at. Back then, if I wanted to keep my correspondence secure I'd pull out my disappearing ink and Vigenere ciphers and actively go about protecting what I wrote. This isn't a case of people taking steps to protect their data, it's someone else (Apple) stepping in to encrypt their data, and changing the way that they were encrypting it so as to actively prevent cooperation with law enforcement. They were cooperating before with cases involving encrypted cell phones, now they are not. This isn't a decision that a criminal suspect made to protect their data - this is a decision that a tech company made on their behalf. I don't have a problem a problem with people actively encrypting their own data, I have a problem with a tech company making a purely political decision to change their encryption algorithm which has the potential to impact any criminal investigation that involves a new iPhone. > For example, shouldn't you have the same objection to Snapchat as you have to encryption? Was Snapchat assisting law enforcement with criminal investigations before?

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> What I was trying to get at was that we interact with other people in a very different manner than we did two decades ago. I don't see any reason that the means through which police gather evidence shouldn't reflect such a change. Is it your opinion that searching a cell phone is so invasive that we shouldn't allow it with a warrant? You're conflating whether they can get a warrant with whether the warrant produces anything again. > This isn't a decision that a criminal suspect made to protect their data - this is a decision that a tech company made on their behalf. What significance are you attributing to that distinction? Encryption on devices with the relevant hardware instructions is basically free; the user receives no practical benefit from not using it. What purpose is there in presenting the user with a choice that every rational user will make the same way? > I don't have a problem a problem with people actively encrypting their own data, I have a problem with a tech company making a purely political decision to change their encryption algorithm which has the potential to impact any criminal investigation that involves a new iPhone. What does it matter what they were doing before? You seem to be saying that whether Snapchat should be allowed should be based on whether or not the same company had a previous product that stored messages indefinitely. That makes no sense.
- csandreasen 11y ago
  I feel like we're just going back and forth with the exact same points - when the warrant used to produce something, but no longer does it poses an issue for law enforcement. In this case, it's not the suspect that made that choice to prevent law enforcement from gaining access. > Encryption on devices with the relevant hardware instructions is basically free; the user receives no practical benefit from not using it. What purpose is there in presenting the user with a choice that every rational user will make the same way? It's not free - encrypting data always comes with the risk that you're going to lose the means to decrypt it. I can think of two people I know who in one case put full disk encryption on their cell phone and in the other case put full disk encryption on their laptop. After rebooting a week or two, both had forgotten the passwords they used and lost all of the data on them. Neither of them encrypt their devices anymore. Encryption can make data recovery a pain in the butt. I've had encrypted e-mails in my mail archives that I've discovered that I no longer have the private key for - it got replaced a year prior, the new key got migrated to a new computer without the old one, and the old computer eventually got wiped and repurposed. Yeah, it was my mistake for not backing up my old GPG key. I'd put a hefty share of the blame on my two friends as well for their encryption woes as well. But that's the point - we make mistakes, and strong encryption isn't very forgiving. It's a trade-off that not everyone is going to make, especially for data they don't consider sensitive; I've lived with people who have to go through password recovery every two weeks or so. Personally, I wouldn't encrypt something that I'm only going to access once every 5 years or so; I'd use some other solution like making an unencrypted backup on some removable media and storing it in a secure place.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > I feel like we're just going back and forth with the exact same points - when the warrant used to produce something, but no longer does it poses an issue for law enforcement. In this case, it's not the suspect that made that choice to prevent law enforcement from gaining access. You keep saying these things but I don't see how they're relevant. Are you saying that if the original iPhone had the same encryption as the current one then there would be no issue for law enforcement, but because it didn't now there is? Why is that? If your logic is to stand, doesn't that mean that all new device manufacturers need to make everything difficult for law enforcement by default or else lose their ability to decide otherwise later? Is that really the incentive you want?

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> What I was trying to get at was that we interact with other people in a very different manner than we did two decades ago. I don't see any reason that the means through which police gather evidence shouldn't reflect such a change. Is it your opinion that searching a cell phone is so invasive that we shouldn't allow it with a warrant? You're conflating whether they can get a warrant with whether the warrant produces anything again. > This isn't a decision that a criminal suspect made to protect their data - this is a decision that a tech company made on their behalf. What significance are you attributing to that distinction? Encryption on devices with the relevant hardware instructions is basically free; the user receives no practical benefit from not using it. What purpose is there in presenting the user with a choice that every rational user will make the same way? > I don't have a problem a problem with people actively encrypting their own data, I have a problem with a tech company making a purely political decision to change their encryption algorithm which has the potential to impact any criminal investigation that involves a new iPhone. What does it matter what they were doing before? You seem to be saying that whether Snapchat should be allowed should be based on whether or not the same company had a previous product that stored messages indefinitely. That makes no sense.

csandreasen 11y ago
I feel like we're just going back and forth with the exact same points - when the warrant used to produce something, but no longer does it poses an issue for law enforcement. In this case, it's not the suspect that made that choice to prevent law enforcement from gaining access. > Encryption on devices with the relevant hardware instructions is basically free; the user receives no practical benefit from not using it. What purpose is there in presenting the user with a choice that every rational user will make the same way? It's not free - encrypting data always comes with the risk that you're going to lose the means to decrypt it. I can think of two people I know who in one case put full disk encryption on their cell phone and in the other case put full disk encryption on their laptop. After rebooting a week or two, both had forgotten the passwords they used and lost all of the data on them. Neither of them encrypt their devices anymore. Encryption can make data recovery a pain in the butt. I've had encrypted e-mails in my mail archives that I've discovered that I no longer have the private key for - it got replaced a year prior, the new key got migrated to a new computer without the old one, and the old computer eventually got wiped and repurposed. Yeah, it was my mistake for not backing up my old GPG key. I'd put a hefty share of the blame on my two friends as well for their encryption woes as well. But that's the point - we make mistakes, and strong encryption isn't very forgiving. It's a trade-off that not everyone is going to make, especially for data they don't consider sensitive; I've lived with people who have to go through password recovery every two weeks or so. Personally, I wouldn't encrypt something that I'm only going to access once every 5 years or so; I'd use some other solution like making an unencrypted backup on some removable media and storing it in a secure place.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > I feel like we're just going back and forth with the exact same points - when the warrant used to produce something, but no longer does it poses an issue for law enforcement. In this case, it's not the suspect that made that choice to prevent law enforcement from gaining access. You keep saying these things but I don't see how they're relevant. Are you saying that if the original iPhone had the same encryption as the current one then there would be no issue for law enforcement, but because it didn't now there is? Why is that? If your logic is to stand, doesn't that mean that all new device manufacturers need to make everything difficult for law enforcement by default or else lose their ability to decide otherwise later? Is that really the incentive you want?