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FBI Couldn't Access Nearly 7,000 Devices Because of Encryption (foxbusiness.com)
Michael Balsamo, writing for Associated Press: The FBI hasn't been able to retrieve data from more than half of the mobile devices it tried to access in less than a year, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Sunday, turning up the heat on a debate between technology companies and law enforcement officials trying to recover encrypted communications. In the first 11 months of the fiscal year, federal agents were unable to access the content of more than 6,900 mobile devices, Wray said in a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philadelphia. "To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem," Wray said. "It impacts investigations across the board -- narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation." The FBI and other law enforcement officials have long complained about being unable to unlock and recover evidence from cellphones and other devices seized from suspects even if they have a warrant, while technology companies have insisted they must protect customers' digital privacy.
On an iPhone, this is accomplished by pressing the lock button five times in a row. A little more cumbersome, but still easy enough to do quickly if the need arises.
To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem,"
Hey, FBI?
No, it isn't, but do you remember this? The absolutely massive violations of the 4th amendment by the USGov? THAT is a "huge, huge problem". The intrusion into the personal life of billions of ordinary, peaceful, law abiding citizens around the world (not just in the USofA). No-warrant, mass surveillance, like we used to blame the USSR and GDR for.
You violated the spirit and the letter of the law on such a scale that the world pushed back. You were given our trust, and you violated it. Not just here and there, exceptionally. No, you violated it systemically and constantly, for decades. And you are still doing so. No one who violated those laws has seen their day in court, a single day in prison, a single dollar of fine. You turned yourselves into a surveillance state.
So yes, we are pushing back and we will KEEP pushing back, harder than ever. We will reclaim the rights you stole from us, with or without your permission. Because that's how things work in a free society - something you wouldn't understand.
Sincerely,
The rest of us who aren't tyrannical fucks.
How about just NOT using face or print to open, and just keep using a fairly complex password.
And...keep your phone locked at all times requiring that password to open.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
When the govenrment is working for the people to strengthen the products they use, the people are more willing to go along with its recommendations. And to trust it when it says it needs a backdoor and will only use it with a warrant in cases of criminal or national security importance.
But the last two decades has seen multiple revelations that the government is working against the people - violating the 4th Amendment under the veil of secrecy. When the public gets a whiff of that, they start to distrust the government. Not only do they refuse to put in backdoors, they start implementing security measures that even they cannot bypass if they lose the key. "Just to be on the safe side."
The U.S. government has nobody to blame but themselves for letting things to get to this point. Once you lose the people's trust, the people stop going out of their way to make things easier for the government, and in fact will start doing things to make things harder for the government.
Incidentally, that was a PR snowjob by Apple. The cell phone in that case didn't belong to the terrorists. It actually belonged to the San Bernardino County government. It was assigned to one of the terrorists as a work phone. Apple was basically arguing that they should not be compelled to give the owner of a phone access to information on the phone in the case of a (potential) dire emergency. If you follow through on their argument, employers would not have access to company phones they provided to employees, parents would not have access to phones they bought for their kids, you could not authorize police to pull GPS data from a phone you lent to a friend when they went hiking and got lost. It's an argument which weakens the concept of ownership (right of the owner to know what their property is being used for, vs the user's right to privacy).
Face ID can't be tricked by showing it an image, not even a 3D image, because it doesn't work using optical imaging.
The problem was different thinking between the USA and UK.
The UK was able to keep a secret and got all Irish communications. Only a few in the UK mil, GCHQ and Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch had any idea about the "collect it all" networks, results that covered all communications in, into and out of Ireland. Voice prints found one or both sides of all new, interesting conversations.
"How Britain eavesdropped on Dublin" (15 July 1999) http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
No lawyers, no human rights lawyers, court workers, telco workers, police, journalists had the information to understand national and international collection in/in and out of Ireland.
Irish funding, direct support from the USA was discovered and tracked back to its origins in the USA by the UK mil thanks to the use of phone networks.
The funding and flow of material into Ireland from the USA was then stopped.
If interesting people did not understand how total network collection worked globally they just kept on talking.
The results allowed the UK mil and Special Branch to focus in on small groups, offering each interesting person a deal to turn informant or consider other methods.
The USA is now different. The gov needs publicity, budget growth for contractors, good cyber police news stories for the news cycle.
US human rights lawyers, court workers, telco workers, contractors, ex and former police, journalists, cult members, faith groups, criminals now understand the inner workings of police network collection and what a phone will not keep secure.
The USA told the world decades of the UK's best kept "collect it all" secrets so US police could get into phone crypto for open courts.
The UK had the better idea and kept methods secure, the USA will see easy collect it on consumer grade phones go dark due to methods been discovered in the courts.
WARRIOR PRIDE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Interesting people who would have once kept on talking, inviting new people to talk (voice print of the new person) will just move to more traditional methods of communications. Well way from junk consumer devices and brands with open mics.
What could have been decades of total network collection was lost to needing good news about a few US court cases.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"