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FBI Director Says Prolific Default Encryption Hurting Government Spying Efforts (go.com)
SonicSpike quotes a report from ABC News: FBI Director James Comey warned again Tuesday about the bureau's inability to access digital devices because of encryption and said investigators were collecting information about the challenge in preparation for an "adult conversation" next year. Widespread encryption built into smartphones is "making more and more of the room that we are charged to investigate dark," Comey said in a cybersecurity symposium. The remarks reiterated points that Comey has made repeatedly in the last two years, before Congress and in other settings, about the growing collision between electronic privacy and national security. "The conversation we've been trying to have about this has dipped below public consciousness now, and that's fine," Comey said at a symposium organized by Symantec, a technology company. "Because what we want to do is collect information this year so that next year we can have an adult conversation in this country." The American people, he said, have a reasonable expectation of privacy in private spaces -- including houses, cars and electronic devices. But that right is not absolute when law enforcement has probable cause to believe that there's evidence of a crime in one of those places, including a laptop or smartphone. "With good reason, the people of the United States -- through judges and law enforcement -- can invade our private spaces," Comey said, adding that that "bargain" has been at the center of the country since its inception. He said it's not the role of the FBI or tech companies to tell the American people how to live and govern themselves. "We need to understand in the FBI how is this exactly affecting our work, and then share that with folks," Comey said, conceding the American people might ultimately decide that its privacy was more important than "that portion of the room being dark." Comey made his remarks to the 2016 Symantec Government Symposium. The Daily Dot has another take on Comey's remarks, which you can read here.
Did they learn nothing from the encryption wars of the 1990s?
Here's my take on that.
Fuck you. We're not your children . Stop treating us as if we were.
He keeps proving it.
Go fuck yourself, federal government.
When law enforcement agencies in the USA think "parallel construction" of the source of their evidence is acceptable or justifiable. Maybe if they hadn't be so underhanded and dirty in the first place, people might believe in them.
that's what they want us to think. You're secure citizen, keep talking...
Hack your friends on both ends and let them blame Russia...
Um, Duh. You brought this on yourselves. If you didn't constantly overreach, I wouldn't feel as completed to encrypt all my communications.
You can't have an "adult" conversation with a child like Comey.
AC comments get piped to
welcome to the new america where the politicians are a protected class but us peons have to submit to authority.
Well, that's all your brains screwed citizens.
It began with the phones......
The Feds were the ones that violated the "bargain".
Judging from the early comments it is clear why the FBI director is calling for a "grown up" conversation. Are all of the comment going to be F bomb anti government posts? How about a debate and constructive conversation?
Good.
What he's saying is that encryption works. Why is this a surprise for law enforcement?
Criminals used this since the beginning of time. I admit it was less mathematical and more: "The mouse evaded two traps but the tiger is sleeping"
The concept is the same.
"If you don't give me what I want, you're not acting like an adult!" *foot stomp*
> "With good reason, the people of the United States -- through judges and law enforcement -- can invade our private spaces," Comey said, adding that that "bargain" has been at the center of the country since its inception.
Yes, but for specific limited instances and after obtaining warrants for each case.
What Comey/The FBI are actually demanding is our freedom to use encryption be completely removed so that they can perform warrantless mass monitoring on a national scale.
Thanks for the submission.
Yes, Director, the room you're charged with exploring is dark. It's dark not just for you but for everyone. This include people who want to steal our identities or the contents of our bank accounts, who want to take personal pictures or conversations and broadcast them to the world without our consent, who want to perform corporate espionage, who want to see us to prey upon us and our children. Turning on the light may let you see, but you're outnumbered by the criminals in the darkness who are begging you to flip that switch so they too can see.
If you're willing to step it up and protect us from all those monsters in the dark, then tell us exactly how you plan to protect us and MAYBE we'll let you flip that switch. But somehow I don't think you want to commit the massive amount of resources that will be needed to protect us. If you don't, we want the light to stay off.
A few months ago I gave a copy of 1984 to a pretty smart friend of mine who I know otherwise seriously lacks in literacy and thinks he at least some what understands the implications of something like what this stories summary is offering but really doesn't. When I offered it I tried to explain that it is very timely and why. He cut me off while thumbing through it to say "That's a lot of words". He never read it and used it as kindling a couple of months later.
This is part of the problem. Extrapolate at will.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
The 4th amendment says
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
That means if the FBI wants me decrypt any of my documents they can show my lawyer a search warrant otherwise they can FUCK OFF. If you want to fight these fuckers you, yes you, can start by teaching other people how to use strong encryption and why they should use it all the time. Yea,the NSA has monster facilities to break encryption but the cost of that is not zero. There are more of us then there are of them.
Another day closer to redwood heaven
He said it's not the role of the FBI or tech companies to tell the American people how to live and govern themselves
Finally, Comey says something I can agree with. Now take your own advise Comey and go shut the fuck up.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
"Organized Crime Leaders Say Prolific Default Encryption Hurting Identity Theft Efforts" It is a curious coincidence...
