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US Says It Would Use 'Court System' Again To Defeat Encryption (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: U.S. government officials from the FBI director down have said repeatedly that the FBI-Apple legal brouhaha was just about a single phone -- the seized iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters. And just last week, James Comey, the FBI director, said his fight with Apple wasn't about setting precedent; rather, it was about battling terrorism. But it seems that the storyline has changed. The Justice Department now says it will not hesitate to invoke the precedent it won in its iPhone unlocking case. Having won the court and technological battle a triumphant Department of Justice warned late Monday that its legal battle for what many say amounts to judicially ordered encryption backdoors has only just begun. "It remains a priority for the government to ensure that law enforcement can obtain crucial digital information to protect national security and public safety, either with cooperation from relevant parties, or through the court system when cooperation fails," Melanie Newman, a Justice Department spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to Ars. "We will continue to pursue all available options for this mission, including seeking the cooperation of manufacturers and relying upon the creativity of both the public and private sectors."
Add the letters "ab" to the front of "use" and you'll get a better idea of what the FBI appears to want to do with the courts in this case...
...Apple overlords!
There are still people who believes government lies.
It was obvious right from the beginning that it wasn't about one phone. Enjoy what remain of your privacy while you can.
Now, can I have my +5 mod? Well, I am AC, so I will probably get beaten to it by a logged-in user with a karma bonus.
So now the FBI is claiming they won the court battle? Shameless.
Did the FBI just get one judge to issue an illegal order, then they withdrew the case while that order was under appeal, and claim a precedent-setting win?
They won't risk the liability issues that can affect their stock price, or possibly mean jail for the executives. Only the open source crowd can mitigate the threat, through anonymous development if need be. Whatever it takes.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
i knew as soon as they got the order the case would be dropped and they would announce they got into the phone. this entire bs was about setting a legal precedent.
Laws and rules exist so we can rule over you. If you won't bend a knee, we'll break it. And make no mistake, we're accountable to no one. That's the attitude throughout the US government.
Of course you aren't. Everyone who isn't in the government was saying this since the FBI first demanded it.
But the real terrorists do not use encryption like that. They don't have to.
The government is trying to push the narrative that the world is just like a Hollywood movie. It isn't. We do not need to give up our privacy so that the government can fight the "bad" men.
When you weaken encryption, you just make the "good" people more vulnerable to criminals.
patriot act 2 will fix this!
Of course the FBI & the DOJ will prosecute their 3rd party helpers to the fullest extent possible for DMCA violations, right? I mean that iPhone didn't just unencrypt itself...
When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
Both Apple & the government of the USA have learned from the recent spat, partly on the technical front and also on how to present their case in the court of public opinion.
Apple will further remove its ability to break into encrypted 'phones but as importantly be able to paint in bad colours any government that tries to make it do such things. This is assuming that this was not for show to fool ''undesirables'' that Apple 'phones are safe - something that would benefit Apple (more sales) and the government (more good data on the 'phones that it cracks).
The government will look for an even more compelling case so that it can accuse Apple of helping terrorists/paedophiles/... and so win the legal case that sets precedent or be able to pass laws that let it do so.
...the makers of devices and encryption software will fight the US with every fiber of their beings...
Out of curiosity are all safe manufacturers in the United States required to provided master keys to all of their locking mechanisms to the FBI? If a criminal happens to throw some important evidence in a safe do they go after the safe manufacturers?
I was under the impression that the FBI brought in a professional to crack the safe for them. Or if they were really desperate they just blew the thing up knowing that they might damage the contents. Doesn't the same apply here?
.... What's old is new again!
And you call the FBI to report it, they don't do anything.
They want weak encryption (or no encryption) that is easily cracked, with plenty of backdoors, and then when criminals expose these weaknesses, the government does nothing to protect the citizens from crime.
But hey, shoot up a private party, and as long as you have a funny-sounding name and vaguely brownish skin color, then the government wants to protect you, at any cost.
Of course, double standard -- if you're a white christian male and you shoot up a school full of kids, the response is "hey, shit happens", and the government does nothing.
Really, this country is fucked. Completely.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Shit got vacated. That means the court order they obtained in the Farook iPhone case is null and void.
They talking about the weak one they got in New York? Yea, that one won't fly very far, either.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
U.S. government forces Microsoft and Apple to put backdoors into their products equals nobody buying anything from these two American companies anymore.
The U.S. government is destroying its own economy!
On further reflection, perhaps a 3 key system. All individualized. 1 key held by you, 1 by Apple and 1 by government. Any 2 can be used to decyrpt the data at rest on your phone.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Gee. if only the FBI put as much work into making sure automatic weapons don't get into the hands of criminals as much as they worried about telephones getting into the hands of criminals.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Of course they'll say that. It's not like THEY'RE paying for it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
We already know secret courts have approved things "for the benfit of the people" to protect them.
