Cy Vance Is So Sure Encryption Is Pure Evil He Thinks Over-The-Air Software Updates Are Just Encryption Backdoors Apple Won't Tell Him About

from the of-all-the-things-even,-this-one-i-can't-the-most dept

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance is back on his anti-encryption bullshit. A Fast Company profile of his "$10 million cyber lab" for decrypting phones contains some really choice quotes from the DA -- quotes that show he's about as on top of all things "cyber" as former NYC mayor/alleged tweet hackee Rudy Giuliani.

The thrust of the piece is that breaking encryption is time-consuming and expensive. Hey, no one's arguing otherwise. But the arguments made by Vance and other law enforcement officials in the article are disingenuous and… well… stupid.

Breaking encryption doesn't scale. Sorry about that, LEOs. That's a fact you're all going to have to come to terms with. But it's not impossible and there are more than a few companies offering to do the dirty work for cyber-strapped agencies that don't have $10 million on hand to bootstrap their own brute forcing.

We're also living in the golden age of surveillance, despite the arguments of a few candle bearers primarily interested in wandering around in the dark cursing. Almost everyone carries a tracking device with them wherever they go. Voluntarily. Reams of data are generated every day, a lot of which doesn't even require a warrant to access. Cops are solving crimes using consumer DNA services, Apple wearables, and always-on smart devices that eavesdrop on conversations law enforcement normally wouldn't have access to.

But let's start with some numbers. I'm beginning to think the Manhattan DA's office is no better at counting locked devices than the FBI is. As you may recall, the FBI spent a few years claiming it was sitting on an exponentially-increasing amount of encrypted devices… right up until it was forced to admit its counting software couldn't count and it had severely overstated the amount of devices in its possession.

The same thing appears to be happening at the DA's office. An increase like this is inexplicable. Here's how many devices Cy Vance was complaining about in 2016:

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said at a news conference that investigators cannot access 175 Apple devices sitting in his cybercrime lab because of encryption embedded in the company’s latest operating systems.

And here's what Fast Company is saying in 2020:

On the day I visited the cyber lab, there were nearly 3,000 phones, most related to active criminal investigations, that Moran had not yet been able to access.

Even given Android's dominance in the market, this seems like an incredibly dramatic increase over the past four years. And it seems even less likely given the fact that multiple vendors are capable of cracking older iPhones and Androids, if not the latest models (for now). Rolling your own decryption doesn't seem like the most efficient use of resources, especially when time is of the essence, as Vance claims.

"If we seize a phone that is iOS 10 but can’t open the phone, maybe never, but, say, not for another two years, well, that’s not the timeframe in which cases move, particularly cases when they’re in court."

Plea bargains are the norm, not trials. Even if we discount that depressing fact, pre-trial detention in New York City for felony charges is ~80 days. That's people being locked up before they've even had their day in court (not counting arraignment). Even if Vance wasn't pretending the city isn't willing to lock people up indefinitely while his office pokes away at their phones, the fact remains his office could look to outside help to shorten the process. But it doesn't. And the article (and Vance himself) never explains why.

Let's move on to Vance and his incredible quotes. Behold the man so clearly convinced that device encryption is solely a middle finger extended to law enforcement, he actually seems to believe over-the-air software updates are proof Apple is lying about its ability to access the contents of encrypted phones.

Vance is skeptical that Apple doesn’t have a secret backdoor. “They get into my phone all the time because they upgrade my operating systems and they send me messages,” he says.

Just a friendly reminder, New Yorkers: this is an elected position. You don't need to be represented by someone who sounds like an Infowars commenter.

Vance also appears unable to recognize why encryption matters. He claims phone makers used to be super-helpful. Companies like Apple would take a seized phone and return a jump drive full of data and communications a few days later. But that changed after the Snowden leaks revealed widespread, mostly-unchecked domestic and foreign surveillance. Apple and Google didn't immediately respond, but when they did, they made use of their devices safer for everyone. The "everyone" Venn diagram includes a certain number of criminals. But the important thing was doing all they could to protect customers from thieves (something government officials routinely complained about) and malicious hackers.

