James Comey: the Man Who Wants To Outlaw Encryption

Patrick O'Neill writes: "There has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security in our response to terrorism in this country and in our efforts to offer security to the people of the United States," said James Comey, now the director of the FBI. Comey was the number two man in the Department of Justice during the Bush years when NSA and law enforcement surveillance of Americans grew to unprecedented heights. Now he's pushing to stop encryption by default on Apple and Android devices.

Comments

Seriously...?

[Nostromo21]

And this guy is the director of the FBI...for real? :-/

Re:Seriously...?

[davester666]

Everyone's broken some law. He's just going through the list of people in the US.

But it's hard to go out and investigate, come up with leads, run them down. Instead, you just have all the major ISPs [wired and wireless] track who is using encrypted communications, and report to you their name, address and current physical location. Then you make up a reason to search through their home, financial records and internet history [thanks for the data, NSA], and you'll find something.

Re:Seriously...?

[mark-t]

Good people have plenty to hide.... primarily from bad people, mind you, but plenty to to hide nonetheless.

Re:Seriously...?

[Anonymous Coward]

And some of those bad people work for the government. What's very disturbing to me is the NSA, CIA, and FBI are now shopping their services around to every podunk police department and also largish corporations. With what appears to be no vetting or tracking how the information is used. Nothing but systematic abuse will come out of this.

Re:Seriously...?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a lawyer, a theologian and a chemist.

You would think at least the chemist would realize this is impossible.

He sounds like a terrorist according to the government definition. Weapons of Mass Destruction + Religion = terrorist. The fact he is a lawyer raises further suspicions.

Re:Seriously...?

[Jason Levine]

A "backdoor" isn't a fantasy. The quote was "“You can't build a backdoor that only the good guys can walk through,” The key words are "only the good guys." Say I make an incredible encryption tool but build in a backdoor for the FBI to use. (Arguably, this makes the encryption tool no longer "incredible", but just accept it for now.) The theory is that only the FBI uses this backdoor while the hackers try in vain to break into the front door. The reality, though, is that - after trying the front door - the hackers will examine the encryption and will discover the open back door. Then, it's just a matter of time before they figure out how to get into it.

You can make a backdoor to any program. What you can't do is keep "bad guys" from entering that back door while allowing "good guys" in. If a backdoor exists, the bad guys WILL find it and WILL exploit it. It's just a matter of time.

Re:Seriously...?

[ATMAvatar]

I'm not sure why we keep talking about good guys and bad guys. With their invasive surveillance and contempt for our liberties, it's pretty clear that the NSA, FBI, et. al. are the "bad guys", too.

Re:Seriously...?

[Jason Levine]

That's true. For the purposes of my comment, I was assuming that the FBI were "good guys" because they keep saying they are the good guys and need a "good guys only" backdoor. Even if we make the huge assumption that they are good guys and would never abuse it, a "good guys only" backdoor would still be used by "bad guys" as well.

Re:Seriously...?

[Maritz]

Agreed entirely. And to rub salt in that particular wound, by cheerleading for the terroists' competency they're making the fight against them go much worse. Terrorism thrives on being taken seriously, and their interests/incentives align exactly with western politicians on that.

Re:Seriously...?

[Opportunist]

More precisely a government only backdoor is a fantasy. Yes, you could try to install some PKI to secure it, but how long 'til someone who has access to the private key is offered enough money? We're talking governments and whole industries more than willing to not only pay you enough to put you on the Fortune 500 list but also ensure you won't be bothered by law enforcement should they ever notice it.

Not to mention that this would be the death spell for any US based software company. If I KNOW that my secrets are the US government's (and, in extension, any rival US corporation's), I CANNOT use software made in the USA anymore for anything remotely sensitive. I can't envision MS, Oracle et al take this without a fight to the point of moving their HQ.

This is what the war on terror gives us.

[bejiitas_wrath]

More and more surveillance of Americans instead of the supposed enemies. This is the US after 9/11 and the Boston bombing. Welcome to 1984.

Re:This is what the war on terror gives us.