The various elements of the US government are already doing the things they wish to "make legal".
It's not about terrorism or even about setting a precedent because that already happened "legally", in a court ruling you never knew existed. IMHO this is about saving face and following the "proper channels" to act in a manner that is acceptable by the multitudes.
You think all the money, time and effort put into mass surveillance and weakening encryption is just going to go away because it's no legal? it wasn't legal to begin with but it happened.
They want to go through a regular court, backed by "the people" (preferably by popular consensus) that will give them the power they already have so next time it will all be legal and "acceptable" because Joe Sixpack agreed.
They will try again and again in many guises until it becomes law. It would have been pushed regardless of who you voted for because you have no vote in matters of security. It cannot be discussed because we're being protected in our name, against our will.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Not sure if a word in your subject line is missing a "k" or an "h"...
Blank until
Slow Down Guys!! I need a nice story on IoT catboxes or maybe a calm bit on programming lava lamps. This government mind-fuck crap needs a rest. PLEASE!!
This just gives Apple the push it needs to make the next gen of phones even more secure than the 5S, 6 and 6S.
The FBI thought they had it easy using Cellibrite to unlock a 5C which doesn't even have a dedicated encryption chip, they've got another thing coming.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
A couple of things.
First, firearms are already pretty heavily regulated (i.e. handguns, assault weapons, ammo gauge, military grade firepower)
Second, the government already has a long standing ability to search and seizure through proper channels. What makes a phone different?
IMO, there is definitely room for compromise here.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
*Or* maybe just a 1 key system
And the person owning the device is the only one who holds it.
Now we have a winner.
Now why would I ever buy a phone like that??
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Who needs pesky laws when you have a court system in your back pocket.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The FBI hacks expose the US energy and research infrastructure to backdoor and frontdoor hacks that are now being used by state and non-state players, Russia, China, and ISIL, to attack us.
SHUT DOWN THESE HACKS!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Apple refused to sabotage their equipment. The courts refused to order them to do so.
They proved they didn't need to sabotage the software. Demonstrating lie to their own words.
Now this idiot thinks he can still win? The more he pushes, the more we will push back. Better for him to leave it up in the air without a legal ruling declaring his desired actions unconstitional.
If he pushes more, we will push back and he will find himself wearing uncomfortable restrictions ordered by the SCOTUS.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Did the FBI just get one judge to issue an illegal order, then they withdrew the case while that order was under appeal, and claim a precedent-setting win?
Claiming a win? Sure, because you have people with careers having the biggest-profile case in their life who want to keep their jobs and careers from taking a black mark. Realistically it was sort of a draw and sort of a "let's back the hell off because we might lose this one right now..."
But not exactly on the order. The order wasn't illegal; it's just that it basically issued but Apple could challenge it legally. The briefing to the magistrate judge (which was basically the government vs. the entire tech industry, and was maybe the most extensively briefed issue at the magistrate level in history), would have been the place where it was decided in the first instance, with appeals from there to the district court judge, the court of appeals, and then a petition for (and likely grant of) a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court, where we would have gotten an answer that would probably change when Congress changed the law.
They withdrew their enforcement action of that one order. The order itself, never having been quashed, is thus considered to have stood, albeit it was never enforced. Only actual decisions are precedent, not cases that never made it to judgement.
There is still a decision on the books which gave them the order which would only be contradicted by another actual ruling, such as if they had had gone to judgement and lost on appeal. The fact that they decided not to continue to pursue enforcement doesn't mean they lost their case, and without a decision, there is no ruling to overturn the existing precedent.
That said, the precedent could just as easily be overturned by the next court to look at it, as it would have been by this court. So they're just stating that they are willing to try again because they weren't slapped down, it doesn't mean that they now have an ironclad case to challenge an appeal.
All they need now is a "Mission Accomplished!" banner.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I'm not sure why "court system" is in quotes in the headline, but I like how it implies the courts are a sham really when it comes to the government wanting to get its way to fight "terrorism".
You wouldn't. Which is why they outlaw all phones that don't comply and make it so that non-compliant phones can't access the network.
the justice department has become the terrorists.
But hey, shoot up a private party, and as long as you have a funny-sounding name and vaguely brownish skin color, then the government wants to protect you, at any cost.
So the government protects you if you're a minority. And that's bad.
Of course, double standard -- if you're a white christian male and you shoot up a school full of kids, the response is "hey, shit happens", and the government does nothing.
Really, this country is fucked. Completely.
But the government protects you if you're a white Christian male. And that's bad.
So wait ... what was your point again?
Nope, no sig
Besides the terrible idea that the govt + Apple can unlock it without my permission, they can also prevent me from being able to unlock it myself.
