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150 Filmmakers and Photojournalists Call On Nikon, Sony, and Canon To Build in Encryption (zdnet.com)
Some of the world's leading photojournalists and filmmakers are calling on the manufacturers of the cameras they use to add encryption to their products, as the number of threats they face from having their devices seized is "literally too high to count." From a ZDNet report: Over 150 documentary makers and reporters signed an open letter by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, asking for camera makers -- including Nikon, Sony, and Canon -- to ensure that their work is protected while often "attempting to uncover wrongdoing in the interests of justice." "Documentary filmmakers and photojournalists work in some of the most dangerous parts of the world, often risking their lives to get footage of newsworthy events to the public," said Trevor Timm, the foundation's executive director. But, he said, "they face a variety of threats from border security guards, local police, intelligence agents, terrorists, and criminals when attempting to safely return their footage so that it can be edited and published." The filmmakers say that camera security has lagged behind the rest of the industry, leaving their work "dangerously vulnerable."
*sigh*
https://xkcd.com/538/
Much better to have a camera that autoloads the pictures onto a website far, far away, so that even if they are forcefully erased by the authorities, there is a copy somewhere anyway.
Or a camera with a kill switch that would act like the digital equivalent of "opening the film tray" and blanking it in a second... Could fry the microSD card, or wipe it clean.
Imagine you interview someone and they say something that might incriminate themselves. On the way back to the office the corrupt police take your camera. If the video is encrypted at least they don't have video of your source incriminating themselves.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
That could certainly be a stopgap solution. But pros want something that "just works", so it does make sense to urge the big manufacturers to officially support such a feature right out of the box.
For all of you quoting XKCD or talking about rubber hose cryptography, I have three words: Public Key Cryptography
There is no reason why a keypair can't be generated on a safe computer in a safe country and only the public key gets loaded into the camera, while the private key remains safe. The border people could still eat the memory card, and they could add new encrypted photos/videos to it using the public key, but they couldn't view old stuff.
You could even set the system up so that the encryption key gets encrypted twice, once with the NV public key, and once with a volatile key that gets erased after a few minutes, or at the press of a button. That way the photographer would have time to make sure they got the shot they wanted.
See that "Preview" button?
I think anyone with half a brain sees the benefit of having something encrypted vs. no encryption. With encryption your opponents may know you have something they don't want to see but they don't know what that something is. If you don't think it is worth that much you can give it up to them - no harm no foul. If it is something you might be murdered for having then I think you would want that hidden, even if it means eventually losing it or being subject to enhanced interrogation.
It also reduces the risk of "smuggling". Its exactly why Clinton ran her own e-mail server.
1) There is a chance you just get away with it
2) If you do get "caught" you have options; without encryption, if you get caught, for instance, exposing massive corruption, the outcome is entirely up to the corrupt.
3) The options are a) reveal what you have if it is not that bad b) deny you have anything but offer to delete or destroy the data or the camera c) you try to keep the data or they don't accept a or b and then you are in the same situation as no encryption but they still don't have the data.
Encryption is a tactical WIN WIN WIN.
Pfft. You'd need some kind of, I don't know, "International Network" to do that.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Cameras use ASIC chips. The "firmware" in question is simply there to tell the ASIC which functions to enable/disable from what is already available. Encryption would break the existing data chain of sensor > ASIC > storage. It would then need to go sensor > ASIC > CPU > storage. Think of the amount of CPU power required to handle data encryption in the first place, these CPUs simply could not keep up. So to add the functionality of encryption, it would have to be implemented in a new generation of their ASIC image processors.
The encryption does not necessarily need to happen on the fly. You can save the images and videos as usual, and then pipe it for the camera to process slowly, even when it's been turned off. Making it use little power is more important than speed IMHO. Although I see no reason why encryption cannot be added to the ASIC.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Photo journalists do already have their devices seized. All the time. And they are often stripped of their memory card before before having it given back to them (if it is given back). The problem encryption is meant to solve is not to prevent the device from being seized, it's to prevent the seizing agency from having access to what you've been photographing. Photo journalists going behind enemy lines, taking pictures of rebels groups or doing interviews with people who want their faces blurred later. Losing the photographs altogether is not as bad as having the photographs fall into the hands of an adversary. They are already going to lose them if the device is seized. They just want the photographs to be safe if that happens.
Unfortunately, seeing encryption applied to new classes of devices is a controversial topic now. Not for the end user, who would support that. But governments across the world - across the (ironically named) "free" world - are aiming at encryption and labeling it as evil and helping the cause of terrorists and child molesters. The first time a camera comes out with encryption and is involved in child pornography will be huge. It will be splashed by law enforcement across every newspaper as showing how encryption is evil, how it's enabling criminals and terrorists, and how it's good that government should legislate back doors into every piece of encryption on the market. For that reason, until we settle the fight that is brewing about encryption and openly legislated (as opposed to the private ones the NSA strong arms into products already) encryption back doors are firmly rejected, I would like to see cameras remain free of encryption. I don't want to see another class of device used as propaganda and leveraged as a way of taking away more of our rights and privacy.
A sensible encryption setup for a camera would use asymetric crypto. So recording stuff would only require the public key, the private key could remain safely at home.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I'm not sure these guys understand what'll happen if there's in-camera encryption. I can see at least two possible outcomes:
1. The device is encrypted, so the authorities just take and destroy it
2. The device is encrypted, so the authorities just take and destroy it, and kill the jouro when they refuse to unlock it.
I'm not sure either of these are really want the person in question wants. I can think of other issues (and you can too), but encrypting the device is probably not the right answer.