FBI Doesnt Want you to have encryption, for your own good!?

[Rook]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/fbi-director-warns-that-smartphone-encryption-will-come-100237542264.html

"WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey warned in stark terms Thursday against the push by technology companies to encrypt smartphone data and operating systems, arguing that murder cases could be stalled, suspects could walk free, and justice could be thwarted by a locked phone or an encrypted hard drive."

and

"Likening encrypted data to a safe that cannot be cracked or a closet door that won’t open, Comey said the move by tech companies to protect user communications in the name of privacy is certain to impede a wide range of criminal investigations. New legislation to allow law enforcement to intercept communications is needed at a time of advancing technology and new forms of communication, he said.

“We have the legal authority to intercept and access communications from information pursuant to court order, but we often lack the technical ability to do so,” Comey said in a Brookings Institution speech."


^^^ I don't if I should laugh or shake my head at that last one. I really doubt the FBI hasn't the technical ability to decrpyt even some of the snazzier encryptions.. thats a double negative, so that may sound confusing. I would say, who in their right mind would buy this.. and then I went to my parents house earlier today and they actually mentioned this.. has almost forgotten it till i found it a few minutes ago.. so yea, some people are naive enough to buy into this, which is sad and scary when you consider how easy it is to influence the ignorant.

[aldra]

http://intosanctuary.com/index.php?topic=2894.0


my thread was better

[Rook]

Ah shit, didnt even see your thread.. or realize it's relevance to this one. But when you think of it, I probably should have.

[aldra]

haha, I was being a spastic with quotes, should've expected most people wouldn't read all the way through it.


it's worth reading the Bill Schneier article I quoted though - police and FBI like to harp on about how encryption stifles investigation into serious crimes, but if you look at the actual statistics, only once in like 60 instances did they subpoena a crypto key in the investigation of a kidnapping or murder. in terms of serious crimes, where a lot of money is at stake such as paedo rings, bulk import/export of drugs or people etc., big players already have encryption options and are idiots if they're not using them.

also, doing a little extra reading, I was right about the reason Apple are doing it - they seem to be sick of being forced to take full responsibility for their users' data security. as it turns out, the celebrity photos dump was a result of them fucking up - there was a reported but unpatched bug in the "locate my iphone" service allowing a remote attacker to brute-force attack the password of an account without logging or rate-limiting them. once the password was detected, the attackers impersonated an i*device and requested a restore, which pulled device backups containing far more data than the standard iCloud sync.

[Cooking with Zyklon B]

While the companies’ actions are understandable, Comey said, “the place they are leading us is one we shouldn’t go to without careful thought and debate.”

...Much like the careful thought and debate that went into blatantly trampling over a citizens 4th amendment right.

[-SpectraL]

Just more smoke and mirrors. The feds intercept all data directly from the various ISP's own servers. No warrant requested or required.