""Because what we want to do is collect information this year so that next year we can have an adult conversation in this country."
But we are already having that conversation:
We as adults, don't want you to spy on us and we'll do everything we'll have to reach that goal, even if we have to import our gadgets from one of the other 194 countries, where they don't give a fuck about your reasons.
You, OTOH are throwing a tantrum like a brat that has to do the bed himself for the first time in his life.
which means public key encryption works.
You might want to suggest public key encryption to all the federal agencies whose databases are compromised.
Yours In Novosibirsk,
K. Trout
They need to realize this is actually a good thing. They can keep spying, there are still ways to do that. But we need to have our data private, end of story. It's not that we have anything to hide, but we need to be able to keep ourselves protected from the bad guys because the government sure as hell isn't doing that nor do they have any care to.
If there is a backdoor to encryption, the bad guys will have the keys 100% of the time with absolutely no exceptions. They will steal the keys or just out right buy them. Comey will probably unwittingly give them away. We see people in corporations and governments fuck this stuff up all the time and accidentally send that confidential email to the entire company or outside vendors, etc. Just an accident, but that's all it takes. If encryption has no backdoors and is strong enough to not be hacked and it's on by default without any end user having to really think about it, then we are safer, but only then.
Exactly. If I and millions of other people want to use encryption, it's not up to the FBI to tell me not to do so.
This guy will never admit it, but the fault lies with the past and continuing attitudes towards data gathering in the NSA and FBI. Massive overreach (as documented by Snowden) led to an accelerated implementation of encryption.
Comey: grow a pair and admit that it is your own fault.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
So his views are the 'adult' views and anyone with critical views of that is a child?
Chronic hacking victim doesn't see what the big deal is.
That's the point.
This signature is false.
You can still follow the "bad guys", plant bugs with court authorization, use GPS trackers with court authorization, all the old school techniques are available to you. You just can't use our own devices against us. Why is that so hard to understand? Stop acting like a petulant child.
I bet he also thinks it really hurts his efficiency that he can't simply open letters as he pleases or simply storm suspects' homes and take away whatever he considers to be evidence.
Pesky thing those "liberties" and "rights". Things are so much easier for police in a police state, I tell ya.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
the Chinese, Russian, governments; by other corporations; by .... Maybe someone ought to tell James Comey that encryption is also used to frustrate many others, not just the FBI.
And the conclusion was "fuck you".
Government can't even protect its own systems nor can it be trusted to resist the temptation to spy on the entire population of its own country.
Strange how someone went from banking to director of FBI. I wonder if it had anything to do with the $81 million HSBC deposited into the Clinton Foundation?
Comey seems to think he's the adult in the conversation.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
Even if there was some kind of widespread support for everything to be as open to inspection by law enforcement as a postcard sent through the mail, if the law and warrant allowed it:
1) A system where law enforcement could legally unencrypt data but nobody else could would not be secure for a whole host of reasons. It would be cracked eventually and nobody would be secure subsequently;
2) you can't ban encryption, because we need secure communication for legitimate reasons;
3) if you did ban encryption, criminals would go ahead and encrypt their data anyway through illicit means.
We went through all this with the Clipper chip back in the 1990s. They'll have to work with what they can do despite encryption. They can still monitor sources and destinations to some extent. They can still do ordinary old-school footwork investigation. Etc.
If you really believe that the NSA can't get through the encryption on your phone then you're exactly the target that they're looking for. They want it to be "common knowledge" that using the encryption on your phone is good enough that they can't see what you're doing so you'll feel safe doing things that they want to find out about.
Do you really believe the NSA hasn't back-doored it's way into nearly everything?
They aren't supposed to be "watching the whole room". They are supposed to be watching people for whom there are sufficient grounds for judges to issue warrants for them to be watched by better-targeted and higher-powered surveillance tools. They aren't supposed to be trolling through the entire God-damned internet looking for "suspicious activity". The whole Internet community is "suspicious" by the FBI's lights.
Then its working as intended. Keep your grubby hands out of my cookie jar!
I understand what he's saying and agree that encryption makes it hard for the FBI. The problem is that every time the FBI gets a new power, they have a long and storied history of abusing that power. The FBI (and government in general) abusing the constitutional rights of citizens is the main reason I support strong encryption for everyone. Criminals and terrorists don't scare me, the FBI does.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
So the FBI wants people to cooperate with them, to use weak encryption so they can unlock data when they need to. OK. Who is going to do that? Let's say law-abiding people will cooperate. What compels criminals to cooperate? What compels non-Americans to cooperate? What prevents people from use their own additional encryption, like putting a 2nd lock on your door? What prevents people from obfuscating their data? Here's the key, see, it's a Rick Astley video.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
His orders come from the top.
