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FBI Repeatedly Overstated Encryption Threat Figures To Congress, Public (techcrunch.com)
mi shares a report from The Washington Post (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): The FBI has repeatedly provided grossly inflated statistics to Congress and the public about the extent of problems posed by encrypted cellphones, claiming investigators were locked out of nearly 7,800 devices connected to crimes last year when the correct number was much smaller, probably between 1,000 and 2,000.
Over a period of seven months, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray cited the inflated figure as the most compelling evidence for the need to address what the FBI calls "Going Dark" -- the spread of encrypted software that can block investigators' access to digital data even with a court order. "The FBI's initial assessment is that programming errors resulted in significant over-counting of mobile devices reported,'' the FBI said in a statement Tuesday. The bureau said the problem stemmed from the use of three distinct databases that led to repeated counting of phones. Tests of the methodology conducted in April 2016 failed to detect the flaw, according to people familiar with the work.
Over a period of seven months, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray cited the inflated figure as the most compelling evidence for the need to address what the FBI calls "Going Dark" -- the spread of encrypted software that can block investigators' access to digital data even with a court order. "The FBI's initial assessment is that programming errors resulted in significant over-counting of mobile devices reported,'' the FBI said in a statement Tuesday. The bureau said the problem stemmed from the use of three distinct databases that led to repeated counting of phones. Tests of the methodology conducted in April 2016 failed to detect the flaw, according to people familiar with the work.
Sherlock reportedly overstated the threat of No Shit to Congress, Public. Also, Cop Math doesn't have a Wikipedia page. I'm genuinely surprised.
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How did law enforcement solve crimes before smartphones were a thing?
#DeleteChrome
Even if their numbers were true, it wouldn't change the fact that government mandated backdoors to encryption is a remarkably stupid and short sighted concept.
Hell, all investigations could grind to a halt tomorrow because of encryption, and it wouldn't change that equation. The quantity is irrelevant.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The Infamous Cop Math:
A number of years ago I had a heroin case in Hayward. They had a warrant where the snitch, known, in polite terms, as a “confidential informant” with the obligatory history of reliability in past snitchings and who was a good citizen and such said there were two packages of heroin in a cereal box in my client’s kitchen. One weighed one pound and the other a half pound. Cops came in with a warrant and sure enough easily found the heroin and that’s what the packages weighed.
Me: So officer did you wait until you got to the station to do the weighing or did you use the scale that was there and which is now in evidence.
Cop: I used the scale there
Me: but that’s an Ohaus scale isn’t it
Cop: yes
Me: and it is graded in grams isn’t it
Cop: yes
Me: so you did the math in your head right
Cop: yes
Me: so how many grams are in a half pound
Cop: [absolute silence]
me: let me help you out here. Let’s say there are about 28 grams in an ounce. So how many grams in a half pound
Cop: [silence continues]
Me: ok. Let’s make it easier. Let’s say there are 16 ounces in a pound. So how many grams in a half pound [more silence – but now the jury is laughing]
Me: ok let me help you out a little more here. If a pound has 16 ounces how many ounces are in a half pound [more silence – juror yells out “8”. Jury laughs].
Me: look if there are 28 grams in an ounce and juror number 3 helped you out by telling you there were 8 ounces in a half pound, how many grams were in what you tell us was a half pound. Now I walk up to the bench and snatch a yellow pad and pencil. “May I, your honor.” Here officer. Here is a pad and pencil. Now write down 28. Remember that’s one gram. Now you learned from juror number 3 that there are 8 oz in a half pound so you simply take 28 and multiply by 8. OK, what’s the number. [very long painful silence]. DA, who is now a judge and was an especially vicious DA, asks for a recess. He comes over to me but trips over his big box of files [now jury is in hysterics].
By the way, my guy is on trial with his much younger cousin. Cousin is about to go to trial on a dead bang 4+ pound cocaine case. The DA says if they both take a year in county jail he’ll dump the cocaine case.
An inability to access the phone means nothing if prosecution was successful for other reasons. A more useful statistic would be how many phones do they have that couldn't be opened that were evidence in crimes that have not been successfully prosecuted. But, that is probably far, far beyond their math skills.
"We screwed up our program that simply counts the number of devices, but you can trust us to make super secure software to access the back doors, it would never have a problem that allowed improper access!"
After the NSA exploit leaks I don't know how these Constitution-stomping tools don't get laughed out of the room when trying to claim their back door would be good-guys-only.
Dude, "being questioned by" is not the same as "worked with".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Problem is not the numbers, it's the narrative itself.
They are effectively saying that they can't do anything, like say regular investigation jobs, if they don't have encryption to backdoors, which would effectively ease up their work on one end while exponentially raising the potential for other types of crimes like identity theft, blackmail, exploitation, stealing of corporate secrets, hacking, and whatnot.
The numbers don't matter. The stupidity of breaking encryption for an entire country does.