Slashdot Mirror
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.
You think the federal government needs a user to say their name on Slashdot to know who it comes from? You've been asleep.
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.
Exactly. The big difference is that two of the things he mentions are physical spaces that a human has to enter. If the FBI broke into my car, people would see it, they'd be reprimanded, etc. 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.
I'm glad that we have people on our side that are smarter than him.
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.
Someone who puts the people's interest first, and isn't someone who can obviously be bought by criminals like Hilary.
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 ]
There were encryption wars in the 1990s?
Yes there was.
The government won (by cheating).
The people thought they won but were knifed in the back.
FTFY. You seem to have missed Snowdon's relevations and other recent similar events. It turns out that all the flaws in IPSEC and stuff which stopped it being deployed were engineered by the NSA. The reason that the F35 designs were stolen; the reason why all commercial environments are so insecure, the reason the internet and mobile networks are one big ongoing security hole is that, when they lost the moral and legal arguments the government simply decided to break everyone's toys.
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.
They already tried that 20 years ago, and failed. People today are way more aware of the issue, and more willing to push back. Secure encryption is already widespread and will soon be ubiquitous. The FBI is just throwing a temper tantrum because they didn't get what they wanted.
I was recently at a free security seminar, which featured an FBI special agent from the cyber-crime devision as the main speaker.
Main LOL's taken away from this talk:
-Stuxnet was created by terrorists.
-Dual-factor auth. is not the silver bullet it appears to be.
-Everyone should put their data in the cloud.
-Private cloud is less secure than public cloud.
The 20/30-somethings in the room were stoked about free beer and cookies. All the old-head neckbeards had full blown WAT face going on.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016