For The Third Time, Whatsapp Blocked (And Then Unblocked) By Brazilian Judges For Failing To Decrypt

from the we've-seen-this-before dept

What's up with Brazilian judges not understanding Whatsapp? In the last few months, judges keep freaking out that Whatsapp messages are end to end encrypted, and that the company is unable to decrypt them at all. On Tuesday morning, the news broke that Judge Daniela Barbosa had ordered Whatsapp blocked yet again, along with a $50,000 per day fine until it decrypts information that it cannot decrypt. While various ISPs set about blocking the extremely popular app, as with the previous times, it took only a few hours for a higher court to suspend Barbosa's ruling, and to make the app available again.

Of course, this is the third time that Brazilian courts have done this particular dance. It happened in December and again in May. And who can forget the time in March where a Brazilian judge ordered a Facebook exec arrested over the same issue (Facebook owns Whatsapp).

Whatsapp's founder/CEO Jan Koum called the latest news "shocking," noting how these blocks had been rejected "loudly" in the past. Given how widespread this news was, as well as the basic architecture of Whatsapp, making it impossible to decrypt messages, it makes you wonder just what Brazilian judges think they're accomplishing each time they do this. Do they think they're sending a message to Facebook/Whatsapp? If anything, it just looks Brazil and its judicial system seem backwards and out of touch.

Filed Under: brazil, daniela barbosa, encryption, judges
Companies: facebook, whatsapp

Yes, ISIS Is Using Encryption -- But Not Very Well

from the a-comedy-of-errors dept

I've been seeing a few anti-encryption supporters pointing to a new ProPublica report on terrorists using encrypted communications as sort of proof of their position that we need to backdoor encryption and weaken security for everyone. The article is very detailed and thorough and does show that some ISIS folks make use of encrypted chat apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. But that's hardly a surprise. It was well known that those apps were being used, just like it's been well known that groups like Al Qaida were well aware of the usefulness of encryption going back many years, even predating 9/11. It's not like they've suddenly learned something new. So, the fact that they're now using tools like WhatsApp and Telegram is hardly a surprise. It also kinda highlights the idiocy of trying to backdoor American encryption. Telegram is not a US company and WhatsApp's encryption is based on the open source Signal protocol, meaning that any American backdoor encryption law isn't going to be very effective.

But, really, what strikes me, from reading the whole article beyond the headline notion of "ISIS uses encryption," is that it lists example after example of the fact that folks in ISIS use encryption badly and often seem prone to revealing their information. This is not unique to ISIS. Lots of people are not very good about protecting themselves. Hell, I'm probably not very good about my own use of encryption. But, of course, I'm also not trying to blow things up or kill people. Either way, story after story after story in the article highlights the rather bumbling aspects of teaching ISIS supporters how and why to use encrypted communications and to avoid surveillance. My favorite example:

On Jan. 4, 2015, an exasperated coordinator repeatedly explained to a befuddled caller with a Lebanese accent that he could only bring a basic cell phone to Syria, according to a transcript.

“The important thing is that when you arrive in Turkey you have a small cell phone to contact me,” the coordinator said. “Don’t bring smart phones or tablets. OK, brother?”

For the fourth time, the recruit asked: “So we can’t have cell phones?”

“Brother, I said smart phones: iPhone, Galaxy, laptop, tablet, etcetera.”

Sounding a bit like a frustrated gate agent at a crowded airport, the coordinator added: “Each of you can only bring one suitcase. If you come alone, just bring one suitcase. That is, a carry-on and one suitcase.”

“I didn’t understand the last thing, could you explain?”

“Brother, call me when you get to Turkey.”

Then there was the case where someone planned a plot using an encrypted WhatsApp conversation, but police were already bugging the guy so they heard what he was saying anyway:

In April, Italian police overheard a senior figure in Syria urging a Moroccan suspect living near Milan to carry out an attack in Italy, according to a transcript. Although the voice message had been sent through an encrypted channel, the Moroccan played it back in his car, where a hidden microphone recorded it.

In the message, the unidentified “sheik” declared: “Detonate your belt in the crowds declaring Allah Akbar! Strike! (Explode!) Like a volcano, shake the infidels, confront the throng of the enemy, roaring like lightning, declare Allah Akbar and blow yourself up, O lion!”