[Jason Levine]

Notice that it's the "War on Terror" and not the "War on Terrorists."

Step 1: Government instills fear into the populace. (e.g. There are terrorists behind every corner waiting to blow you up!)
Step 2: The Government wages war on the terror it created by making the people feel safe (while actually gathering more powers for itself).
Step 3: Repeat Steps 1 & 2 until "terror" is destroyed. (Which, since they keep creating more terror to combat, mean repeat ad infinitum.)

correct

[roman_mir]

Correct, there has not been a tradeoff between liberty and security in our response to terrorism in this country and in our efforts to offer security to the people of the United States. What there has been is a complete and utter disregard for liberty and destruction of individual rights. Forget tradeoffs, the Constitution was abolished, that is what happened.

Liberty?

[Etherwalk]

False, although mostly true so far. Notably, the intrusiveness of airport security has gone way up, for the big example on the false side.

Mostly what there's been so far has been a tradeoff between *privacy* and security. As in none of the former.

I feel for the guy--his job is to prevent another 9/11. He gets the call if a city blows up. And he probably really cares about defending liberty.

But unfortunately, pervasive surveillance without amazingly well-engineered procedural oversight and security will inevitably lead to tyranny. Anyone who doesn't see that isn't stepping far enough back. He's concerned about the next five years; I'm concerned about the next twenty or fifty.

I suppose there's an AI issue, too--a singularity is going to get into this data in a few decades. I can't predict what an AI a hundred times smarter than any of us might do with it.

Re:Liberty?

[swillden]

In order to trade off some of A to get some of B, you have to actually get some of B. In this case, we've given a lot of A and gotten nothing for it.

Re:Hyperbole Much?

[epyT-R]

Yeah, but the reason he wants the default of 'no' is to make it easier to monitor communications. He doesn't give a shit about the 4th, naturally. The government shouldn't be dictating the default setting either, which is what he wants.

Keep all your doors unlocked too

[greggman]

because we might need to look in your house for terrorists. Also get rid of locks on car doors because we might want to randomly search your car

Re:Hyperbole Much?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why we need encryption to be ON by default. So we don't let these idiots use that argument. The peasant public will always fall for it, it's for the children after all.

No matter how wrong they are they will always argue that encryption is suspicious until it is always activated by default. And with Snowden's revelation that is far from unreasonable to expect that from our software.

Re:Where were gun nuts during Occupy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that rancher who had SWAT teams descend on his ranch intending to kill and bury his cattle "for taxes unpaid"? His neighbors showed up with rifles and the government employees started acting more polite.

Re:That is a totally wrong approach

[TheGratefulNet]

I'm not sure why so many of you think that the fbi (etc) actually CARE about solving crimes.

lets be honest, these jobs attract sociopaths. funny (yeah, right) that these are the very people we have trusted to catch those very kinds of people.

quick question: what's the diff between a cop and a thug? ans: one has the legal right to bash your head.

these 'folks' all entered for the wrong reason. if you have any experience with human pyschology you know this. authority jobs attract the worst kinds of people. they enter the field to abuse their power. and they do a 'good job' of it, in almost all cases.

so, they are there to enjoy their power and to watch citizens suffer and plead with them for their freedom and lives. super power trips.

whatever makes them MORE powerful is what they seek. that's why they are all so totally for any kind of spying. it does not save us, it has never helped us but they all seem to enjoy their little LOVEINT spying and all the rest.

and so, when they ask for 'stop using encryption' its not because they think it helps bad guys; it basically stops them from having THEIR FUN at your expense.

everyone here has run into bullies who simply enjoy knocking heads and punching people (or worse). I submit that 90% of the staff of any of those three letter agencies all share the same sociopathic personality trait. they may not be physically big guys or big bullies but they all have the bully 'respect mah authority!' attitude and would simply love to make trouble for you if you don't cower in their presence.

the whole lot of them should be hanged as traitors. and then we can rethink what kinds of people we should HAVE in positions of high authority. what we have now is all the wrong people with all the wrong reasons for being there.