You have 69 shopping days left to decide who will be on top. Take it up with them.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
He basically wants the right to secretly dig a tunnel under your home, sneak in while you're not there, steal whatever they want, and leave without anyone knowing it. Except in your phone.
Even worse: he want the tunnels being pre-dug (= "backdoors").
You know how in Switzerland every house has a mandatory under-ground shelter ?
What he wants is every single house in the USA having a mandatory underground tunnel that leads to a nearby police station. A *secret* tunnel that you're forbidden to know about when you buy your house.
That's what an encryption backdoor is the equivalent of : a mandatory secret back-door built in every house in the USA.
And with the automation and international connection that is available on the internet, the real-world situation is even worse than this putative mandatory tunnel.
(Now the metaphor is getting a bit harder...)
It would be as if the police station had an nearly infinite amount of low-ranking police personal that could devote their entire time to travel the tunnel each day, sneak into your house every single day, and take a picture of you naked in your shower. And not only you personnally, but though every tunnel, available in every single home built on US soil under US building code. Each fucking day.
But said local police station lacks trained and experienced detective to do anything useful out of the photos/objects/proofs brought back from by the agents.
And meanwhile, all the people living outside of the USA are completely immune to it because their local building code either don't mandate the tunnel (and thus, the US police agents can't even use this tunnel network to peak into the homes of ISIS terrorists, although that was the main selling point of the tunnel network when it was voted in)
Or mandate an entirely different type of tunnel that the US police has never heard off (and leaves some part of the US population at risk, because they buy and install a port-a-potty from China, and never realise that these come with tunnels leading directly into their chinese secret police).
All the while the Russia mafia has trained an incredibly huge army of burglars to roam the US (and Chinese) networks of secret tunnels, stealing as much as possible from every house they happen to reach. And even sometimes using your own house as a base of operation to commit crimes while you're away for work. (botnets).
At the end of the operation, maybe 1 single terrorist happens to get caught due to random chance. And maybe due to the fact that he was bragging that he is a terrorist the whole day in the middle of the street ( = wasn't even using encryption at all. Just plain text SMS.)
At the same time there will be millions of damage due to stolen property through the tunnels network.
( = just have a look at the massive data leaks that you have *today* when hacker still go through the long round about route of actually hacking into servers. Now think how much more damage would be done when the hack don't actually even bother to hack, but just leverage the backdoors that are mandated by the various governments)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Translation
Give us a backdoor we promise we wont abuse it you can trust us we have your best interest at heart
When law enforcement agencies in the USA think "parallel construction" of the source of their evidence is acceptable or justifiable. Maybe if they hadn't be so underhanded and dirty in the first place, people might believe in them.
This is a third of the problem, and the third they really don't understand. I don't believe there's even been an apology for mass surveillance, just rationalizations and more-of-the-same and parlor tricks like pretending it was meaningfully helpful to make the telcos rather than the government maintain surveillance databases.
There is also the tech problem. If the encryption is breakable because your friends have a secret key, your enemies are going to make that secret key their #1 priority. If you share that secret key with your friends at the NSA, now your enemies have at least two places they can try to social engineer, crack, etc... that secret key from.
And then there is the legal problem, where it is hard to have effective legal accountability for law enforcement under any conditions, but it's harder still when dealing with secret government actions and mass warrants.
Real lawyers write in C++
This is WHY there is so much wide spread encryption. The FBI/CIA/etc proved beyond reasonable doubt (again) that they can not be trusted. They are many times when privacy should be invaded and proper channels were built for this. But it was these organizations that ignored and bypassed them.
They lost the public's trust and encryption is the response. Their job was never meant to be easy. They just made it far harder on their own by trying to cheat the public.
The FBI has no one but themselves to blame and it is well deserved. This is probably the best news regarding the FBI we have had in a long time.
We, the people, have already had an adult conversation.
You were not invited, Mr. Comey, as you did not meet the criteria.
In that conversation, we decided it best to encrypt our communications.
Maybe if you behave yourself, you will be invited to the next adult conversation.
This signature is false.
Parallel construction, aka "a conveniently timed and helpful anonymous tip"
Another thing encryption helps with: making it harder to plant evidence on digital devices...
Yeah... I'm in the "go f*** yourself" camp on this one.
You're full of shit!
Sincerely,
Everyone
That brief comment is the only visible one rated "insightful" that barely touches on the obvious insights here.
Obviously the FBI is complaining about a technology that it would like to ban or regulate. Sorry, you fibbing FBIers, you KNOW that it doesn't work that way. You can't make everyone forget and even if you could, the technology would simply be rediscovered. The law of gravity is more than a good idea, and ditto on the mathematics of information theory.
If the FBI wasn't constantly abusing innocent people, then those innocent people would not feel motivated to encrypt their personal information. Of course, it is not the FBI or even the government that is committing most of the abuse. Most of the abuses are coming from private companies that merely bribe the politicians to subvert the Constitution for their greater profits. Most of those abuses are actually with carrots rather than sticks, but they are still wrong.
