FBI Director Christopher Wray On Encryption: We Can't Have an 'Entirely Unfettered Space Beyond the Reach of Law Enforcement' (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Encryption should have limits. That's the message FBI Director Christopher Wray had for cybersecurity experts Tuesday. The technology that scrambles up information so only intended recipients can read it is useful, he said, but it shouldn't provide a playground for criminals where law enforcement can't reach them. "It can't be a sustainable end state for there to be an entirely unfettered space that's utterly beyond law enforcement for criminals to hide," Wray said during a live interview at the RSA Conference, a major cybersecurity gathering in San Francisco. His comments are part of a back-and-forth between government agencies and security experts over the role of encryption technology in public safety. Agencies like the FBI have repeatedly voiced concerns like Wray's, saying encryption technology locks them out of communications between criminals. Cybersecurity experts say the technology is crucial for keeping data and critical computer systems safe from hackers. Letting law enforcement access encrypted information just creates a backdoor hackers will ultimately exploit for evil deeds, they say.

Wray, a former assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice who counts among his biggest cases prosecutions against Enron officials, acknowledged Tuesday that encryption is "a provocative subject." As the leader of the nation's top law enforcement agency, though, he's focused on making sure the government can carry out criminal investigations. Hackers in other countries should expect more investigations and indictments, Wray said. "We're going to follow the facts wherever they lead, to whomever they lead, no matter who doesn't like it," he said. To applause, he added, "I don't really care what some foreign government has to say about it."

Comments

This is what tough on crime gets ya folks

[rsilvergun]

50+ years of voting for tough on crime politicians gets you thinking like this. That and the equally if not more-so ineffective "broken windows" policing.

Re:This is what tough on crime gets ya folks

[DNS-and-BIND]

The FBI director isn't elected. In fact, he and the entire FBI and the rest of the intelligence community do not answer to the elected government. They have their own goals, and they simply do not feel safe from us. They feel we mean to harm them (although we can not say why); and to prevent this they must monitor our communications. Thus the Fourth and Fifth amendments have to go.

Re:This is what tough on crime gets ya folks

[Immerman]

>We can either have privacy and terrorism, or no privacy and a government that can't prosecute.

What makes you think the courts couldn't prosecute? People end up in prison all the time based on nothing more than eye-witness testimony - the least-reliable form of evidence, as any scientist can tell you.

Not to mention that you forgot to add "and terrorism using unassailable encryption" to the second half of that. No terrorist organization worth half a damn would would be more than mildly inconvenienced by the deliberate compromising of "officially sanctioned / legal" encryption. Even if you don't have the chops to roll your own, you can download real, secure, encryption programs and libraries from open-source repositories around the world.

There's no putting the genie back in the bottle - the most you can do is make sure that you can spy on every online action of law-abiding citizens and the most incompetent of criminals, and hopelessly compromise their security in the process. That's not much good for fighting crime, quite the opposite in fact. But it's of great value if your real target is to be able to blackmail or destroy political opposition before it can present a real challenge.

Re: This is what tough on crime gets ya folks

[astrofurter]

Let's stop calling it a "plea bargain". That's a misleading euphemism. Let's call it what it really is: coerced false confession.

Re: This is what tough on crime gets ya folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's worse. People go to prison because the police tell them if they don't confess their spouse will be charged and children removed.

Re: This is what tough on crime gets ya folks

[cyber-vandal]

Trump won because there are a lot of people that had their futures taken away by outsourcing and Trump was the first presidential candidate that said they were going to do something about it. If you want to avoid this happening again, stop squealing about Putin and start looking at how to solve this issue. Trump may or may not be a dead man walking but the reason he's there won't go away once he's gone, it will be ripe for someone potentially more competent to tap into it.

Historically speaking

[Kernel Kurtz]

governments are the entities people most need to be able to keep secrets from.

Just sayin.

Does this mean they are working on mind reading?

[schwit1]

A free society's highest priority is not to service law enforcement.

And if we give you the keys everyone will have ...

[Proudrooster]

And if we give you the keys Mr. Government everyone will have them in 3..2..1.. because we all know how well law enforcement can keep a secret.
Yeah, I'm looking at you NSA, the most secure agency on planet earth that couldn't hang on to their toys, tools, and tactics.

Fun Fact: If it wasn't for the NSA leaks, we most likely would not have had the WannaCry ransomware attacks.

You can't legislate software out of existence.

[dicobalt]

Even if it becomes illegal in the US, there is still a whole world out there where it's not illegal. The software will still be there and still be accessible. You might as well let the good guys use it too. This man's argument is steeped in lazyness on the part of the FBI. They want to be able to issue a warrent to access the data and boom they have their case. The FBI don't want to do the leg work to get the information, they want a magic legal bullet. Sorry but that's pretty lame.

Re: You can't legislate software out of existence.

