Slashdot Mirror
New York DA Wants Apple, Google To Roll Back Encryption (tomsguide.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. called on Apple and Google to weaken their device encryption, arguing that thousands of crimes remained unsolved because no one can crack into the perpetrators' phones. Vance, speaking at the International Conference on Cyber Security here, said that law enforcement officials did not need an encryption "backdoor," sidestepping a concern of computer-security experts and device makers alike. Instead, Vance said, he only wanted the encryption standards rolled back to the point where the companies themselves can decrypt devices, but police cannot. This situation existed until September 2014, when Apple pushed out iOS 8, which Apple itself cannot decrypt. "Tim Cook was absolutely right when he told his shareholders that the iPhone changed the world," Vance said. "It's changed my world. It's letting criminals conduct their business with the knowledge we can't listen to them."
You shouldn't be able to listen to them... you shouldn't be able to listen to anyone. Try doing your job the old fashioned way... outsmart them.. stop trying to take short cuts at the expensive our our rights and liberties...
But hey.. that's just my opinion
--Hired Net Grunt
Many law enforcement leaders are acting as if no crimes can be solved unless all cell phones are made more vulnerable.
What a great idea.... weaken everyone for a few rare cases.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
So what you can't listen to them? Have these guys never heard of police work? Here's a hint, it's not synonymous with spying. If you can't follow the money, them the crime is probably too petty to worry about.
LOL!!!! Even the FBI Director can't get this after numerous cry-out... What the hell does a DA think he is?
It's the law enforcement's job to handle the criminals... if they need help, send their people to more technical education. Companies have only one job: To satisfy their customers... and if they can't do that, nobody will buy the stuffs, period!!!
If anyone other than the intended recipient can decrypt (including Apple), then everyone can. Apple having a back door into your stuff is a back door, even if the police don't have access to it. Unfortunately, the DA is going to sound very reasonable to anyone who doesn't understand encryption.
...because police are no longer able to beat confessions out of suspects.
This is America. It's not the freedom of people that the constitution constrains, it is the powers of the state.
I want the Cyrus Vance to go read the bill of rights and shove his demand back up his ass.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You can absolutely listen to their conversations and see their text messages. All you need is to convience a Judge to approve a wiretap order and the Carriers will let you spy to your hearts content. Stop asking companies to provide back-doors to my personal devices that I don't not wish to grant you access to
I do not trust big business with the ability to de-crypt my data any more than the government. Both entities are not interested in protecting you, but their bottom lines and political interests. The right to privacy means privacy from anyone!
we could trust that Law Enforcement wouldn't abuse such a thing.
That sort of abuse is what got us here to begin with.
So you need to ask yourself: Whose fault is it you can't decrypt these things again ?
You reap what you sow . . . . . .
companies themselves can decrypt devices, but police cannot.
the model we actually mean is through a secret FISA court, the company can be compelled to decrypt a phone. since the San Bernadino case was bungled --it used real courts instead of kangaroo courts-- manufacturers have no choice but to implement a system where they are no longer part of the cryptographic chain. customers dont care if their data is used by manufacturers in the pursuit of heavy handed capitalism, but theyre more than outraged about the notion that their trusted lifestyle vendors are somehow feeding private information into the hands of a government that has been demonized by politicians for 40 years.
the rules have been written. you cannot have cloud, which is infinite money for rented imaginary property, without security from an incessant police state (or one so perceived.)
Good people go to bed earlier.
"Asked about the congressional committee to study the merits and drawbacks of device encryption proposed by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, Vance said he worried that such a process would take too long and endanger lives."
If they really want to reduce the danger to lives, perhaps they should quit shooting unarmed people who pose no risk or credible threat.
"Law enforcement agencies are not requesting a backdoor."
No, they're demanding it.
"I don't see why the company can't continue to provide the same strong encryption it previously provided..."
It wasn't strong, so they fixed it. Boohoo, it makes you have to do real detective work; like before the days of mass surveillance.
"Justice is being denied because companies have redesigned their devices to satisfy their shareholders."
Cops like to claim denial of justice because they have to do some actual police work instead of having criminals incriminate themselves. Cell phones are not a data collection tool for law enforcement, they are personal property. Apple and Google are appeasing their consumers so that they can sell products. The fact that they are not making life easier for law enforcement does not mean they are siding with criminals, obstructing justice, or any other scaremongering political move as DA Vance implies. Law enforcement has clearly demonstrated a lack of concern for due process and citizen rights with the constant barrage of secret surveillance tactics (e.g. NSL, StingRays).
We'll get right on that.
-Apple and Google
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Glad to hear he thinks we don't need privacy.
Now I have a long list of police files and videos I would like to see.
Wait, you mean you don't want us to see those? But thousands of accusations against police are going unsolved without access to them!
