FBI Chief Calls Unbreakable Encryption 'Urgent Public Safety Issue' (reuters.com)

The inability of law enforcement authorities to access data from electronic devices due to powerful encryption is an "urgent public safety issue," FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday in remarks that sought to renew a contentious debate over privacy and security. From a report: The FBI was unable to access data from nearly 7,800 devices in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 with technical tools despite possessing proper legal authority to pry them open, a growing figure that impacts every area of the agency's work, Wray said during a speech at a cyber security conference in New York. "This is an urgent public safety issue," Wray added, while saying that a solution is "not so clear cut."

Comments

Think of the children

[110010001000]

Think of the children! No, not the children assembling iPhones in sweatshops: the children the FBI are looking to protect. Think of them.

Re:Think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

No...this is cyberspace, where the men are men, the women are men and the children are FBI agents.

Oh no!

[gfxguy]

Heaven forbid people actually be secure in their persons, papers, and effects!

The benefit of the doubt

[sinij]

I will grant Christopher Wray benefit of the doubt and interpret his words charitably - he must have meant it is public safety issue that more people don't use strong cryptography, potentially exposing sensitive data to FBI and other crooks.

Re:The benefit of the doubt

[pr0fessor]

What the law enforcement clambering for a back door or weaker encryption forget or fail to see is that the 7k cases they are talking about isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to the 17 million identity thefts each year

I'm not sure it is

[H3lldr0p]

I don't see it all that short term thinking. This is definitely part of a larger picture, a longer termed plan.

Get this wedge in now, this idea that some authority should have all the keys to the encryption kingdom, and it should be easier to keep it there when the next privacy scheme comes along. Otherwise it's a doubly hard fight the next time. You have to convince more people that the authorities are correct to want it. Do it now, when it is of less concern.

Re:I'm not sure it is

[nine-times]

To be honest, I don't think he's exactly wrong to say that unbreakable encryption is a public safety issue. It's an issue. It's an issue we can debate and think about and talk about. If encryption is unbreakable, then it makes it harder for law enforcement to do certain things that they might validly want to do.

On the other hand, if people can't encrypt their data (or that encryption is breakable), then it creates an entirely different set of problems. People can't safeguard their data or protect their systems. It increases the vulnerability of our infrastructure. It increases the chances that criminals and terrorists can gain access to important and private information.

There are going to be real valid problems either way. There should be open discussions about what all of those problems are, and how we can mitigate them. But ultimately, I don't think breakable encryption (or backdoored encryption) is a viable long-term option, even if we were willing to live in a police state. The ability to break or circumvent encryption will inevitably fall into the hands of criminals.

There is no middle choice here

[DontBeAMoran]

Either encryption works for everyone, or it works for no one.

In the end, calling unbreakable encryption an "urgent public safety issue" is pointless.

Why are cars lacking security features against terrorists?
Why are guns lacking security features against terrorists?
Why is cash lacking security features against terrorists?

The FBI/CIA/NSA does not only want to access the devices thieves/killers/terrorists, they want to spy on EVERYONE.

Re:There is no middle choice here

[110010001000]

Exactly. Think of the children. How many children could have been found if only there were no encryption? Why aren't you thinking of the children? You must want the kidnappers to win.

Legal authority to pry them open

[nctritech]

You have the legal authority to pry them open. Get prying. Having the authority to try to open something doesn't give you the entitlement to open it. Unfortunately, it seems the top dog at the FBI does not understand this concept. It's also entirely the fault of the FBI and other government agencies with police powers that this encryption situation has gone in this direction. They made this bed and they must lie in it. No law can change the fundamental properties of mathematical operations, and good luck outlawing consumer encryption since every CPU being made nowadays (even Celerons and Atoms) has hardware AES and such strong encryption is ubiquitous. Combined with the epic failure and subsequent revelations of major flaws in the government's key escrow Clipper Chip, there is no way the FBI is killing off the spread of encryption.

Crooks...of what magnitude?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

They want to catch crooks. Meanwhile, billions in dictatorships are kept down with the assistance of breaking crypto.

Are we to sacrifice them so a prosecutor can get a notch or two on his belt once in a great while?

And what are those hundreds of millions of children living with a boot on their face...forever...worth?

Torture and murder some, you are a nasty criminal. Torture and murder hundreds of thousands, and people in free countries say you are practicing self-rule.