It wasn't about screwing US law enforcement. It was a reaction to the sheer power of governments (not just the United States government) to compromise devices and intercept data and communications.

Vance continues to take this personally. And in doing so, he's developed a lot of blind spots. Here's Vance stating he doesn't think US tech companies should be able to decide what's best for their customers.

In the end, Vance just wants prosecutors to have all the tools available to do their jobs. “You entrust us with this responsibility to protect the public,” he says. “At the same time, they”—Apple and Google— “have taken away one of our best sources of information. Just because they say so. It’s not that some third party has decided, this is the right thing for Apple and Google to do. They just have done it.”

So… third parties -- Google, Apple, etc. -- have not decided this. Other third parties (I guess the government?) should make this call. I mean, we know that's what Vance thinks. But this statement makes zero sense. If companies shouldn't be allowed to protect their customers from threats, who should be doing this? The government? Because I think if the lawmakers in Washington crafted a law designed to protect cellphone users, they'd come to the same conclusion -- encryption works -- even if it made things a little more difficult for law enforcement.

Let's not forget the government is operating on power granted to it by the governed, not the other way around. If there's been a slight decrease in evidentiary uptake since the spread of default encryption, so be it. Very few Americans are willing to trade their device security for incremental law enforcement gains, no matter how many law enforcement officials believe citizens are too stupid to know what's good for them.

Not all communications belong to law enforcement, warrant or not. Since the beginning of criminal time, people engaged in illegal behavior have taken steps to reduce their exposure. Front businesses. Cranking up radios/TVs so conversations won't be picked up by bugs. Off-the-grid, face-to-face meetings. And so on. To pretend phones are taking criminals to the next level ignores everything about criminal activity. Smart criminals play it smart. Dumb criminals are still dumb. Compelled decryption is still an unsettled issue, which means cops can roll the dice on court-ordered coercion. Fingerprints, faces, and irises can still unlock phones without much resistance, especially if one of the suspects is dead.

To call Vance's anti-encryption disingenuous would strip that word of most of its power. Vance has an encryption problem. Maybe. But he doesn't have an evidence problem. And he's not making the most of what's available to him, possibly deliberately. I'm sure he'd prefer an encryption ban or court precedent that makes compelled decryption legal. He probably will see neither of these in his lifetime. But until he's out of office, he's going to continue making incoherent complaints. The least publications covering his so-called plight could do is greet him with the skepticism he deserves.

Filed Under: cy vance, encryption, going dark, iphones, over the air updates
Companies: apple

Manhattan DA Cy Vance Says The Only Solution To Device Encryption Is Federally-Mandated Backdoors

from the picking-up-the-torch-the-FBI-accidentally-dropped dept

Because no one has passed legislation (federal or state) mandating encryption backdoors, Manhattan DA Cy Vance has to publish another anti-encryption report. An annual tradition dating back to 2014 -- the year Apple announced default encryption for devices -- the DA's "Smartphone Encryption and Public Safety" report [PDF] is full of the same old arguments about "lawful access" and evidence-free assertions about criminals winning the tech arms race. (h/t Riana Pfefferkorn)

You'd think there would be some scaling back on the alarmism, what with the FBI finally admitting its locked device count had been the victim of software-based hyperinflation. (Five months later, we're still waiting for the FBI to update its number of locked devices.) But there isn't. Vance still presents encryption as an insurmountable problem, using mainly Apple's multiple patches of security holes cops also found useful as the leading indicator.

The report is a little shorter this year but it does contain just enough stuff to be persuasive to those easily-persuaded by emotional appeals. Vance runs through a short list of awful crime solved by device access (child porn, assault) and another list of crimes unsolved (molestation, murder) designed to make people's hearts do all their thinking. While it's certainly true some horrible criminal acts will directly implicate device encryption, the fact of the matter is a majority of the locked phone-centric criminal acts are the type that won't make headlines or motivate lawmakers.