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
We live in such a complex web of laws now that we are all breaking them every day... so if the government can on demand browse through your phone they WILL find evidence of some crime. Especially Slashdot readers I'd warrant.
So basically what the government wants is an easy way to harass or lock-up anyone it deems a nuisance for any reason,
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Everybody's devices should be forced to be insecure, so that bad guys are just as unprotected and vulnerable as innocent people.
"At THE fear the reaper"
Needs more cowbell.
You heard me.
This sig intentionally left blank.
One problem time and again is that crypto only works for "the good guys" (which may or may not include LEOs, this is not automatic) if it isn't diddled, and therefore it also works for "the bad guys", whoever those might be. This is well-known in "intelligence"-land, but the concepts that are well-known and -understood there, quite certainly aren't in, oh, LEO land. Or the land of the liars, er, politicians. Or much anywhere else, really. Something that will have to change, thanks to information technology and world-wide networks.
Another problem is that the LEOs are now the tail wagging the dog. Maybe they should re-read the Peelian principles, instead of fancying themselves the militarised "command and control" hub of society.
Thousands of crimes? THOUSANDS? What crimes are these that you can only solve if you are able to look at people's phones?
Proverbs 21:19
It's letting criminals conduct their business with the knowledge we can't listen to them."
Good. That's not something that law enforcement should be able to rely on any way.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
...thousands of crimes remained unsolved because no one can crack into the perpetrators' phones....
I have two strong concerns about the proposal in front of us.
.
1) vulnerability - reducing the encryption level for the phones affects not just criminals but everyone. Phones can (and are) used for very legitimate purposes and those phones need secure encryption. Once the encryption is weakened for criminals' phones, the encryption is weakened for all our phones.
2) trust - once the police have the ability to "crack" into criminals' phones, what is to stop them from "cracking" into anyone's phone (in a StingRay-like scenario) ~because they can~?
Otherwise you have a full-blown Police State and that is far, far worse than almost any amount of unsolved crime. In a free state, the police must be severely limited in what it can do and must be kept at a level of power that allows them to reliably keep society functioning, but never above.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
thousands of crimes remained unsolved because no one can crack into the perpetrators' phones
is exaggerated speculation at best. There may well be thousands of crimes that include locked phones in their set of evidence, but there is no guarantee that data on those locked phones would lead to the crime being solved if it were unlocked. It's also possible that many of those crimes could be / will be solved eventually using other pieces of evidence and investigative avenues.
Ok then.
AES128 it is!
Earn your pay instead of putting innocent citizens in danger.
People have a right to secure communications.
Deal with it bullies...
In essence, what he's saying is: "We don't want a back door. We just want a back door!" Weakened encryption *is* a back door! And more than even the usual back door, it's a back door available to everyone! (Although that's true to some extent of every back door.)
Psst, you're in the wrong thread.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Let's just use the best we can and create better encryption in the process and tune out all the bellyaching about it. To hell with them and the damn high horse they rode in on.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Nyquil and tequila are a wicked mix.
Yeah, I guess so...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The DA provides the best argument for Apple to strengthen encryption, by his own existence and statement. Imagine 10,000 district attorneys across the US, each of which have varying competence / incompetence in handling investigations, requests from Apple certain encryption/decryption keys, and wildly varying levels of knowledge about how to use or judge when to ask for this capability.
And, for that matter, wildly differing capabilities to securely handle and keep private the information they find on people's phones.
No thank you, and Apple is right to refuse them.
apple can turn off the auto wipe / time out system and let the login take a usb keyboard.
Let's see how Hollywood screams about copyright! OMG copyright! Copyright is more important than national security, preventing world wars, and even the preservation of the human race. Can't wait to hear them scream about movies streamed with easily broken encryption. Exempt that you say? But then it would become the next big thing used by bad guys to encrypt their communications and make it look like a streaming movie.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Most of the freedoms we enjoy have costs. Often, those costs can be measured in human lives. But, as a society, we've already decided that we're willing to pay that price. The right to bear arms has a cost in human lives that's pretty easy to see and measure. Freedom of speech, the right to choose – all have a cost. In this case, it's the right to privacy, and the cost may be that some criminals aren't convicted. Or worse – that some terrorists are able to plan and execute attacks. This is what real freedom looks like. Enjoy it. But, also acknowledge the cost and honor those who are paying it for us.
My dog would really like a pony, too. Sometimes the world doesn't work the way we want for our own little special interests. The politicians all rant and rave about special interest groups. What's a more special interest than wanting to weaken security of everyone worldwide just so your job is a little easier?
Good 'ol Vance Jr has been fucking up the country since Carter.