-5 WTF Is He Smoking
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Second, the government already has a long standing ability to search and seizure through proper channels.
Exactly. These legal battles are trying to redefine "proper channels" to be "whenever we damn well feel like it."
BOHICA
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
FBI: We will use the courts to gain access (we will bludgeon you into submission) to build on this great win. Now if you will excuse me I need to get this anal tearing repaired.
I guess I didn't completely understand the case. I thought the judge had only said that they intended to issue the order, but gave Apple a chance to respond. Apple was never even told that the FBI had asked for the AWA order. They found out about it from the FBI's press release.
That said, when Apple was actually allowed to respond to a AWA order in New York, the FBI got sent packing. That sounds like a much stronger precedent than this case. This case was decided by a judge only hearing one side of an argument with the other party not even present.
A lot of people expected this one to go the same way as New York, once the hearing started. It was pretty obvious the FBI was getting nervous about it.
In other news, I just beat the New England Patriots in a football game, single handed! The final score was 210 to 0. The fact that I didn't tell them I was planning to play against them today, and they weren't even in California at the time, in no way detracts from my historic victory.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
"US Says It Would Use 'Court System' Again To Defeat Encryption"
Yet, the failed. There is no "Again" since they did not use the court system to defeat the encryption. This is all just PR and spin propaganda about their failure and intimidation tactics. I'd love to see the Supreme Court reach down and nail this government vampire with a wooden stake to kill government overreach and abuse of powers. Dreaming...
You mean you weren't the first in line to buy a phone with the Clipper chip in it?
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
If and when the Gov. gets this mandated back door it immediately takes on the responsibility to ensure that everyone who purchase said encryption software has in fact a reliable and safe encryption application. As such if and when said application's has been compromised the Gov. will immediately, not weeks, months or years later but as soon as it has been broken, pay for a new version with new encryption keys for everyone who purchased said application. The Gov. wants a back door to an application then the Gov. takes on the responsibility for ensuring the application is available to all users. If it's broke the Gov. fixes it for free!
Yeah, I guess I'll have to wait for the miracle of 3D printing to make my own.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Yeah, idiot, just make friends with farmers. Gasoline farmers, rental property farmers, bread farmers, beer farmers, insurance farmers, electricity farmers, sewage treatment farmers, trash can farmers. You know, farmers! When it's time to pay your mortgage you put a gold bar in an envelope and send it to your lender. If they don't want to accept it just tell them to make friends with farmers.
Little known fact: you can send many things through the mail service without needing packaging. You can just write your name and account number directly on the gold bar, the address of your lender, put some stamps on it, and drop it right in the mailbox.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
You're right, a phone shouldn't be different. So why is it that the FBI is expecting special treatment from Apple? Proper search and seizure doesn't mean they can force manufacturers to bend to their will.
They lied about just about everything this time around -- the number of phones they wanted unlocked, the fact that there wasn't any alternative to having Apple write some new software for it, whatever that shit was about a deadly cyber pathogen on the phone, and it still looked pretty bad for them. Clearly they just didn't lie enough. Next time they should say that if the phone's not unlocked, everyone will get super AIDs. Maybe that would be enough for them to get their way with their clearly illegal and unconstitutional demands.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
In the past AC the US and 5 eye nations got that access under PRISM and a lot of other methods for access.
"Do We Need A Bigger SIGINT Truck?" note the term "phone-a-friends"
https://www.eff.org/document/2...
Handles Encrypted Traffic
https://www.eff.org/document/2...
VPN
https://www.eff.org/document/2...
and ICREACH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... that gave access to but the US still had to cover the origins in open court.
The color of law change is all the once secure, hidden methods and tools will be for sale by contractors down at the federal and very local city/state federal task force level to use in any open court for any reason. Any level of government will have the decryption tools, even just to look and see if they feel they want to later build a case.
Why rent a system of access tools to just a few levels of the mil or federal government when a huge list of cities and states will have new funding on the table too for local courts needing digital support services?
So that US "court system" will now get to decrypt any phone sold in the USA or connected to a US phone network by conscripting the designers/software creators.
A brand will have to design in junk encryption with the US gov getting a masterkey over every generation of product.
The phone can then become the origin of a case or informant in a public court thanks to a gov demanded master key to all US phones. No need to build up a wider case, the phone will tell all and no encryption sold will be allowed to keep data secure for any reason.
The tool sets will collect voice prints, mapping and tracking offer decryption of all data on the phone for any reason.
Walk into an area and your phone tells all. Travel, walk, drive, any phone will be scanned for contacts and any and all data, not just wider telco network details.
The gov masterkeys will then be sold or used by ex and former contractors for any reason with anyone with the cash.
The end result of junk court mandated gov encryption is anyone can do anything they like on the wider telco system down to the now decrypted users data.