More than a third of these cases involve minor crimes like theft and check kiting. Another 20% is comprised of "sex crimes," which encompasses prostitution -- a crime where law enforcement sometimes chooses to believe the device itself is an "instrument of crime," never mind what other evidence might be hidden inside it.

So, more than half the crime involving locked phones isn't the sort of stuff that suggests encryption backdoors are the key to making New York City a safer place to reside. The stuff Vance throws in about unlocked devices producing exonerating evidence is a dodge. It's meant to show how granting law enforcement carte blanche access would be a net benefit for the public. But the examples given use stuff like cell site location info and social media app data -- things that could be obtained from third parties without having to go through the locked phone.

Then there's the other part of this argument Vance leaves completely undiscussed: if someone's phone contains exonerating evidence, it's very likely they'll provide officers with this evidence voluntarily, either by unlocking the device or handing over the relevant info/files. Using the very small percentage of cases where exonerating evidence may be recovered from locked phones as an argument for mandated backdoors is incredibly disingenuous.

And that's all this "report" is: a petition for federally-legislated encryption backdoors.

III. Federal Legislation Remains the Only Answer

[...]

For the reasons advanced in each of our prior Reports, national legislation of the sort we have proposed remains the most rational and least intrusive means to require device manufacturers to comply with lawful court orders in serious criminal cases upon a finding of probable cause.

"Most rational and least intrusive." I guess creating new security holes in millions of personal devices isn't "intrusive." And if this wasn't enough of a laugher, Vance ends his report with this sentence:

[O]ur Office stands willing to assist Congress and all relevant stakeholders in the effort to find a more rational balance among the interests of device makers, consumers and law enforcement in the regulation of smartphone encryption.

When your conclusion is that the only solution is federally-mandated encryption backdoors, you cannot honestly assert you're seeking to "balance" the interests of everyone involved. The only interest served by mandated backdoors is law enforcement's. Portraying device encryption as a threat to public safety is intellectually dishonest. Vance's own numbers undercut his threat level claims and his repeated failure to even generate serious discussion among federal legislators shows it's probably time for the Manhattan DA to retire his annual alarmism.

Filed Under: backdoors, cy vance, encryption, going dark, law enforcement, moral panic, privacy, security

Will Cy Vance's Anti-Encryption Pitch Change Now That The NYPD's Using iPhones?

from the or-will-encryption-only-be-an-option-for-the-protected-class? dept

For years, Manhattan DA Cy Vance has been warning us about the coming criminal apocalypse spurred on by cellphone encryption. "Evil geniuses" Apple introduced default encryption in a move likely meant to satiate lawmakers hollering about phone theft and do-nothing tech companies. In return, DA Cy Vance (and consecutive FBI directors) turned on Apple, calling device encryption a criminal's best friend.

Vance still makes annual pitches for law enforcement-friendly encryption -- something that means either backdoors or encryption so weak it can be cracked immediately. Both ideas would also be criminal-friendly, but Vance is fine with sacrificing personal security for law enforcement access. Frequently, these pitches are accompanied with piles of uncracked cellphones -- a gesture meant to wow journalists but ultimately indicative of nothing more than how much the NYPD can store in its evidence room. (How many are linked to active investigations? How many investigations continued to convictions without cellphone evidence? Were contempt charges ever considered to motivate cellphone owners into unlocking phones? So many questions. Absolutely zero answers.)

Will Vance be changing his pitch in the near future? Will he want weakened encryption safeguarding the NYPD's new tools? I guess we'll wait and see. (h/t Robyn Greene)

Announced last year, the shift will see some 36,000 Nokia handsets replaced over the coming weeks. Initially purchased in 2014 as part of a $160 million program to modernize police operations, the Nokia phones running Windows Phone will be collected, wiped and sold back to the company.