And he's doing it wrong too. Hey Cyrus; all need to persuade the bulk of these hapless government worshiping twits that your back door is a great idea is to convince them that you need it to prosecute wealthy tax evaders. Unbreakable iPhones are a tool of Those At The Top(tm) to keep from Paying Their Fair Share(tm).
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
You just have to do a rollback on procedures and get a warrant, then install a wiretap on the phone itself. Of course, with modern smartphones, that would most likely be a secret app.
Is it just that you don't want to give up the ease and lack of oversight on push button eavesdropping and stingray mass interceptions?
I doubt it's an issue regarding the cost of developing a police smartphone eavesdropper app, after all, those stingrays aren't cheap and I'm betting you have at least one of those.
thousands of crimes remained unsolved
That will always be the case crimes go unsolved, it is about having a balance between personal rights and solving crimes. Imagine how much easier if there was a video camera everywhere. Rape would no longer be a matter of who you believe, we would have video evidence of the incident. But we need to balance privacy with catching every offender.
No.
Increase encryption - double encryption - fingerprint AND password and motion touch.
90% of the people in the world never commit a crime - they become the victim of criminals.
Identity Theft is the worst crime ever - and encryption helps protect people's information.
So, do the math. It is more important to put locks on everyone's doors, than to pass out free keys to police.
Increase encryption - and if bad people do bad things - convict them the old fashioned way - with hard evidence and witnesses.
You don't need to decrypt a snitch, just get him to confess and/or help entrap their bosses.
Do your work the old fashioned way and quit making excuses to not do your best.
Vance said. "It's changed my world. It's letting criminals conduct their business with the knowledge we can't listen to them."
They can do that in an empty theater, a subway car, a taxi, a sewer... or in simple, pre-arranged, spoken code-phrases you'll have EVEN LESS CHANCE OF CRACKING. So it's "changed your world." Ala, forced you to think about hiring cops capable of doing actual investigative police work? You mean, like, when people used codes the police couldn't crack just 15 years ago, except they were written on paper, or ciphered into the actual text? You mean like when they spoke languages few if any other people spoke? You mean like back in the day when cops were expected to solve crimes with actual police-work, instead of relying on broad, warrantless searches of people's private property and communications with no restraint on the part of the police, who would instead prefer to violate the Constitution they swore an oath to uphold with the use of Stingray devices and the like just to nab an easy collar?
Frankly, if your only avenue for solving crime is bottomed on your ability to read the contents of people's private messages and cellphones, you should quit because you're an awful police officer with no ability or skill to solve crimes the way our nation of laws intended them to be solved: without violating people's equal rights, all because "but... crime!!1 Terrorism!1! 9/11!!!one" Even if I believed that giving you what you wanted wasn't a civil rights violation and was in the best interests of the public, the fact of the matter is that it would change nothing: the criminals would simply find other means and avenues, and frankly I seriously doubt such access is a relevant factor in even 1 out of 100,000 cases anyway, especially since your record of solving crimes has not improved in the least bit during the periods when you had this access, or since you've started illegally using stingray devices, even though overall crime rates have been on a downward tick for the last couple of decades.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
Apple, Google want New York DA to roll back police shootings.
Guess neither of them gets what they want, right?
This DA seems to be implying that pre-iPhone, his predecessors closed all their cases.
"Look! A squirrel!"
(Sneaks quietly away from the podium, as all the domesticated grows look around wildly to see past their cones of shame...)
Who can stop the "Bad guys" to put their own encrypted services/servers outside the US (United_states_of_Surveillance) reach?
At this pace, the only people with privacy will be the bad guys (a.k.a. government, drug dealers, terrorists).
What law in earth can prevent crooks to use their own private servers for bad purposes? (of course sometimes they can be owned, right Hillary?)
All good things can be used for bad things: A cars/painkillers/roads/Internet/religion/slashdot/(you name it).
New York DA wants all citizens to be entirely naked at all times. Quote: "It isn't fair, clothes have pockets that people could be concealing weapons in."
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Next request...
DA: "We have the decryption keys; but that's not enough."
Person: "Why not?"
DA: "It's an asymmetric cypher."
Person: "So? You can decrypt it, and read what's there; what more do you want?"
DA: "We also need the encryption keys."
Person: "Why?"
DA: "With the decryption keys, we can only find what's there; we can't find what's not there... yet."
JThundley wants New York DA to get on knees, swallow hot sticky load.