BAD economics. Naughty, naughty. The financial models should not incentivize bad behavior, but the bad result is quite predictable. Solutions exist. DAUPR.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Strong crypto is widely available, and given a .js library can be done in a browser. There was a golden age of information spying, when info was carried by wires or waves, without strong crypto. Before, you had to capture the courier, now you have to attack either side of the maths. Deal with it. Rolling back strong crypto will just give a false sense of security.
John_Chalisque
Based on those comments by Mr. Comey, I don't think that the FBI is doing the job that the American taxpayers think they they are paying them to do. This will end in tears.
"Because what we want to do is collect information this year so that next year we can have an adult conversation in this country."
Translated that means "let's talk about this when Hillary is in office. She owes me a favor."
Say they invade my 'private space' and take a bunch of paper records. What if those paper records are encrypted/encoded so as not to be in plain text?
For our 'adult' conversation, lets at least use a proper analogy.
The "adult conversation" the FBI says it's planning is a call for criminalization of any encryption that the FBI can't break. They want a back door and if you won't give it to them, they will put you in jail. Or use the powers of the NDAA to hold you without trial or "rendition" you to a country like Egypt where you can be tortured without anyone noticing.
This is an FBI which not only has broken the law regarding surveillance of US citizens, but then lied about it to Congress. The FBI may be correct that some terrorists will succeed because their communications are encrypted. That is better than living under an FBI shadow government that thinks it is above the law. We don't have to speculate about the intent of the FBI. We already know they broke the law and lied to Congress. And still have not been prosecuted for it.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
can cry me a fucking encrypted river.
Its hard to take anything he has seriously after his show as Hillarys lap dog. I do believe there is a tradeoff of privacy and security and have no idea with the government trying to do their job the best they can, but as far as Comey - he is a shill. Don't believe anything he says.
Fortunately in the US, the Government is not constitutionally guaranteed the ability to spy on its citizens, and the citizens do have a right to be secure in their "papers" and from unreasonable searches. The courts have taken widespread snooping to be unreasonable.
Doors with locks.
Envelopes that aren't resealable.
The Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
All those things "hurt" government's ability to watch its citizens.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Even if I trusted the FBI to only use the information for the public good and in accordance with the law, I don't trust their ability to secure the information. Whatever mechanism is provided to the FBI to access secured data risks being transferred to some non-trusted party.
One the most important lessons from Snowdon was that even the NSA cannot protect its own secrets. How can I possibly be convinced that the FBI will be able to do so? Will Llooyds insure them for say $1T against a data breech? Or how about in the event of a breech, the directory and the top 1000 managers are executed (regardless of their personal guilt)? Are they *that* sure? If they aren't that sure, then I'm not sure enough to trust them. Imagine the damage that could be done by a person or government with access to virtually all information in the US .
One wonders if The Idiot Comey is adding to the problem. Encryption is effective! Let's turn it on. He is constantly beating the drum, while to us in the tech fields it just proves he's an idiot (and a liar, an a fool, and ...) to those outside of the 'establishment' he is telling them it works.
lets say we comunicate by private email servers... is mr fbi adult person here going to spy on me, will he put me in jail if those emails are, i dont know, classified shit it should not be there?
do your job and shut up, imbecile
Good. We don't need you spying on us. At all. FBI need to learn a new way to get information.
Why do they care about encryption. They could have clear cut case and then decide not to charge them for lack of intent...
Mr Comey's continued harping on this demonstrates the only 'conversation' that he wants is 'everyone to agree with me', that is not a conversation. That's an order from someone who's scared of losing control of his little world, the only example I can compare that to is a child.
So there's many people who would love to have an adult conversation with him, unfortunately he has to grow up first and I don't think the rest of us can wait that long.
Thanks for confirming that encryption is making your job more difficult and works as intended, now go pound sand.
Comey's own FBI standards for safeguarding criminal justice data (CJIS) call for strong encryption in transit and at rest, ideally using customer managed keys. I help many of my customers build cloud solutions to these standards and oddly, they don't seem to include back doors in those CJIS encryption standards.
The FBI clearly know encryption is valuable for data protection they just don't want to do real police work. Can't have your encrypted cake and eat it too!
Besides from what I have seen in 20 years of govt technology consulting is that I don't want them holding my data, I can do better on my own.
Someone should make an app that generates long messages of random terror-keywords and then spam these messages as email around to other users with the same app, some unencrypted, encrypting some of it with weak encryption, and some with strong encryption. This will make the signal to noise ratio too low for the government to effectively monitor electronic communications.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms and encrypt data, shall not be infringed."
It's true that the US government does have the ability to look through everything but your thoughts given the correct warrants. The first thing that the TLAs need to remember "Get the correct warrants. If you want us to obey the law, you need to as well." There are many that will argue that they aren't doing that properly. But, let's ignore that for a moment.