The move to iPhone 7 comes at no cost to the NYPD, as the handsets are considered upgrades under the agency's contract with AT&T.

NYPD's rollout began last month when officers patrolling the Bronx and Staten Island swapped their obsolete Nokia smartphones for Apple devices. The department is handing out about 600 iPhones per day, according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Information and Technology Jessica Tisch.

Let's get some crippled encryption for these guys. After all, their phones are manufactured by a company an FBI forensic detective called an "evil genius." Let's give malicious hackers an attack vector and street criminals more reasons to lift an iPhone off… well, anybody. By all means, let's give Vance what he wants and see if he hears anything back from his buddies in blue.

This upgrade puts Vance in a lose-lose situation. If he stops calling for weakened encryption, he's a hypocrite. If he keeps calling for it, he's an asshole. But it should drive home an important point: encryption doesn't just protect the bad guys. It protects the good guys as well.

Filed Under: cy vance, encryption, going dark, iphones, nypd

Manhattan DA Cy Vance Makes His Annual Pitch For Anti-Encryption Legislation

from the Make-America-Insecure-Again dept

If the end of the year is closing in, it means it's time for Manhattan DA Cy Vance's Annual Anti-Encryption Spectacular! Gather the kids around because the 2017 edition of Vance's annual plea for an encryption ban has just been published [PDF]. Don't worry, Vanceheads, the core essence of the DA's anti-encryption publication remains unchanged: encryption is for letting bad guys get away with crimes.

Vance's state-of-encryption report leads off with the same assertion the FBI and DOJ have been making lately: every locked device contains a wealth of criminal evidence.

Traditional investigative techniques – searches of targets’ homes, physical surveillance, wiretaps on telephones – often fall short when it comes to gathering enough evidence to solve and prosecute today’s criminal activity. Unfortunately, much of today’s evidence exists in a space that, prior to 2014, was largely unheard-of: warrant-proof smartphones that have been designed to keep law enforcement out.

Two false assertions and we're barely getting started:

1. At best, the "much of today's evidence" is an assumption. Locked devices can't prove or disprove this theory, but the biggest courtroom battle over encryption ended with a third party cracking the San Bernardino shooter's phone and the device yielding up a whole lot of nothing.

2. Smartphone encryption is not "designed to keep law enforcement out." It's designed to keep everyone who isn't the phone's owner out. Law enforcement just happens to be in the "everyone who isn't the phone's owner" group. Maybe if people like Cy Vance stopped taking this so personally he might have more fruitful discussions with tech companies.

From there, Vance goes on to lament encryption workarounds as being expensive and impossible to scale. These lamentations are buttressed with assertions of lawful access: the theory that the presence of a warrant should immediately result in the production of all evidence law enforcement believes exists.

Vance also claims there's been an "explosion" in the number of uncrackable devices seized by law enforcement. But in reality, the uptick has been slight since the advent of default encryption in 2015.

This is to be expected. The numbers cited by Vance are ultimately meaningless without greater context. A pile of uncracked cell phones can be evidence of thousands of unsolved crimes, or simply a bunch of ultimately useless devices containing nothing of interest. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, but everyone (like Vance himself) who engages in the press conference drama of piling up locked phones and dropping insinuations that criminals are walking free is being at least a little bit disingenuous. (That New York City's crime rate continues to drop despite more device encryption [and the shutdown of stop-and-frisk] belies the implication that locked phones mean more criminals getting away with more criminal activity.)

Vance discusses recent court decisions, noting how most courts have found passwords to have some Fifth Amendment concerns whereas fingerprints do not. In this context, the shift to fingerprint security options should work out better for law enforcement. But Vance still claims encryption can't be litigated around. According to the DA, courts aren't coming to a consensus on compelled production of passwords quickly enough and a couple of Constitutional amendments (Fourth/Fifth) are keeping law enforcement from operating as efficiently as it would like.