The assertion that "crimes aren't being solved because we can't hack suspects phones" is based on the unproven assumption that the suspects were stupid enough to leave information that could convict them on their phones in the first place. Until you actually access all the data on the phone, you don't know whether or not that is true, do you? For all the DA knows, all these people he wants to crack the phones of are innocent!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
... it will be before these companies are finally issued the ultimatum of not being permitted to conduct ANY business within the USA until they comply with these demands to weaken their encryption?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Stronger encryption without back-doors is letting people and businesses conduct their business safe with the knowledge criminals can't listen to them. Stronger encryption without back-doors is letting governments conduct their clandestine/diplomatic efforts safe with the knowledge other governments or terrorists can't listen to them. Therefore if you apply the DA's logic to these cases.. by removing stronger encryption from the phones.. we should make banking, spying, diplomacy, you name it.. less safe. Guns are letting criminals conduct their business with the knowledge governments may not be able to stop them. Guns are letting governments conduct their business with the knowledge other governments may not be able to stop them. Therefore by this logic.. we should outlaw guns. Hmm.. does law enforcement want to give up their guns? Not likely. I'm a fan of not outlawing 'tools'.. rather 'behavior'.
What ever did they do before cell phones--back when calls could barely be traced let alone *recorded*??
They still solved crimes.
Now they bitch that they can't do their jobs without someone else changing a *product*.
Lay zee.
Its crazy how lazy these people have become. Its way to much trouble for them to actually do their job. They just want to be able to cheat and skip to the end.
Even more crimes go unsolved for lack of a cell phone being involved. Just think of how much safer we'd all feel if the police were just allowed to round up anyone who looks even remotely suspicious and make use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" to get confessions!
Dear Sirs,
We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr. J. Arkell.
We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.
Yours,
Private Eye
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Sorry, Cy. I trust You as much as You trust me . . .
Their phones were all encrypted.
So the law enforcement adapted. That's life. If he doesn't like there's always barber college.
Of course the DA wants a backdoor to encryption. And he probably wants to get rid of that pesky Fifth Amendment, too. So many crimes could be solved if only people could be forced to testify against themselves!
That is weird, weird logic. I prefer simply this:
"The government should fear the citizens. The citizens should not be in fear of their government."
More general, but just as valid. It is a good guiding principle.
However they currently try to game this. Obviously, they _are_ very much in fear of the citizens, why else all that spying and militarization of the police. Then they try propaganda to make the citizens believe there is nothing to fear. And on some, it seems to work.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
In other news, crime flourishes due to criminals stealing your data due to inadequate encryption.
In olden days there was something like this. Although it seems slashdot has rolled it back in the interests of thwarting spambots.
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.6.i
<long string that is rejected by slashdot censor filter>
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
arguing that thousands of crimes remained unsolved because no one can crack into the perpetrators' phones.
And thousands of new crimes will be created by weakening the encryption. But that's basically job security for the DA and police so they want weak encryption because it ensures a steady stream of crimes for them to "solve".
to invade my privacy and the privacy of the general public at whim... WHEN THEY ARE ABOVE REPROACH AND FULLY TRANSPARENT TO THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.
How about they prove they are responsible and honest enough to be given access to that information only when it is absolutely required, and not used for things like blackmail, intimidation, theft, graft, and political influence?
When you have people like Hillary Clinton and Loretta Lynch walking around enabling federal crimes on scales that boggle the average person's mind and get away with it scot-free? When they can't even adhere to the same standards they want to impose on the "unwashed masses"?
Until then, how about you just do some good ol' fashioned detective work!? Mmmkay, Mr Police Man?
This is another 'just because' argument...just because criminals can use encryption, everyone else must give up the security of encryption.
Just because a minority-case situation exists, why must the majority who aren't involved suffer the consequences?
I mean, some politicians have been proven to be criminals so does that justify us investigating each and every one for criminal activity? Some politicians hide finances within their campaign - should we audit every campaign in detail? Some policitians take kickbacks either directly or indirectly - should we monitor the finances of them all? Some politicians are sex offenders - should all be required to log?
Yes, it's somewhat tangential analogies but the fundamental point remains.
Lots of people point out how a few bad cops do things that make the news and how we shoudln't treat every other cop like they did somethign wrong. Why doesn't this apply here too? (and yeah, i'm prepared for the -1 troll on that but my point stands)
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
This is actually disturbing, because a DA is actually an attorney! Fot any attorney to come out against the Constitution so publically, and thereby betraying every second of legal training they ever recieved, discredit their entire professional record, and just in general be looked at like a traitor to the profession by all your peers who now know you stand for absolutely nothing and are a coward P.O.S., means we're in a bad place as a country. When cops and even FBI talk this mess, we can kind of blow it off as like "Well, they're cops, not lawyers, they don't know any better or are more concerned with making doing their job easier." Not that cops get a free pass to be ignorant of peoples rights and Constitutional issues, but the PRACTICE of law isn't what they do. JD's are like MD's as professional Doctorate degrees. So when a lawyer says some dumbass shit like this, it's like a medical doctor suggesting the removing of the pacients head to cure a stuffy nose... It's just ignorant and betrays the very oath that P.O.S. took in order to become an Attorney "Uphold and defend the Constitution" fucking sell-out pussy!