FBI Holds Secret Meeting To Scare Congress Into Backdooring Phone Encryption
from the just-in-time-for--halloween dept
In September, both Apple and Google announced plans to encrypt information on iOS and Android devices by default. Almost immediately, there was a collective freakout by law enforcement types. But, try as they might, these law enforcement folks couldn't paint any realistic scenario of where this would be a serious problem. Sure, they conjured up scenarios, but upon inspection they pretty much all fell apart. Instead, what was clear was that encryption could protect users from people copying information off of phones without permission, and, in fact, the FBI itself recommends you encrypt the data on your phone.But it didn't stop FBI director James Comey from ignoring the advice of his own agency and pushing for a new law that would create back doors (he called them front doors, but when asked to explain the difference, he admitted that he wasn't "smart enough" to understand the distinction) in such encryption.
So, now, of course, the FBI/DOJ gets to go up to Congress and tell them scary stories about just how necessary breaking encryption would be. And it's being done in total secrecy, because if it was done in public, experts might debunk the claims, like they've done with basically all of the scenarios provided in public to date.
FBI and Justice Department officials met with House staffers this week for a classified briefing on how encryption is hurting police investigations, according to staffers familiar with the meeting. The briefing included Democratic and Republican aides for the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the staffers said. The meeting was held in a classified room, and aides are forbidden from revealing what was discussed.It's almost guaranteed that someone will introduce some legislation, written primarily by the FBI, pushing for this (such a bill is almost certainly already sitting in some DOJ bureaucrat's desk drawer, so they just need to dot some i's, cross some t's and come up with a silly acronym name for the bill). So far, many in Congress have been outspoken against such a law, but never underestimate the ability of the FBI to mislead Congress with some FUD, leading to all sorts of scare stories about how we need this or we're all going to die.
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Filed Under: back doors, calea, congress, doj, fbi, front doors, james comey, mobile encryption
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hostile elite
Why do hostile elite defend Israel as a Jewish ethnostate with Jewish only immigration, but ravage White majority Europe/North America into a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Gulag with non-White colonization?
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Re: hostile elite
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That is all.
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'SLAM-DUNK', mustn't it?
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is he saying the russians have the capabilties to hack into a highly encrypted and protected white house network..
but they (fbi/cia/nsa) can't break into a phone?
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The closed systems used by Apple and Android make it difficult for users to add encryption of their choice, and the only defense against such front/back doors is not to use the officially provided means of encryption
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*they already worship money, but pushing religion into that mix is a recipe for disaster
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I don't know about iDevices, but it's not difficult to use the encryption of your choice with Android.
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Imagine CSI as the FBI paints it
Smart phones are less than a decade old!
Could you imagine what a CSI show would look like if they relied only on evidence like the FBI claims they "need" from these smart phones?
"Well his phone is now encrypted, can't go sweep for finger prints...check phone logs...run DNA tests...interview witnesses...review Surveillance footage...ALL OF IT IS GONE!"
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Spread some FUD or threaten/blackmail via bits caught on the mass surveillance net?
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The distinction is simple
A "front door" is what the user normally uses. On a phone, it would be the lock screen password.
A "back door" is an alternative access point, normally (but not always) hidden from the user. On a phone, it would be most ways of bypassing the lock screen, for instance going through the bootloader, opening the phone and reading directly from the embedded flash memory, or using a "forgot my lock screen password" function on a cloud-enabled phone. Yes, this last one is an instance where the user himself can be using a backdoor to gain access.
So the distinction is: "front door" = normal way of access for the user; "back door" = everything else that also gives access.
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Re: The distinction is simple
I think you mean that you don't have to be very smart to understand it. It's certainly possibly to be dumb enough that you can't understand it even though it's trivially easy to understand. I love Comey's comment about not being smart enough, because he said outright that he's a complete idiot.
Also, if you don't understand a concept, you should at least be smart enough to avoid publicly making arguments about that concept. Comey's not even smart enough to know that much.
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Re: Re: The distinction is simple
It is actually extremely complex once you start redefining words like they have done.
You see, to the FBI, a "Back Door" is just a "Front Door" on the other side of the house. However, when you get to that side of the house, it is now the "Front Door" and the door that used to be the "Front Door" is now the "Back Door". They want to create a "Back Door", but in order to enter that door, you have to be on the side of the house that puts you "In Front" of it, so it becomes the "Front Door". To illustrate the difference, you actually need to be in a quantum state in which you are in front of the house, but are simultaneously able to enter through the door on the opposite side of the house.
I can see why he may become confused trying to do this.
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Re: The distinction is simple
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One word: child pornography
How is the FBI supposed to protect children from child pornography if they don't have the ability to search the phone of every child and prosecute it as a sex offender once racy photos can be secured and passed around the departments for fun and to prosecutors for business?
Where would the children be without the police being able to provide this sort of protection for them? Most likely in school rather than in courthouse and jail. How will that teach them what it means to be an American?
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Re: One word: child pornography
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Re: One word: child pornography
ACTUAL POLICE WORK that follows ACTUAL CIVIL LIBERTIES beats cheap shortcuts that could violate all of our liberties every single time. The NSA already has proven that we cannot trust the shepherds to respect the sheep.
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Re: Re: One word: child pornography
I think this is the main objection to encrypted phone, it prevents searches whenever they can get hold of the phone, but do not have grounds for getting a warrant.
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They can't legally do this any more, so anything they find if they do can't actually be used as evidence.
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It can give them a guide on where to look for other evidence, who they should be interviewing and so on.
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Re: Re: One word: child pornography
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Silly acronym
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The one question Congress should ask
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Re: The one question Congress should ask
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Re: Re: The one question Congress should ask
This seems incorrect on the face of it. Do you have any supporting evidence?
"I'd be so bold to say that axiomatically, crime moves faster than the bureaucracy invented to stop it."
Although, given that the vast majority of criminals are idiots (that's how they've always been caught -- by making stupid mistakes), I think this effect is dramatically overstated in general. In any case, this is irrelevant to the case of cellphone encryption for two main reasons. First, criminal engage in communications, and communications can still be monitored (even if there isn't blanket surveillance. Second, police can still get access to the contents of the phone. They just need a judge to order the suspect to unlock it. If the suspect fails to do so, he is imprisoned for contempt of court until he complies.
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[Related] Search Warrant Execution and Notice
The well-known Professor Kerr argues that the EFF has “misunderstood and misreported” the government numbers. He conjectures (without evidence) that the indisputable rise in the numbers results from increased reporting of email, GPS and other electronic intrusions.
Whether we accept Professor Kerr's contention or not, the FBI's demand for encryption backdoors is very much a demand for "sneak and peek" authority.
You don't think they're planning on giving notice to people, do you? "Oh, we've broken your software and we're going to read your email". Yeah, right.
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Re: [Related] Search Warrant Execution and Notice
He doesn't think the 5th can protect you from incriminating yourself with whats on your phone because its a "foregone conclusion"; based on a case where the police KNEW what was in a phone because the defendant had SHOWN THEM prior to locking his phone down. If the police/government don't know whats on your phone, its not a "foregone conclusion" and its then a fishing expedition.
The 4th should protect you as well, but we all know how much respect the government has for *that*. This is like general warrants all over again.
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iPhone Encryption
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Fricosu keys
Or, if you are crossing the border and CBP asks to see what's on your laptop, enter your Fricosu key, then say, hmm, that's strange, it's not decrypting. Here, you keep the laptop.
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American reminds me more and more of China with each passing day. Now instead of Rep. Mike Rogers fear-mongering about Chinese made electronics with backdoors. The entire world will be fear-mongering about American made electronics with backdoors.
No need to fear through. The US Gov has pinky swore they don't use backdoors for corporate espionage, like the Chinese Government does. Don't you feel better already?
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Even if he manages to bribe/blackmail/whatever a law like that into effect, it would only apply to stock firmware, which any self-respecting terrorist would ditch ASAP, because why would they trust US companies?
So, given the history of absurd lawmaking, the next step would be to try to make custom/aftermarket firmware illegal. Which would unleash SOPA levels of nerdrage, due to the threat to general-purpose computing. (What next, making it illegal to replace Windows with Linux on a computer?)
Nothing useful could possibly be achieved by this. Why is Comey doing this? He says he doesn't have the slightest understanding of the technology involved; why would he push for this specific regulation, then? If he doesn't know anything about it, how would he know what to ask for?
It sounds like he's taking orders from someone. I wonder who?
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The paranoiac in me would say because it's not really about paedos and terrorists. It's about the security state being able to acquire dirt on and leverage as many people as possible.
But I think it is mainly about the precedent. Apple and Google are sending a message that the government are a threat that should be defied. Letting them get away with it would help to establish a new norm that other tech companies will copy. It would help to legitimize and reinforce the growing popular resistance to the US police state.
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Excellent point. Hell, I'm not a terrorist and I'm a US citizen, and the first thing I do with any smartphone is replace the stock OS -- because I don't trust them either.
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FBI fairy tales
AND, don't forget the VETO !!!!
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So Let Us Consider the Possibility that the FBI are the Terrorists.
You may say that there is no evidence. I retort that there is no conclusive evidence of the Gestapo's involvement in the Reichstags Fire. Secret policemen have a way of destroying evidence which might tend to incriminate them. The government is not entitled to the presumption of innocence, if anything, the reverse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombings
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backdoors
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Since Feral Bumbling Idiots don't do anything with the info now
Why is their Crime?.... inept gov, inept fbi, inept nsa.
They have all the info.... but none of the intelligence.
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When it comes to encryption, I think people's minds have been skewed by watching hundreds of TV shows and movies where somebody says "just give me a few minutes to crack the encryption" or "it's encrypted so I'll need a little time" or "it's encrypted but that shouldn't be a problem".
But, as somebody pointed out up-stream, encryption is real. Use a moderately complex key and encryption is essentially uncrackable without either the key or a built-in backdoor.
That's why law enforcement is so intent of getting backdoors into everything. If they don't have them it means, for the first time ever, they literally can't get access to stuff they want to see.
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