[dicobalt]

You can legislate the good guys, but the bad guys. The bad guys dont give a flying f about the legality of a piece of software. Hell, lots of good guys don't either for that matter lol

let me translate it...

[kiviQr]

4th Amendment is "a provocative subject."

Re:let me translate it...

[DNS-and-BIND]

The 2nd Amendment isn't too popular either on the Left. And the 1st as well.

Re:let me translate it...

[currently_awake]

America is awash in guns, I see no evidence the 2nd amendment is under attack. There is plenty of room for reasonable limitations on guns in America. Banning semi-automatic weapons would be a good start. You can have revolvers, bolt action rifles, and pump action shotguns only. That's plenty for hunting, farmer use, and self defense.

Papers, papers please....

[Anonymous Coward]

Land of the free my ass.

But We Are The FBI!

[Anonymous Coward]

FBI Director Christopher Wray just can't understand. "We're the good guys here! Why don't you believe us, we're the good guys!"

J. Edgar Hoover? That's in the past! Patriot Act? You can't bake a cake without breaking a few eggs! The Panopticon such that even Grandma gets a working over due to too many internet searches for cross-stitch patterns? Well Grandma liked that Commie pinko Rudolph Valentino back in the day, that's reason enough to suspect her!!

Damnit.. THIS IS A BINARY ISSUE!

[Rick Schumann]

This is a binary issue: you either have encryption, or you don't, damnit!
Meanwhile criminals (and non-stupid people!) will use non-backdoored encryption and not give a fuck.
Criminals will also find the backdoor and have access to everything!
Why the ACTUAL FUCK can't these brainless idiots get this through their thick skulls!?

backdoors

[l3v1]

The only way to avoid leaking backdoor information is to not have one. Period. If there is one, it will unavoidably either leak out, or be found out, that's certain. I understand they'd wish their jobs would be easier, but wishes aren't horses.

Re:Let me translate this for willfull morons.

[Mass Overkiller]

Well as such a supporter of the constitution, I shouldn't need to remind you that the right to keep and bear arms is in fact an unalienable right, according to the constitution, the one you are a sworn defender of. In fact the second amendment says 'shall not be infringed'. It doesn't say 'unless the person is an idiot' or 'if I deem they are unsuitable for XYZ reasons'. That definitely clears up my misconceptions of 'the left', thank you..

Re:People are often ignorant about computers.

[sgage]

And many people over 40 invented your computers, punk.

You're welcome.

Re:And if we give you the keys everyone will have

[Anonymous Coward]

In layman's terms,
"Law enforcement must have master keys to all homes/offices/safes. Every cop must be able to freely copy them."
and "we promise we'll never lose them, pinky swear!"

See how that goes over with the general public.

captcha: "tyranny" - wow. First time I landed an apropos one.

Um... who exactly hires the FBI director

[rsilvergun]

Santa Claus? The Easter Bunny?

Sorry to be flippant, but I really, really, really shouldn't have to point this out.

And our current president has pretty clearly removed all semblance of impartiality from the appointment while our Republican lead Congress (well, half of it now) is letting him get away with it.

FBI Director attacks US Constitution

[dweller_below]

This is not a technical issue.

For the last 232 years, the supreme law of the land in the United States is the US Constitution. All government powers, whether Executive, Legislative, or Judicial, are subordinate to the limits defined in the Constitution.

Claiming that the US Legal system must have unfettered access to all information is the same as saying that the US Legal system must not be fettered or subject to the US Constitution. That leads me to 3 important questions:

1. Why is NOW a good time to abandon the US Constitution?
2. What authority does Director Wray claim to be superior to the US Constitution?
3. Shouldn't Director Wray be immediately fired for violating his Oath to "..Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States.."?

But you can make it a crime to use them

[monkeyxpress]

No but what they will do is make it a crime to use robust encryption schemes. If you are caught using one then you go to prison for a long time on the basis of possession (regardless of whether you are actually involved in anything else illegal). Of course, criminals won't care, since they are already doing illegal stuff, but regular folk will basically have to make all their data discoverable to the authorities on demand. Similarly anyone in a position of authority, or with large amounts of wealth will be able to apply for an permit to use stronger encryption. As for data breaches, well, these seem to occur every few months at the moment, but unless it is panama paper stuff, very few seem to care (and even then...).

This is the middle class' biggest weakness - they have enough invested in the 'system' that you can use the threat of loss of participation in the system to make them conform to silly rules. Unfortunately we have only had a middle class for about 60 years now out of thousands of years of recorded civilisation, and I'm not entirely convinced it has the political will to sustain itself in the face of oligarchic leadership that seems intent on bringing back feudalism.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys never do learn. You always think you are the smartest guys in the room and then you say something stupid-as-fuck. The deplorables comment hurt Hillary as much as anything else. Anyone in flyover country heard loud and clear just how much they could expect her to represent them. You guys prove over and over that you learned nothing.