The suspects exchanged recorded messages over WhatsApp, an encrypted telephone application that is widely used in Europe, the Arab world and Latin America

All of these examples keep making the same point that many people have been making for a long time. Yes, encryption hides some aspect of communications. That's part of the point. But the idea that it creates a "going dark" situation is massively exaggerated. There are many other ways to get the necessary information, through traditional surveillance and detective work. And the report suggests that's working. And the fact that many ISIS recruits are particularly unsophisticated in understanding how and when to use encryption only makes that kind of thing easier for people tracking them. In discussing the Paris attacks, for example, the article notes that while some of the attackers were told to use encryption, they didn't.

Abaaoud’s operatives did not always follow security procedures, however. In June of last year, Turkish immigration authorities detained Tyler Vilus, a French plotter en route to Paris with someone else’s Swedish passport. Allowed to keep his cellular phone in a low-security detention center, Vilus brazenly sent an unencrypted text message to Abaaoud in Syria, according to a senior French counterterror official.

“I have been detained but it doesn’t seem too bad,” the message said, according to the senior official. “I will probably be released and will be able to continue the mission.”

Instead, U.S. spy agencies helped retrieve that text and French prosecutors charged Vilus with terrorist conspiracy.

Anyway, it's no surprise that terrorists are going to use encryption. Of course they have been for over a decade and will continue to do so. The issue is that it's not as horrible as law enforcement is making it out to be. Just as plotters have always been able to plan in ways that law enforcement has been unable to track (such as discussing in person, in other languages, or through simple ciphers or codes). That's always happened and somehow we managed to get by. Yes, sometimes law enforcement doesn't get to know absolutely everything about everyone. And that's a good thing. And sometimes, yes, that means that terrorists will be able to plan bad things without law enforcement knowing it. But that's part of the trade-off for living in a free society.

Filed Under: encryption, fud, going dark, isis, law enforcement, terrorism
Companies: telegram, whatsapp

Guy Asks Indian Supreme Court To Ban Encrypted WhatsApp... Because People Plan Raves With It

from the the-kids-these-days dept

Sudhir Yadav appears to be a bundle of contradictions. He claims to be a "right to information" activist, yet he's now trying to stomp out encryption. He argues that he's addicted to WhatsApp, but he wants the Indian Supreme Court to ban it. He's filed a "public interest" lawsuit with the Supreme Court arguing that (1) he's addicted to WhatsApp because of its recently implemented end-to-end encryption and (2) that it should be banned because bad people might use it to, you know, plans raves and stuff:

Yadav claimed that he has only filed the petition because recently introduced WhatsApp encryption makes it impossible for the government to intercept and read messages exchanged between “suspicious people”.

“I know WhatsApp is a great app and I spend hours on it but this is about you and me,” he said. “If we know that information on drugs and rave parties is going through WhatsApp and the government can’t decrypt these messages, then it’s harmful to the country.”

And, yes, he also tossed in the "fear! terrorists!" argument as well, because of course. And it's not just WhatsApp. He also wants a variety of other messaging platforms, such as Telegram, Hike and Viber, banned for using encryption (even though the implementations on many of those platforms is questionable). Of course, we don't need to go through all the reasons why this is dumb. Strong encryption is much more likely to help protect the private information of the general populace from people looking to do bad things with it than it is to help terrorists in their planning. Could terrorists use it? Yes, just as terrorists can use other neutral, but important technologies for bad purposes. But we don't go and ban them entirely just because they can be misused.

Meanwhile, Yadav is making this out like he's being selfless in being willing to give up his WhatsApp:

“I love WhatsApp but I will have to find an alternative if it’s banned," he said. "I don’t know if there is an app that good but I will keep looking.”

And what happens if SC decides that his petition doesn’t have enough merit? Yadav said that he will simply go back to using WhatsApp.

“I can’t do much if the SC thinks it’s not harmful for the nation’s interest. It’s not a personal issue, it’s a national issue so my usage won’t be affected.”

It's a national issue for you to try to undermine the safety and data protection of hundreds of millions of people? Really?

Filed Under: encryption, india, raves, sudhir yadav, terrorism
Companies: telegram, viber, whatsapp

Why Encryption Bans Won't Work: Brazil Government's WhatsApp Block Just Sends Users To Other Encrypted Platforms

from the generating-more-business-for-competitors dept

The battle against encryption being fought valiantly stupidly by the FBI, a few law enforcement figureheads, and a handful of legislators is an unwinnable war. Just ask Brazil, where the government has blocked WhatsApp repeatedly in an effort to force it to comply with demands for information. The problem is that WhatsApp now utilizes end-to-end encryption for all messages, meaning WhatsApp cannot provide any information about message content no matter how badly the Brazilian government wants it.

So Brazil blocks WhatsApp periodically and everyone wanting a secure messaging platform simply routes around it.

Several rival apps that offer encrypted messaging services reported a surge in Brazilian sign-ups, which highlights how the growing ubiquity of private messaging apps makes it hard to stop people from using them.

Both Telegram and Viber reported surges in new signups, with Telegram saying it had gained more than one million new Brazilian users. And this is happening every time the government decides it's going to kick WhatsApp off the internet.

The same thing will happen with any of the proposed encryption bans currently making their way through various legislative entities. Bans have been proposed in both California and New York. If imposed, the only thing they'll guarantee is that locals will be purchasing phones in another state.

And those who don't feel comfortable with the end result of other efforts like Dianne Feinstein's will opt to use communication platforms/cell phone service providers who haven't caved to government demands that companies hold the encryption keys.

FBI director James Comey seems to believe he can make the world unite in the banning of encryption. This is apparently based on his abject failure to convince even a majority of US legislators that bans and backdoors are a good idea.

As long as there are options, people will seek them out. That's the only guaranteed outcome. And the more a government tries to clamp down, the further it separates itself from any usable information, like communications metadata and access to subscriber information. Once you've pushed citizens to using platforms located in other jurisdictions, your powers become severely diluted. It would be better to just accept the growing shift to encryption and explore other options that don't involve slamming your head repeatedly into an immovable force.

And, it must be pointed out that people have communicated securely for years without the government claiming it should have access to every private conversation and the contents of every mailed letter. Just because texting has replaced phone calls and letters doesn't mean the government is somehow entitled to this new wealth of communications. Just because it's easier to obtain in bulk doesn't mean it's the end of the investigative line when encryption takes that opportunity away. James Comey should stop worrying about the "smart people" in tech companies and spend more time with the "smart people" in law enforcement and find out why they're not doing more to alleviate the situation.

Filed Under: alternatives, blocking encryption, brazil, encryption, going dark, messaging
Companies: telegram, viber, whatsapp

Once Again All Of Whatsapp Is Being Blocked In Brazil Because A Judge Is Upset It Won't Turn Over Data

from the whats-up-brazil? dept

Brazilian judges are apparently not very big fans of the popular messaging app Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook (but run independently). Judge Marcel Montalvao has ordered the app blocked entirely across Brazil, because Whatsapp has refused to provide data (which it likely does not have) to help out with a drug investigation. Any phone companies that don't block Whatsapp will be fined about $143,000 per day.

If this sounds familiar, it's because we went through this back in December in another case with another judge. And, of course, in March a Facebook (not Whatsapp) exec was arrested over a similar issue in a different case. When Whatsapp again refused to turn over information, because it could not, the judge had the exec arrested (another judge freed the exec pretty quickly).

Once again, Whatsapp points out that it's cooperated as much as possible:

“After cooperating to the full extent of our ability with the local courts, we are disappointed a judge in Sergipe decided yet again to order the block of WhatsApp in Brazil,” WhatsApp said in a statement. “This decision punishes more than 100 million Brazilians who rely on our service to communicate, run their businesses, and more, in order to force us to turn over information we repeatedly said we don’t have.”

The order is shutting down Whatsapp for 72 hours, but considering just how widely the app is used there (it is basically the way many Brazilians communicate) the impact is pretty massive. As Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman over at the Intercept note, this is a ridiculous move that harms many people, but is also a sign of what's to come as governments continue to freak out over encrypted communications:

It is stunning to watch a single judge instantly shut down a primary means of online communication for the world’s fifth-largest country. The two Brazilian communication experts in the NYT wrote of the first WhatsApp shutdown: “the judge’s action was reckless and represents a potentially longer-term threat to the freedoms of Brazilians.” But there is no question that is just a sign of what is to come for countries far from Brazil: there will undoubtedly be similar battles in numerous countries around the world over what rights companies have to offer privacy protections to their users.

Filed Under: blocked, brazil, encryption, going dark, messaging
Companies: facebook, whatsapp

Encryption Is Contagious: Viber Launching End To End Encryption

from the keep-it-coming dept

It appears that more fully encrypting messaging and content is really catching on. Following Whatsapp's big move to roll out end-to-end encryption, the super popular communications app Viber has announced it intends to do the same for its 700 million (and growing) users. It's already testing encryption in a few markets, before rolling it out globally. The company claims that the encrypted system will also let you know if your content is encrypted based on color coding.

Unfortunately, Viber is not entirely clear on what encryption tools they're using. With Whatsapp, the company was upfront in saying that it was using the popular and tested open source encryption from Open Whisper Systems. Viber doesn't say what it's using, leading some to speculate that the company tried to roll its own (generally not a good idea -- and likely means there are serious security flaws). The company, however, says that they're doing "open source plus," but have not yet named what open source tools it's pulling from:

“We built [our end-to-end encryption] based on the concept of an established open-source solution with an extra level of security developed in-house,” a Viber spokesperson says, refusing to be more specific.

There are some that will argue that an opaque/unknown encryption system can, in some ways, be worse than no encryption, in that users may think their communications are private, when they really are not. So, the lack of an open, audited encryption solution is definitely a concern here.

However, what's encouraging is that we're seeing more and more apps embracing end-to-end encryption for communications, as well as strong disk encryption for data at rest. This is something that cryptographers and security experts pushed for for years without much actual support or adoption. However, it's finally starting to become a necessary piece of the puzzle for communications service providers, and that's a good thing.

Filed Under: communication, encryption, privacy
Companies: viber, whatsapp

Adding End-To-End Encryption To WhatsApp Is Great...But Not Quite As Secure As People May Think

from the human-error-is-the-intelligence-agency's-friend dept

Techdirt has just written about WhatsApp finishing the roll-out of end-to-end encryption to its billion users worldwide, including for group chats. That's obviously pretty big news. As the Whatsapp blog post announcing the move notes:

Encryption is one of the most important tools governments, companies, and individuals have to promote safety and security in the new digital age. Recently there has been a lot of discussion about encrypted services and the work of law enforcement. While we recognize the important work of law enforcement in keeping people safe, efforts to weaken encryption risk exposing people's information to abuse from cybercriminals, hackers, and rogue states.

While WhatsApp is among the few communication platforms to build full end-to-end encryption that is on by default for everything you do, we expect that it will ultimately represent the future of personal communication.

That's likely, even with governments around the world muttering vague threats to weaken or backdoor crypto. And equally, there are bound to be plenty who will decry this latest move as "helping the terrorists" or "creating a safe space", with all the hand-wringing and emotional blackmail that accompanies such pronouncements. But an article in the German news magazine Der Spiegel does a great job in explaining that even with strong, end-to-end crypto, WhatsApp conversations aren't as secure as they might seem (Google Translate of original German).

Der Spiegel notes that end-to-end encryption is only available if all the participants in a conversation are using the latest version of the software. If one of them isn't, group chats will be unencrypted. That lack of consistency will make it very easy to communicate in the mistaken belief that everything is hidden, when in fact it is taking place out in the open.

That problem is unlikely to affect many chats, but the second issue raised by the German article most certainly will. Der Spiegel points out that even with strong, end-to-end encryption in place, the accompanying metadata is still leaking important information about who you are communicating with, and when. Aggregating such metadata provides hugely valuable information about your network of acquaintances, and the patterns of your life.

Indeed, message metadata is arguably even more revealing than the content, because it already comes with computer-readable tags like sender, recipient, time, etc. It also scales: with a powerful enough computer you can work out the social interrelationships of thousands or even millions of people. That's simply not possible looking at the content of messages, which needs to be parsed first -- still a difficult task for machines -- before it is analyzed en masse, also hard.

Der Spiegel reminds us that even though it is based on the open Signal Protocol, WhatsApp's new encryption features are not open source. There is no way to know whether WhatsApp's parent company, Facebook, has added backdoors -- or might be forced to add them at a later date. Strong crypto doesn't provide much protection if it has been subtly and invisibly compromised.

The article also notes that end-to-end encryption does not protect you from malware that is capturing your keystrokes and sending them over the Internet, or from slips like accidentally storing a screenshot of sensitive chats. Similarly, your super-secure chat may not actually be with the person you think it is: perhaps a smartphone was stolen, or was left unattended for a while. Group chats increase the risk that there are unwanted participants listening in to supposedly secret conversations.

Individually, those points may not be huge risks. But collectively, they mean that using strong, end-to-end encryption is not a magic formula that guarantees perfect online privacy for its users. As a result, they underline once more why the increasing deployment of encryption is a boon, not a bane -- something governments should welcome for the enhanced security it brings ordinary users. In particular, they should not worry that it will not make things "go dark" for intelligence services. There are so many ways encryption can -- and will -- go wrong, that even in the unlikely event of terrorists using it for their communications, key information will always leak out.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: encryption, privacy
Companies: facebook, whatsapp

WhatsApp Finishes Rolling Out End-To-End Encryption; Now Covers Group Messages, Media

from the backdoors-salesmen-en-route-to-Congress-as-we-speak dept

More good news on the secure communications front: WhatsApp has finally implemented full end-to-end encryption -- for everyone. Late in 2014, WhatsApp began rolling out its end-to-end encryption, but it was limited to one-to-one communications and did not cover messages containing media. Now, it's everything, including group messages.

This means that if any group of people uses the latest version of WhatsApp—whether that group spans two people or ten—the service will encrypt all messages, phone calls, photos, and videos moving among them. And that’s true on any phone that runs the app, from iPhones to Android phones to Windows phones to old school Nokia flip phones. With end-to-end encryption in place, not even WhatsApp’s employees can read the data that’s sent across its network.

Law enforcement -- particularly the Justice Department -- can't be pleased with this full implementation. Even if a warrant is obtained, WhatsApp cannot produce message content in response to these or other court orders. And from what we've seen, WhatsApp may be the next target of the FBI and its All Writs wrangling.

While this does have its implications for law enforcement in the US, it will likely have more of an impact in other nations where citizens are protected by fewer privacy-related rights -- which is where most of its users are located. Whether or not this will result in more futile arrests of Facebook execs remains to be seen.

As the messaging app's creators point out, even if you believe your government is basically good, you should still support (and use) encrypted communication options.

The argument can be made: Maybe you want to trust the government, but you shouldn’t because you don’t know where things are going to go in the future.”

As we've seen in the aftermath of the Paris and Brussels attacks, governments -- including their law enforcement agencies -- are often prone to expanding government power and weakening citizens' rights. It only takes one successful attack to send a nation down previously unimaginable paths. Might as well have your communications protected just in case. And, as for law enforcement's sudden "lack" of access? It might help to keep in mind that people chatted for hundreds of years without creating permanent records of their conversations and criminals were somehow still arrested and punished.

Filed Under: encryption, fbi, messaging, privacy
Companies: whatsapp

Law Enforcement's Nemesis -- WhatsApp -- Is Also Law Enforcement's Best Friend

from the love/hate-as-needed dept

WhatsApp: a tool for evil.

David Cameron announced early last year that it was "unacceptable" that all communications could not be intercepted and read by intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. He stopped short of calling for a ban but strongly hinted this would be addressed in the Snooper's Charter.

This followed the head of the UK's GCHQ throwing both terrorism and child porn into the mix while vocally handwringing about encrypted communications -- portraying tech companies as callous accomplices of child abusers and jihadists.

In Brazil, WhatsApp was blocked and a Facebook executive arrested for refusing to hand over identifying information on its users.

And here in the US, the FBI has been dropping sealed hints that the popular messaging app may be the next recipient of one of its infamous All Writs orders.

Meanwhile, over in Belgium, it's law enforcement that's benefitted the most from the platform's existence. (h/t Frederic Jacobs)

"There were no orders and nobody really knew what to do. The mobile phone network was also out of order. Fortunately, Whatsapp worked. Without this app we we could not communicate at all," federal police spokesman Peter De Waele said as quoted by the media outlet.

Very handy, that. When cell infrastructure goes down, WhatsApp stays up. What law enforcement hates and fears because it can't capture readable content in transit is also useful when all hell breaks loose. Kill it off because you fear the unseen communications and you're going to end up hurting yourself.

As for Belgian law enforcement, they're likely not as fearful of WhatsApp's encryption as others. WhatsApp played a key part in a terrorist plot last summer -- but one that was disrupted by Belgian law enforcement.

According to Gaspard Sebag from Bloomberg, the European law enforcement in a joint effort with the FBI are monitoring the use of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp.

“Investigators said earlier they had detained 16 people in the anti-terror raids after working with U.S. authorities to monitor suspects’ communications on WhatsApp Inc.’s messaging service.” states Sebag.

The Belgian law enforcement raided two separate groups operating in Ostend and Louvain, and according various sources the messages exchanged on WhatsApp allowed the investigators to trace the group.

At the time I’m writing, Facebook who acquired WhatsApp, declined to comment the events, but security experts speculate that there is something wrong in the implementation of WhatsApp end-to-end (E2E) encryption started in November.

And even if the flaw is no longer present, intelligence/law enforcement agencies still have other options:

It seems that even if the messages are protected by the encryption implemented, the FBI or NSA are able to gather metadata on the server side that could be used to link WhatsApp users. The analysis of metadata allowed law enforcement to identify the network of the alleged suspects.

Not quite the monster Cameron, et al. have portrayed it as. And it's a great backup plan for those times when regular communication channels just aren't working.

Filed Under: brussels, communication, encryption
Companies: whatsapp

DOJ Officials Hint WhatsApp Likely Next In Line For The Apple Treatment

from the the-rest-of-the-dominoes-should-fall-like-a-house-of-cards...-checkmate dept

The New York Times is reporting -- based on the comments of several unnamed officials -- that WhatsApp may be headed for the same sort of courtroom dustup Apple is currently involved in.

As recently as this past week, officials said, the Justice Department was discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap, but investigators were stymied by WhatsApp’s encryption.

The Justice Department and WhatsApp declined to comment. The government officials and others who discussed the dispute did so on condition of anonymity because the wiretap order and all the information associated with it were under seal. The nature of the case was not clear, except that officials said it was not a terrorism investigation. The location of the investigation was also unclear.

And, as long as we're operating on hearsay and conjecture, there's also this:

You’re getting useless data,” said Joseph DeMarco, a former federal prosecutor who now represents law enforcement agencies that filed briefs supporting the Justice Department in its fight with Apple. “The only way to make this not gibberish is if the company helps.”

“As we know from intercepted prisoner wiretaps,” he added, “criminals think that advanced encryption is great.”

You'd think that access to prisoner wiretaps would somewhat negate the need to break encryption, but maybe these mouthy inmates spend more time chatting about encryption than the allegations against them. And while I understand law enforcement's complaint that they used to be able to get all of this data with a warrant, they also used to have to run license plates by hand and perform stakeouts in person. So, it's not as though advances in technology have delivered no concurrent benefits.

Make no mistake about it: given the multitude of choices, the DOJ would rather have unfettered access to phones and all they contain. WhatsApp may have a billion or so users -- all protected by end-to-end encryption -- but if the FBI can crack open a phone, it can likely get to the content of the messages.

One of the cases indirectly cited (never by name) by James Comey during the early push against the coming darkness of Apple/Google's encryption-by-default revolved around messages recovered from a murdered 12-year-old's phone.

In the case of Amy Fletcher’s son Justin Bloxom, privacy advocates question whether phone evidence was critical to the cases. But Ms. Fletcher said: “Everything that was done was done through texts from a damn cell phone.”

“Had we not had that information, you wouldn’t realize how evil this man was,” said Ms. Fletcher, who didn’t know her son’s 2010 murder in Mansfield, La., had become part of the national debate until contacted by The Wall Street Journal.

There's no mention of WhatsApp in the Wall Street Journal's article, so it may be that all the recovered texts were of the SMS variety. But WhatsApp is supplanting SMS and the DOJ is definitely interested in the heavily-used messaging app. Last year, its requests to Facebook (which owns WhatsApp) for the contents of these messages jumped astronomically.

In the first six months of 2015, US law enforcement agencies sent Facebook 201 wiretap requests (referred to as “Title III” in the report) for 279 users or accounts. In all of 2014, on the other hand, Facebook only received 9 requests for 16 users or accounts.

Motherboard notes that this number, while still seemingly small, represents a 2133% increase. Not only that, but the total number of requests to Facebook for this data dwarfs similar requests from Google, which only saw 30 total for 2013-2014 combined.

The FBI and DOJ have yet to say much publicly about this particular case, probably feeling it's better to fight only one heavily-opposed battle at a time. But whatever the result of the Apple case, it will hardly be the end of the DOJ's efforts to force service providers to assist them in undermining their own protective efforts.

Filed Under: all writs act, doj, encryption, fbi, warrants, whatsapp
Companies: facebook, whatsapp