Greek wiretapping case 2004–05 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...–05
SISMI-Telecom scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Re "Is this technically impossible? I don't know much about encryption (as may be obvious) but it seems like if we don't reach a compromise, things are going to end a lot worse with the government ultimately getting its way without any input from the industry."
As some have commented will all US paper shredder brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... have to provide expensive unshredding support via a scanner, software and be able to put the cut paper back together as a readable document on gov demand for free?
Serial numbers in printers to print a code on every page to track to origin?
What the US wants to return to is the Clipper chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... been designed into every US connected phone for free.
A US gov conscripted master key giving access to all phone data to any bureaucrat globally who worked with the US, ex staff, former staff and anyone who can hire the skills of former staff.
The US gov wanted a computer system fully under their own control to decrypt any cell phone of that generation.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Only actual decisions are precedent, not cases that never made it to judgement.
Precedent is set in the appellate courts. The one court order creates no precedent.
This is technically possible yes.
The problem is when someone hacks the government server and just takes all of the keys.
By necessity there needs to be some way to identify which key belongs to which phone, so you've simply reduced the problem set from getting a single key to getting a database of keys.
And that might not even be an improvement. A single key could in principle be kept purely on paper in a safe at the FBI and all digital copies destroyed immediately after printing whereas that would be impractical for a database containing hundreds of millions of keys..
Having a dual set of keys held by different entities as a poster below suggested would be significantly better since the hacker would now have to break into two completely separate systems. This is also technically possible -- we have the math to build K of N keys systems for any 1=K=N and if you want one user key OR two external keys then you just combine two regular keys together to create your user key (and then the FBI and Apple would each get a single regular key.) .. But this is only really useful if the keys had a way of being overwritten in the phone (so if FBI's database is compromised, Apple can just send them a new set of keys and push an update to the affected phones.. and similarly if their own database is compromised.) Without that, its only a matter of time before both databases are compromised -- more time than with just one perhaps but still just time.
And now you've opened up a back door that anyone could (potentially) figure out and just be able to load your phone with whatever keys they feel like and then have complete access to it.
From a theoretical standpoint, this problem was solved decades ago with things like K-of-N encryption systems. Its the practical side that falls down since we have no way to guarantee the keys won't be stolen or abused, and any key update/replacement functionality you try to bake into it could also be stolen or abused just as easily.
That's a real-world problem though and the media/FBI/whoever constantly focusing on the technical "issues" to the exclusion of all else isn't doing anything to solve it. Which of course is what they want because there really isn't a way to solve it. Nobody really believes perfect security is possible and unfortunately when it comes to computer systems, imperfect security is exactly equivalent to no security with a time delay.
What makes a phone different?
Math, scale of the install base and the fact that the internet exists. The math guarantees that once a key is known, there's no limits to it. The scale of the install base means knowing keys to one phone is almost equivalent to a universal privacy invasion and the fact that the internet exists means separate keys for each phone isn't significantly different from a single key (the key needed to log into the database storing the other keys.)
Of those, the internet issue is by far the easiest to work around -- just don't ever allow the keys to be put somewhere that they're accessible from the internet (or any network that could potentially be accessed from the internet regardless of how many firewalls and whatever you put in place.) But of course we all know that won't happen. Never mind the possibility of internal sabotage exposing the key database to the world.
Real-world search and seizure works because things like safes or houses are fundamentally distinct objects. The FBI breaking down my neighbor's door doesn't impact my security in the slightest (.. my property values are another story..)
The FBI having the capability to break into the phone of some random guy Jersey on the other hand has a strong potential to affect my phone's security (and I'm not even American!) because that single shared database (if it existed) would break the fundamental separation that makes search and seizure not horrific for real-world objects..
And even then, the US had to enact a constitutional amendment to limit abuse in the real world. Imagine what would happen if abuse required only a couple keystrokes while hidden away in a cubical rather than a swat team with a battering ram in plain sight?
I think that all our data is protected from other people via encryption (much like locking the front door our house) is in the interest of public safety. Not creating a "skeleton key".
They didn't win shit! Withdrawing the case is akin to admitting defeat, making their claim of a win total nonsense.
AIUI, but IANAL, binding precedent is set in circuit courts. Any court decision can be a precedent that a lawyer can argue from, but the court doesn't have to agree with non-binding precedent.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I make X dollars a year. If I could get that in any other valuable object than dollars (gold, diamonds, goats), I would have to know the dollar equivalent and file income taxes on it. At tax time, I'd have to convert my bitcoin or whatever into dollars, since the government doesn't accept collectible bottle caps or anything besides dollars as tax payments.
There are small economic systems that don't use dollars and don't report as legally required, but if they got too large the IRS would crack down on them.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes