Slashdot Mirror
WhatsApp Encryption Said To Stymie Wiretap Order (nytimes.com)
bsharma writes from an article on the New York Times: WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, allows customers to send messages and make phone calls over the Internet. In the last year, the company has been adding encryption to those conversations, making it impossible for the Justice Department to read or eavesdrop, even with a judge's wiretap order. [As recently as this past week, officials said,] the Justice Department was discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap, but investigators were stymied by WhatsApp's encryption. (WhatsApp uses Signal software developed by Open Whisper Systems.)
"WhatsApp cannot provide information we do not have," the company said this month when Brazilian police arrested a Facebook executive after the company failed to turn over information about a customer who was the subject of a drug trafficking investigation. "The F.B.I. and the Justice Department are just choosing the exact circumstance to pick the fight that looks the best for them," said Peter Eckersley, the chief computer scientist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital rights. "They're waiting for the case that makes the demand look reasonable."
I mean, if the legal system pushes too hard at FB, they should just move off shore. That will be interesting to watch. In fact, FB could easily move [all] their infrastructure offshore, but still remain relevant to its US users.
That way, they can claim not to be an American company and still be able to reap the benefits of being one. How about that?
Not only are they now not hiding the fact that your everyday electronic conversation is subject to surveillance, the governors are openly attempting to quash any resistance.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
....1 story how if we where living in a totalitarian despotic regime under marshal law would save 1 kid from having their pipi touched and bam PPL will be lining up to give up their privacy and freedom all in the name of safety for the children.
It's just a matter of time.
But they're SOL, it's never reasonable to do what they want, and the proof that it's unreasonable is just piling up in the meantime.
adding encryption to those conversations, making it impossible for the Justice Department to read or eavesdrop, even with a judge's wiretap order.
Bullshit - nothing prevents them from reading / listening in. Encryption might however prevent them from understanding the content, no different from exercising a search warrant and finding papers with incomprehensible text which they might believe be for instance a ledger of drug sales.
Cops won't get any sympathy from me on that one. Ah well, the good thing is when the big chat companies fall down on privacy, any developer can fill in with their own. I don't see a problem in that regard. Of course that only means anything if the encryption is truly effective.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"the Justice Department was discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap, but investigators were stymied by WhatsApp's encryption"
Sounds like a team on a stakeout discussing the frosted glass in one of the suspect's windows.
They're waiting for the case that makes the demand look reasonable.
I'm not sure how that will help.
Even if the demand looks reasonable, WhatsApp can't turn over decryption keys they don't possess.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We apparently are rapidly approaching living in a world where normal, law-abiding citizens of the United States will be treated like criminals, or animals in a zoo, or small children that never grow up: surveilled all day, every day of their lives. Some of you say we're already there and it's too late, but I beg to differ for the simple reason that I can be posting these words in relative anonymity (i.e. under a pseudonym) on the public Internet, without any fear of having my door kicked in when I'm asleep, being beated, black-bagged, and dragged off to some enprisonment somewhere, with no due process, legal representation, etc, because I dared to criticize the government (unlike some countries). But if you take a step or two back from everything and take a good hard look at it, that's the direction things seem to be going, now isn't it? We have politicians all throughout our government who want to destroy the efficacy of encryption, ostensibly for reasons of national security ('we have to keep America safe!') and law enforcement ('how will we catch pedophiles?') -- except for two points: one, how did we manage to catch criminals and terrorists before, and two, how can so many politicians, including out current POTUS, manage to have such terrible technology advisers, that they all don't understand that what they're asking for is more or less equivalent to outlawing encryption entirely? I really didn't want to believe it, but the answer is simple: They know damned well that what they're asking destroys encryption, they've all been advised that it destroys encryption, and they've all said 'I don't give a damn, and you won't say otherwise to anyone or you're fired!'. They don't care about anyone's privacy, they don't care if people get their data and/or identity stolen, they want control of everyone all the time, the ability to poke around into anyone's life, regardless of the lack of evidence of criminal or terrorist activity, regardless of their Constitutional rights, regardless of their Human rights, and regardless of how anyone else feels about it. My last, best hope is that the politicians, political activists, and citizens who are paying attention and understand what's going on, are enough to at least hold off the coming of the dystopian future dictatorship until I'm long dead so I don't have to deal with it; at best, there might still be a slim hope that there is enough power for the people left in the Constitution and the people in D.C. who are defending it, to pull us back from the no-return point, and get these anal-retentitive, power-hungry types out of positions of authority, and return control of the country to The People. Otherwise, look to the Middle East, to countries like Syria and the Assad regime, for how, in the dystopian future, U.S. citizens will be treated by it's government. I'm talking about a world where people in the U.S. will be fleeing it's government to even places like mainland China, because even there it'll be better than living here.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
have access to everyone's nether regions at all times.
Law enforcement will have to wait their turn. The IRS has their cock up there right now.
Are phone scramblers illegal now?
They've been selling those for, what, 50 years?
Even with a good software emulation of only a 3 wheel Enigma machine, If the default settings are changed each time, Rotor, wheels , and Jumpers . And the code is changed each time , Nobody can break that encryption unless like the Turing machine , they know one or 2 words in the message . and like the germen failure failed signed messages with same 2 words
So fake it's not even funny.
Iphones are busted wide open, so is whatsapp and any other major service that people think is secure.
This is basically cops pretending they can't hear you on your walkie-talkie bought from Walmart as you read off coordinates for drug meetups.
They are literally all over these systems and simply telling you via some well crafted media stories that it's secure using reverse psychology.
They are steering you towards the broken services rather than complaining about true security. It's all a sham.
These are the people, being the Federal government, to whom want us to register and possibly surrender firearms.
the Justice Department was discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap, but investigators were stymied by WhatsApp's encryption
Easy, issue a statement saying "This is what you assholes get for all the illegal wiretaps, what did you expect would happen?" It's not like people are using encryption for the fun of it.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Imagine police want the ability to demand that MasterLock hand over the keys for the front door of any address. The idiocy of that behaviour is apparent and also unnecessary since there are other ways into a house. Alternative entry isn't possible with cryptography so police are demanding that the service provider own all the keys, like a deposit-box safe. The problem with that is known: There's an established procedure for accessing a safe deposit-box and it is time limited. There is no such procedure for accessing digital data and the government is working to keep it that way. The laws regarding digital data allow the government to avoid all the limitations parallel to accessing a safe deposit-box. The result is and will continue to be, unlimited use of those digital data keys.
Trying to unlock a dead man's phone doesn't look good. Maybe they're hoping that screaming terrorist!" will induce compliance like it did in the past.
DoJ can charge all Facebook employees on RICO, conspiracy, attempted murder, interfering with Federal Criminal Investigation (s), wire fraud, money laundering, child pornography and Treason Against the United States of America.
After arraignment, Zuckerberg and his smurfs can tour the US Federal Prison System's Maximum Security Holding Cells across US States and Territories.
Bon voyage Zuckyski.
Ha ha
From the porn I've seen, this is no impediment...
I a city where I live one can go to the city center or a park and meet pushers in person.
You mean like they already do in order to avoid paying their taxes?
You mean like they already legally do in order to avoid paying their taxes?