We do need to have an adult conversation about encryption on electronic devices. Electronic devices are to some extent supplementing our thoughts. We've given up remembering a lot of things because it's so easy to "Google it". We don't remember friends email addresses or phone numbers because they are saved in our phones. Phone companies want to encourage this as it ties us deeper and deeper into their products and makes them more money. We need to decide if we are going to give up using electronic devices to the extent that we are and start using our memories again, use the electronic devices and keep the TLAs out as this is more akin to our memories than writing it down on paper, or give up on keeping the TLAs out of our (electronic) memories and thoughts.
So Comey doesn't like that millions of people are doing the digital equivalent of locking their doors, putting up curtains and blinds, and sealing envelopes of mail they send. Is the FBI really so incompetent and inept that it can't find legitimate ways to track down criminal activities? They could boost their arrest rates and popularity by investigating a few Wall St. Banks. They did it after the savings and loans scandals in the 1990s and they were immensely popular because of it. Why not do it again?
The Hackers does not seemed deterred, they have gotten into everything even into the government.
We are under no duty whatsoever to make life easier for Hoover's little nut cult.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Go back to sucking Hillary's dick, you useless piece of shit.
Comey wants to spy on us, but he refused to recommend prosecution against Hillary running top secret info on her home-brew email server? How about he treat the average American citizen with the same kid gloves Hillary got? Here's your adult conversation Comey: do your JOB with Hillary, THEN we can have an adult conversation about you spying on us.
Cry me a river.
( expect backdoor deals with congress over the next decade or so to outlaw strong encryption )
A lot of us have seen Comey lying his ass off on TV recently about other things. So when he tells us that encryption is making it harder for the government to spy on us, why should we believe him? As far as I'm concerned he is trying to convince us that our current level of encryption is secure and we don't need to do more, but my expectation is that they can pretty much read everything and we need to up our game.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Dear Comey, There was a time when many of us had no issue with honest law enforcement agents snooping in our e-mail. The problem is they went too far and we learned the hard way that if you give anyone too much power they will abuse it. Something the founding fathers knew when they wrote the constitution and bill of rights, but we had since forgotten. By their abuses, the government reminded us we need to be vigilant against abuses of power, and that's why everyone is encrypting: Because we lost faith in you.
Even as I type this, Slashdot is encrypting this connection. That protects me from this little post being printed off and used to eliminate me if I ever apply for a government job. Or maybe you can read this anyway and I'm better off keeping my thoughts to myself? It's a scary world we now live in where people are scared to open their mouths, but you made it that way.
is the entire fucking idea of using encryption...
Maybe the FBI and others should go back to their job investigating crime by actually getting search warrants and doing detective work and such, instead of whining that they can't automatically read uncle John's emails even though he is not a subject of any open cases.
What's the probable cause for mass surveillance with Stingray devices, car-plate scanners, face-recognition cameras, plusthe NSA collecting online meta-data? Comey is talking about the "bargain" provided by the law and its judicial process. The US people have to face the reality of 'stop and frisk', civil forfeiture by the police, police-employed rent-a-cops and the IRS, extra-judicial murders by police and other government agencies, a 'all your passwords are belong to us' mentality from politicians, and a court system where individuals have fewer rights than everyone else. Is that a "bargain" too?
I'm certain Mr Comey will "collect information" about these issues for his "adult conversation" next year.
So someone stole the USPS golden key and is walking around SF stealing mail. It gets you into apartment building lobbies. Mostly 94109 area code.
So there you go! They claim it will cost 200K to re-work the locks.
FBI Director Says Prolific Default Encryption Hurting Government Spying Efforts
Isn't that the whole idea?
is so full of shit, it's coming out of their ears.
Their constant whining about crypto is merely a distraction. They don't need to break the crypto when they can just install the malware to steal your keys.
They don't need it when they can just jail you indefinitely for failing to provide the keys on demand.
They want everyone to THINK they can't get into it, when reality is quite different.
It's akin to putting a high security vault door on your house. Seems pretty safe until you notice the windows. Then the door becomes irrelevant.
The NSA has shown us that NOTHING that is network connected can be trusted. Period.
If they're not sitting on a trove of zero-days, then someone else IS. The attack surface is just too big to effectively secure. Too many ways in.
You want to keep something a secret you would be better off going back to old school methods. With their fingers in everything, I just don't trust the tech enough to utilize it for anything I want to keep secure.
I promise I'll give up my password when I get a warrant and verify it with my lawyer.
The only reasons for backdoors are to violate the 4th amendment with mass surveillance or for ephemeral keys that get destroyed like an encrypted chat or phone call but they should not have been recorded without a warrant in the first place.
Technology does not work that way. There are any number of permutations in which the room is not dark for everyone.
The worst possible permutation is where criminals have access to all our private information, and the system that wants to prosecute those criminals can obtain no evidence against them.
The best possible permutation is where criminals are in total darkness, while the most incorruptible members of law enforcement, after obtaining a legitimate warrant, are in a brightly-lit room.
There are smart people in the fields of cybersecurity and encryption. It just might be possible for them, over time, to develop clever checks, balances, and safeguards, that get us close to the best possible permutation.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
This is what I read between the lines...
The American people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in private spaces -- including houses, but that right is not absolute. (If) law enforcement (wants to) believe that there's evidence of a crime, judges and law enforcement can invade our private spaces.
It's been shown time and time again that your word against any official or upper echelon person is worthless. Their word is final. Their use of force is just. Your losses, pain and suffering don't matter and your death is a collateral damage statistic that was budgeted for. Should you die at their hands while speaking out, their media arm will be briefed on your sins (some will be invented if none exist) and they will inform the world that you clearly deserved it. If and when they want to root through your home, they will, and they will use some stupid women and children excuse to do it. Resist and you are a terrorist. Everything they find will be entered into a database. Even if there is nothing illegal or unusual, it doesn't matter. When a new leader comes into power, one who doesn't like some arbitrary thing or the people who do like it, and decides to cleanse the world, poof, you're gone. Never shoulda had the mayo in your fridge when they inventoried your place XX years ago. He says it's gross and the people who like it are sick in the head.
They are not your masters. They are your servants.
Put them in their place while you still can.
Shit or get off the pot, America.
The FBI, of ALL agencies, should be the last to complain about encryption, especially with the skeletons in their own closet (namely, Hoover's widescale phone taps, for example). The last time I checked, it wasn't the job of the government, or the people, to make law enforcement's job *easy*. The FBI just doesn't want to have to actually *investigate* and do the legwork they used to before the age of mass communication. There's a cost/benefit analysis to be made: calculate the harm caused by a very small minority of individuals who want to do the US harm, and compare that to the harm of caused by any organized crime group exploiting the backdoors the FBI wants to see in everything. I guarantee the harm caused by terrorists is so miniscule in comparison as to make a request to cripple widescale encryption tantamount to an attack on America, itself.
What's the problem?
Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
and stop using corporate-vendor encryption - it's too good and we can't spy on it.
-- FBI Agent Brer Rabbit
Adult conversation - "You're the niggers, we're the masters - got that boy?"
Funny that the one calling for an "adult conversation" is exactly the one acting like a spoiled rich kid who has been crying for years now because he didn't get what he wants.
The public will have an adult conversation with the FBI only when it realizes what a fucking clown James Comey is and finally takes steps to remove him from his position.
We've been through all his propaganda-like defenses and overbearing one sided paranoid attacks against privacy and citizen security so far, as adults to, only to reject his ideas and applaud the few companies that are actually interested in defending privacy and a functional democracy.
If the FBI cannot function without backdoors and only promote privacy erosion, it's quite clear that the problem is in policy. Either way, removing the current director and putting someone in his place who understand the basic idea that actions like he is proposing does more harm than good should be a step in the right direction.
Stop wasting your fucking time trying to attack the civil liberties of the people you are supposed to work for. Can't he see how useless this whole thing is? It's only through the force of sheer ignorance that he's still able to talk all the crap he's been talking so far, which is the worst part of it all.
The moment you get backdoors to american based business is the moment criminals will flock to foreign companies to do whatever they want to - most of them actually already did, are outside of your reach, you provoked it, and there's nothing you can do in those cases.
Meanwhile, businesses trying to protect industry secrets, journalists, citizens trying to protect sensitive data, victims of abuse and persecution, are all getting exposed by erosion of privacy. Law enforcement and government has proven time and time again how incapable they are of securing sensitive information. You don't get the key to the kingdom if you can't help but losing it all the fucking time.
Be an "adult" and just admit that you want the power for yourself. Or that you are completely clueless as to what you are talking about. It's over.
Sorry if I'm duplicating another. Admittedly, haven't read all the comments. That said, is "adult conversation" a platitude for declaring all arguments insubstantial because the accuser would like to make a declarative stating all counter-arguments are not equivalently rational? Is it an equivalent to Godwin's law, and the effectively defeated party resorted to comparing the majority to the Nazis? Metaphorically, that is.
It's not a bargain, it's a tradeoff.
A bargain is something you strike with some other party that has something you want. You give them something; they give you something.
There is no other party here. It's our society; our country; our government. We make the rules. We face a (putative) tradeoff between privacy and security. It is entirely on us how we make that tradeoff.
I don't agree with that "bargain", I'm okay with encryption being everywhere and anywhere. More importantly, I'm not afraid of, and are willing to deal with the consequences thereof. No deal.
Widespread encryption built into smartphones is "making more and more of the room that we are charged to investigate dark," Comey said in a cybersecurity symposium.
Good. That's the intention. Go cry in a river.
You should have given him Animal Farm. I find what 1984 suffers from is trying too hard to brow beat in ideas that aren't true (Newspeak is absurd*) and focuses too much on an individual we have little reason to care about. Meanwhile, Animal Farm as an allegory does a really good job of extrapolating out the actors and how the seize power towards their own ends while the average animal suffers under fear, worse living conditions, and eventual death. That's the part that most mimics the life people have seen, be it under theocracies, democracies, or dictatorships as the situation unfolds. Besides, it has animals! :)
*To be clear, since 1984 only focuses on the internal circle (and the inner inner circle) that makes up the very niche part of the population, one could argue that it mimics PC speech and is a real thing. But that ignores that the vast majority of people aren't effected by Newspeak or PC speech or really ANY of the apparatus as discussed in 1984 while they have only fear or something similar to speak openly about the constantly rewriting of history. Or we're to just believe that 90% of people just don't care and 10% want to be part of the fascist political organization, give or take a mass murder or two to get to those numbers--which is never really indicated.
If they are allowed to frame the issue as privacy versus security, then we have a hard, uphill battle to fight, unfortunately. The stronger argument to be made, from the perspective of convincing the government to not do something /utterly insane/ goes, is that this is a case of security versus security.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...
https://www.schneier.com/blog/...
The Onion article writes itself.
"FBI Director Says Presence of Brains in Other People Hurting Government Spying Efforts"
Everyone not in the FBI is encouraged to turn in their brains or at least stop using them. This will be the biggest boost to national security in the history of the nation. Doctors say you can't do without a brain but that is only one side of this issue. Citing new data, FBI experts insist that use of a brain is an optional part of modern life. After spying on politicians who believed their story about encryption they have conclusive evidence.
Dickhead. ;)
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Let me get my violin.
"FBI Director Says Prolific Default Encryption Hurting Government Spying Efforts "
GOOD!!!!!
You scumbags have forgotten you are supposed to serve the American people, NOT spy on them indiscriminately!
Making Americans more vulnerable to foreign and domestic hackers does not make us safer.
Just because the FBI could also potentially use those same hacking tools against criminals and terrorists doesn't make it a good idea to make the rest of us vulnerable.
Like ordering people to leave their doors open at night in case the FBI needs to check on something.
So Comey wants to eliminate one of our biggest protections against organized crime, pedophiles, Federal agencies acting illegally, and other forms of criminals. Who on Earth can promote such an agenda, while claiming to be protecting Americans, other that someone with an agenda similar to those he is claiming to fight?
His arguments are highly illogical at face value, but make perfect sense as a means to harm America from the inside. Prior to Snowden, when we buried our collective heads in the sands of denial about illegal Federal behavior, I could have assumed that Comey at least had our best interests at heart. But now I must assume that his agenda is to continue harming us.
The conversation we've been trying to have about this has dipped below public consciousness now, and that's fine,
It is them again pointing out what they are doing in plain sight and they even state what they are doing or planning on doing. It is like the FBI or CIA's comments that it would take a major terror attack where encryption was used to turn the people against it and then the Paris attacks happen and the narrative from the news media was all about how encryption helped/enabled these attacks. A little while later there was the San Bernardino attack and that fucking iPhone caper where government incompetence ran rampant from the start and again where encryption was painted as the problem instead of stupidity by the media.
Granted there is a lot that Comey said here that make me think he needs a big punch in the dick for, especially his patronizing statements, but that one statement is the stand out one for me.
Time to offend someone
These scumbags are trying to bring about 1984. Privacy is worth more than all the fake security they are trying to sell, almost none of their privacy invading BS has prevented any terrorist attacks. Freedom loving people of the world, Encrypt!! And give the FBI, CIA, NSA and all those other spy organizations the finger!
I'd love for the United States to have an adult conversation about encryption. But when one side of the conversation only insists on getting all the toys it wants, and pouts or screams whenever anything is denied, that is NOT an adult conversation. An adult conversation can only take place between two adults, and until Comey and those like him start treating the tech sector and the American public like adults, we can't have an adult conversation.
So in my private room, I have a private conversation with someone. And then after the fact, the FBI decides to investigate alleged crime in my room. So they come to the room, and "invade my private space" how? It's an empty room now. Conversation was yesterday. So they are going to do what? Were they recording the conversation? Is there some recording I don't know about that every room makes so the FBI can invade my personal space?
This is idiotic. And is a great example of the damaged thinking at FBI which demonstrates so clearly why they need to leave us alone.
Don't be fooled into thinking this is purely to fight terrorism. Like the Patriot Act and NDAAs and RICO and etc. etc., they want this for all crimes and then some. Two things that piss me off about Comey's statements - 1) we're all adults. By saying "we need to have an adult conversation" is insulting and offensive and proves that Comey has no intention of actually having an adult conversation. 2) The potential damage from identity theft, regular theft, potential for blackmail, and whatever I'm not thinking of far outweighs what Comey argues this is good for.
