FBI Has Sights On Larger Battle Over Encryption After Apple Feud (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Bloomberg: FBI Director James Comey said the FBI is exploring how to make broader use of the hack, used to access a San Bernardino terrorist's encrypted iPhone, while bracing for a larger battle involving encrypted text messages, e-mails and other data. The tool could "in theory be used in any case where there's a court order" to access data on an iPhone 5c running Apple's iOS 9 OS, Comey told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. However, accessing content on a phone, known as "data at rest," is only part of the challenge that encryption poses for U.S. investigators. Software applications and other services that encrypts texts, e-mails and other information in transit over the Internet, known as "data in motion," are "hugely significant," especially for national security investigations, Comey said. He said criminals are increasingly using services that encrypt data in motion, and he didn't rule out litigation against companies such as WhatsApp. "WhatsApp has over a billion customers, overwhelmingly good people," Comey said. "But in that billion customers are terrorists and criminals, and so that now ubiquitous feature of all WhatsApp products will affect both sides of the house." As for whether or not there will be litigation against WhatsApp down the road, Comey says, "I don't know." The FBI is trying to figure out how to allow "law enforcement around the country with court orders to be able to use our tool," Comey said. It's "tricky," he said, because using the tool to help state and local criminal investigations could mean that it would have to be revealed in a court preceding if there isn't a procedure in place to prohibit testimony about how it works.

Comments

I don't know why it stops here

[surfdaddy]

I can walk down the street with a friend and have a conversation that is not recorded, is never discoverable in the future. Although millions of us are honest people, terrorists could have these types of conversations as well. I just don't know how we can let that happen. It seems that the government should require us to record conversations so that if there is a warrant in the future we can get that data. Why it is just unfathomable that there could be information that the government cannot discover! How could we have let this happen for so long?! It's just SO GREAT that the FBI is trying to protect us...

Re:I don't know why it stops here

[tlambert]

I've a 24/7 recording camera in my home which does both audio & video... and I turn it off from time to time when I'm going to have a conversation which I want to reduce the possibility of someone ever being able to overhear.

I know.

The Chinese company that sells me access to the web site that lets me remotely monitor your (or anyone else's) camera and microphone for $9.95 a month pops up a dialog when you do that, and I have to click "Reenable" instead of "Ignore" on the little dialog box.

Luckily, I've written an Automator script to click the button for me, in case I'm away from home when you go into that mode, since I still want to record everything you say or do "just in case".

Re:Sure let them have WhatsApp

[davester666]

Yes, they will go for requiring backdoors into everything. It is no surprise that ever since Hoover was in charge, the FBI loves backdooring anything and anyone they can.