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Obama: Government Can't Let Smartphones Be 'Black Boxes' (bloomberg.com)
JoeyRox writes: President Obama said Friday that smartphones -- like the iPhone the FBI is trying to force Apple to help it hack -- can't be allowed to be "black boxes," inaccessible to the government. He believes technology companies should work with the government on encryption rather than leaving the issue for Congress to decide. He went on to say, "If your argument is strong encryption no matter what, and we can and should create black boxes, that I think does not strike the kind of balance we have lived with for 200, 300 years, and it's fetishizing our phones above every other value." Obama's appearance on Friday at the event known as SXSW, the first by a sitting president, comes as the FBI tries to force Apple to help investigators access an iPhone used by one of the assailants in December's deadly San Bernardino, California, terror attack. "The question we now have to ask is, if technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system, where the encryption is so strong there's no key, there's no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?" Obama said. "If in fact you can't crack that at all, government can't get in, then everybody's walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket." He said compromise is possible and the technology industry must help design it.
Ok. So I blow up a few city blocks. In Obama's mind, I can't be arrested unless they can read my cell phone? Or does he just mean that the police will say: "We can't open the phone! Guess we should give up and go to the bar to have a few beers. No point in even trying to do an investigation. It's hopeless."
is there are going to be glaring back doors to devices?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
In the case of the San Bernadino phone, that is in the FBI's lawful possession.
I've seen this statement made several times during this debate, and wonder where it came from. While the owner of the phone is dead, presumably it along with his (or her? do we know which shooter's phone it is?) other possessions passed to their estate. Perhaps it was taken as evidence, but evidence is taken for protection from alteration until it can be presented in court, not as the property of the state (and even in the case of evidence, what trial is it being held for? We know who did it, and it is unlikely they will ever be indicted since they died in the act). Is this some interesting new application of civil forfeiture?
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
the legal authority to compel Apple to provide them with the technical ability.
IANAL and even I can tell it doesn't work that way. Since when can the government grab a doctor and order him to perform an autopsy for a trial? Since when can the government grab a lab tech and order him to run lab tests? The government sources its OWN people for this - the coroner works for the state and the court, and as such has the last word - the state's word. While the government might not actually run labs itself it contracts them to work for it under a voluntary business arrangement, not using courts to bully them into it.
If the government does not have the technical ability, it's up to the government to hire - HIRE someone who does. Usually a third party. Not use a court order to try to "force" someone who does. Apple has done no wrong, Apple did not commit the crime, Apple has absolutely no responsibility for what happened. Why do they have to be "forced" into anything, let alone give up trade secrets and IP?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Its not just the US constitution, its the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that he is disrespecting.
"Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Don't forget the millions of documents the Government has marked secret even though the documents merely embarrass them.
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
Three points
1) Encryption exists because the math has been done and is widely available. You don't have to be Apple or Google to use strong encryption. Personally I like dm-crypt with LUKS, but there are plenty of options available to secure data that don't depend on approval by the US or any government. Obama was just wrong, we've long had "black boxes" inaccessible to the government and it is literally impossible to keep them from happening. The tools already exist outside the US to securely encrypt data. If you're determined, you can even create "black box" encryption for your personal paper journal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
2) If US companies are legislated into creating back doors into their systems, then those companies will lose potential sales because a significant number of people in the world don't trust the US government. While people who really want both security and a particular brand of phone could find ways to get both despite legislated back doors, most won't because there will be easier alternatives from companies that aren't subject to US law. When Samsung decides they won't create phones subject to US restrictions, they'll sell them everywhere Apple phones used to be sold, which isn't great for Samsung if they lose US sales, but will be disastrous for US companies that would have gotten those sales. (And hired people in the US and paid taxes in the US.)
3) Each phone has a key which is encrypted with your passcode and a unique id on the phone. When you change your password, the key doesn't change, all that changes is what code it is encrypted with. There are two ways that the government could legislate access to that phone: First every phone could be required to use one of a few keys retained by the manufacturer. If any of those keys are ever shared, every phone using those keys is no longer effectively encrypted. Second, the manufacturer could keep a copy of each key used by each phone so that any one key would decrypt only one phone. You can split up the keys into parts and store them separately and offline and with different parts of each key held by different entities. That would mean that in order to secure any phone, law enforcement would have to subpoena multiple parties for each part of the key specific to the phone they want to decrypt. Either method fails for the government if a criminal cares to put in the effort, since all the criminal has to do is get the key stored in the phone originally to be changed, usually a fairly trivial hack. The downside is that the countermeasure is to have the current key always electronically transmitted home, which would likely be required, making alternatives used and US distrust more and more likely to be problems. So it isn't true that "it's only a matter of months before criminals and other nation states have that key" but the other issues are just as bad.
Find it in the Constitution. If it's not there (I'll help you out -- it's not), then the authority does not exist.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
Snowden, Manning and Assange would beg to differ on that. In fact just using logic to figure out the insane psychopathic schemes can get you in trouble and investigated as say a Russian agent, ohh ahh. How many political activists have been publicly attacked by the government, who have turned false prosecution as persecution into a fine art. This all backed up by main stream media, joining in on the attack.
No black boxes, will lets get rid of the secrets at the top first. That's exactly where the cause the most harm, kill the most people and work to actively destroy our democratic future. Apple wants to sell privacy and security because it gives them a huge marketing edge against M$ Windows anal probe 10, than fine, no problem. That M$ with it's lobbyists launches a completely corrupt attack against Apple to cripple Apple's ability to sell privacy and security, keeping the background conspiracy and collusion secret because they have basically sold us all out, is fucking awful and as evil as it gets. Corporations run government and this whole bullshit is nothing but M$ corporate manoeuvring, really lame corrupt shit.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"They want to unlock ALL phones, whenever they want."
That is EXACTLY why our phones and other devices NEED to be "black boxes" that NO ONE can break into without the encryption key. And there should be no legal way to force anyone to reveal an encryption key!
What these folks are ignoring (and hoping that we don't know about or care about) is the FACT that a backdoor for government is a backdoor for hackers and corrupt corporations as well!!! Encryption that is compromised by backdoors cannot be secure from everyone but the government. Others will always find and use those backdoors. The only answer is for there to be no backdoors! NONE! EVER!!
It's not a special case. If the government has a legal warrant & the tools to do so they can break in to my phone...that's no different than having a legal warrant & the tools to break down my door than they have a legal right to do so (of course I'd wish they'd pay for the damage but of course they don't).
In both cases I can apply a lock to my property & the government can't mandate that the lock I apply to my physical properly has to be made to be 'less secure than I damn well want it to be'...but that's what they are saying you should have to do with your phone (or presumably any digital device with data I encrypt).
Or lets take this to a reasonably similar comparison level. Let's say I have some physical papers & I put them in a safe. Nothing says I can't make that safe so secure that if you don't know EXACTLY how to open it than the papers will be destroyed. I'm not just talking about having a combination or something that could be guessed but rather you could make it that if 10 guesses were entered incorrectly than acid would leak out all over the papers to destroy them...take it to whatever level necessary to make it 'reasonably equivalent' to the security in the iPhone. So now the government could try to physically bypass the lock (crowbars, explosives, drills, what have you)...but in all those cases I could design the safe to destroy the contents (again with acid, and of course if the government tried to blow it open with explosives you could just make it so thick that the explosive alone could destroy the papers)....long story short physically securing my physical papers in this way is allowed & there's 0 the government can do about it with or without a warrant...if on the other hand the government tried to pass a law saying safes could only be 'this secure' but no more and that we MUST always have backdoors to our valuables allowing the government to bypass any security we chose to use THAN we'd be protesting like crazy.
So, nobody anywhere is saying the government with a valid warrant can't TRY to access the information, what we're saying is that "we aren't obligated to reduce our security to help them".
As such there's no difference here at all other than the government not wanting every peon on the planet to have the ability to make their lives harder...too bad, the rules aren't set up to make the government's life easier to subjugate their people...and if you don't think that happens you haven't been paying attention.
Bingo. He was the one I was going to name. He specifically warned not just against the military and industry, but Government and education and "big science". What's interesting is the old General Eisenhower - the military man, born, bred, and raised - ended up being the most libertarian, personal freedom loving President we've had.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Computers can easily be rendered "a black box". This has been the case to a great degree since the 90s, and absolutely since the mid-aughties.
Here's the logical results of this kind of shitbaggery coming to pass:
1)- When you mandate the mobile guys make backdoors, this will also mean that you can't EVER have an open source phone. Because the open source stuff won't have a backdoor.
2)- Since phones are just computers, this law, however it is written, can be interpreted to apply to ANY general purpose computer. You can wholesale ban all encryption that way, but most importantly, you can and MUST ban open source firmware, open source OS, every single thing.
These things aren't "slippery slopes" or hypotheticals- any law that is passed WILL INEVITABLY be that. It may not be ENFORCED as that immediately, but I could claim your PC is a phone by any legal definition the government sees fit to use.
Literally no presidential candidate is on the correct side of this issue, and neither is the president. Congress hasn't been clueless... yet. Surprisingly.
I think I finally came up with a word, a single word, to describe Obama - and it's consistent throughout his nationally public career.
"Condescending."
I've been alive since 1957. He's the most condescending president I've ever seen. Sadly, I don't think most people have noticed it and I wasn't really able to put a word to it until just a few seconds ago when I was reading your post. I can think of lots of words but that one seems to sum it up nicely - at least for me.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."