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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."
In the UK apparently there are certain notable people pushing for a ban on encrypted services with no back door or centrally stored keys. And they can find plenty of support for such a ban in Europe. Now Obama tells us that crypto without back doors is doubleplus ungood. If these services get banned, it hardly matters if they get moved offshore. Perhaps they will start blocking encrypted traffic or simply monitor traffic and fine anyone using unsanctioned crypto.
Still, if it'll get rid of FB...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
How can the legal system push on this. Facebook can't comply with the order. A refusal in USA law (and I think virtually all other law) requires that you be able to do something. This isn't a question of law it is a question of fact. Enforcement agencies and much of the legal profession simply disbelieve that encryption is based upon mathematical principles that technology companies have no way of breaking. They will lose because the math of encryption is well known and well understood.