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How the FBI Hacks Around Encryption
Advocatus Diaboli writes with this story at The Intercept about how little encryption slows down law enforcement despite claims to the contrary. To hear FBI Director James Comey tell it, strong encryption stops law enforcement dead in its tracks by letting terrorists, kidnappers and rapists communicate in complete secrecy. But that's just not true. In the rare cases in which an investigation may initially appear to be blocked by encryption — and so far, the FBI has yet to identify a single one — the government has a Plan B: it's called hacking.
Hacking — just like kicking down a door and looking through someone's stuff — is a perfectly legal tactic for law enforcement officers, provided they have a warrant. And law enforcement officials have, over the years, learned many ways to install viruses, Trojan horses, and other forms of malicious code onto suspects' devices. Doing so gives them the same access the suspects have to communications — before they've been encrypted, or after they've been unencrypted.
Hacking — just like kicking down a door and looking through someone's stuff — is a perfectly legal tactic for law enforcement officers, provided they have a warrant. And law enforcement officials have, over the years, learned many ways to install viruses, Trojan horses, and other forms of malicious code onto suspects' devices. Doing so gives them the same access the suspects have to communications — before they've been encrypted, or after they've been unencrypted.
Around here, the people who style themselves "Libertarians" are twerps who want to be able to drive their BMW's down well-maintained public highways while screaming "Tax is Theft!"
And they're registered as Republicans, not Libertarians.
Republicans are demonstrably just as much into government control as Democrats. The only difference being in what they want the government controlling. Just because Reagan said something once doesn't make the Republican Party a Libertarian party. Especially since by today's uncompromising Republican standards, Reagan judged without his name attached would be condemned as a flaming Liberal.