Yes, that is what happens when you leave that one room and enter others that you have been told you should not access without being allowed to, and kept on "doing your thing".
The inhabitants of those rooms you where tresspassing into got wise to it, and started to try to defend themselves from your intrusions. Quite rightfully so I might add.
And alas, the method with which those inhabitants now defended themselves against your intrusions spilled over into the one room you where actually allowed to enter.
Looks to me you're a "victim" of your own actions. Don't go try crying crocodile tears.
This is the direct result of the impunity with which large-scale warrantless spying was done.
Letting AT&T off the hook when illegally they let NSA tap all their American traffic.
Insisting that there's nothing wrong with spying on everyone, "trust us" that they're only looking at bad guys.
The "LOVEINT" business where FBI operators spy on their love obsessions.
The "it's not data, it's metadata so it's okay" business.
When you insist to spy on everyone everywhere and break our laws, the natural effect is that even companies will start supporting encryption by default.
For too long the FBI has sat back and watched as other agencies have been helping without them.
The IRS has been helping people to realize what are acceptable political views.
The DHS will soon be helping protect our voting process as well as an outcome that is favorable to them.
NASA has been helping to reach out to muslims.
The EPA has been helping write laws without Congress, and helping to "crucify" people who don't comply with them.
The NEA has been helping raise awareness about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.
There have been a number of cases where the police have helped strangle unarmed people lately.
So good for the FBI! Helping us understand our emails and forward the details to the other helpers in the federal government.
Good. Jumping Jesus Christ.
The possibility of people using encryption that can't be cracked by the government has been part of the bargain since the beginning. Thomas Jefferson understood this better than anyone since he was actually one of the foremost cryptographers of his time. His mechanical encryption device, Jefferson disk , (or close derivatives of it) were used by the US military up to WW II.
Taken to its logical conclusion, the FBI is arguing that it should be able to read all internet traffic in the US, to make sure nobody is breaking the law. That IS what they are saying. There is no need to read between lines here. So then, we just invent a Great Firewall of USA that works like the internet in Communist China? Will we then pay for rooms full of FBI agents who will monitor our email, phone, and browser traffic for signs of law breaking? I don't know, but this may be the most important question of our generation. How far do we bend over to allow law enforcement to protect us from ourselves? I have already heard law enforcement agencies arguing for more cameras everywhere, license plate readers on every signal light, random DUI stops, random body searches, forced interrogations with lie detection technology, background checks for job applicants, license seekers, renters, real estate purchases, car purchases, ...
Wait, we have most of that already. We're basically already screwed. We're only arguing how much worse we're going to be screwed in 5 years...
By the way, curtains and windows shutters hurt Government efforts too!!
Please ban them!
said he would pursue any other American for what Hillary did, but not her. He placed an exclamation point on it when he later admitted under oath to congress that Hillary had not only repeatedly lied to the public about every detail of the matter but had lied on national television while under oath in a congressional hearing and that he did not even consider looking into that matter.
When the powerful choose to allow the wealthy-and-powerful to break all the laws, they lose the legitimacy to go after any of the small fish.
Would he have allowed Hillary to encrypt HER stuff to hide it from investigators??? Of course he would, as he proved by allowing her to get away with the deletion of tens of thousands of e-mails that were being sought by the courts and the congress (an act lawyers call "spoilation" and which courts say entitles juries to assume the defendent is guilty). His "adult conversation" was a ploy to say all the average people may have no secrets and no privacy and no online security while the rich and powerful are allowed to have all these things, even if they become technically illegal.
... or rather, incredibly condescending. Given my occupation (and prior occupation in law enforcement), I am a huge advocate for catching criminals. I am also a huge advocate for the rule of law and respecting rights of people under law. By saying that the Bureau is collecting information so we can have an "adult" conversation, the clear implication is that those on the other side of the conversation from the Bureau have been having conversations that are immature or child-like. The tone of those comments is like that of a parent telling a child that it is time for the child to grow up. It indicates a lack of respect for the opposing views. The Bureau isn't doing itself any favors with that kind of approach.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Boo hoo.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Over our dead bodies, and possibly his. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson
Stego atop encryption. They can't crack your encryption if they don't know you're encrypting.
If Hillary had encrypted her email stores and forgotten the passkey then the FBI would have convicted her?
Is civil assets forfeiture the same kind of bargain? What about the Wickard v. Filburn bargain? (interstate = intrastate) Or the Kelo v. City of New London bargain? (public = private) And how about the GFSZA bargain that prevents the States from recognizing licensed concealed carry from other States and prevents all legal unlicensed carry?
Fuck your bargain James Comey, fuck your FBI, and fuck your government. Die in a fire.
Encryption is simply a set of mathematical operations. If they really think they can stop people from making certain calculations, I would like to know how. Are they really going to intercept all communications among all parties and prosecute anybody who transmits information in an encrypted form?
I would suggest that they kindly go fuck themselves.