[M]any devices are now accessible not only via their passcodes but also with the user’s fingerprint. And Apple’s newest technology eliminates the fingerprint identification in favor of facial recognition technology. As documented in the 2016 Report, biometric data like a fingerprint (and, presumably, a user’s face) is generally not considered to be protected by the Fifth Amendment. At least one court has held that a user can be ordered to unlock his device via the fingerprint sensor, and in some instances, law enforcement, including this office, has sought and obtained search warrants that include provisions ordering occupants of the target premises to use their fingerprints to unlock any Touch ID-enabled devices. However, even if this became standard practice for law enforcement, its utility would be limited, as iPhones require the entry of the passcode after 48 hours of inactivity, or when the phone restarts. Apple’s newest technology also undermines law enforcement’s ability to use fingerprints to unlock a Touch ID-enabled device.

More importantly, there is reason to believe courts may view these blanket orders with skepticism. A federal magistrate judge in Illinois recently denied a search warrant provision ordering occupants of a premises to unlock devices with their fingerprints, finding the government had not established probable cause to detain every person on the scene for the purpose of obtaining their fingerprints. While there was no “protectable Fourth Amendment interest” in the fingerprints themselves, the detention of all occupants for the purpose of getting their fingerprints was deemed a violation.

This brings us to Vance's ultimate goal: anti-encryption legislation.

Default device encryption remains a significant public safety concern – it hamstrings law enforcement agencies in their efforts to investigate, solve, and prosecute crime. Recent developments in encryption workarounds have provided some measure of relief, but pitting law enforcement and the technology sector in an endless cat-and-mouse game is ill-advised, costly, and untenable. It also offers no remedy to the huge majority of law enforcement agencies that cannot afford to pursue “lawful hacking” solutions.

It is true that, as some commentators point out, if smartphone providers were required by law to comply with decryption orders issued by state and federal courts, some more sophisticated criminals might migrate to foreign providers, or employ additional encryption technology not subject to such regulations. But the fact is that criminals, like all users, prefer software and devices that are reliable and user-friendly, and most of them will continue to use iPhones and Androids for that reason. Indeed, for this same reason, search warrants executed on United States-based email accounts often yield critical evidence, even though criminals could choose to use foreign email providers who are not subject to U.S. legal process.

What's being willfully ignored in this summary? The fact that backdoored encryption would also be a boon for "sophisticated criminals." Leaving this necessary factor out is deliberate and misrepresents what's at stake. It also portrays those that would take their business to foreign firms as "serious criminals," deliberately ignoring the fact that many law-abiding citizens would do the same if the federal government backdoored/banned encryption.

To support this call for anti-encryption legislation, Vance cites -- of all things -- problematic concessions Apple has made to the Chinese government.

[A]pple’s refusal in recent years to accede to court orders and legitimate requests from law enforcement stands in stark contrast to its conduct in China. There – to the dismay of privacy advocates and others – Apple has recently complied with the government’s directives that businesses locate their servers within mainland China, and has taken other steps that pose threats to customer privacy… Notably, the Chinese government imposed these new requirements through legislation, not by seeking court orders, and Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, in defending Apple’s decisions in China, stated simply, “we follow the law wherever we do business.” In other words, the only way to resolve the encryption dilemma in the United States will be through legislation too.

The argument Vance is making -- although he's probably unaware he's making it -- is that the US should be more like China and control phone manufacturers with heavy-handed legislation and onerous demands. I suppose it's unsurprising someone working so close to the police would find a shift towards to a more authoritarian government model a good idea, but it's rarely expressed publicly.

I, for one, look forward to next year's Cy Vance Pre-Christmas Anti-Encryption Extravaganza. Because every time the annual issue rolls out, it means one thing: no anti-encryption legislation has been passed.

Filed Under: cy vance, encryption, going dark

Manhattan DA Cy Vance Wraps Up 2016 With Another Call For Gov't-Mandated Encryption Backdoors

from the stay-the-course dept

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance is still riding James Comey's anti-encryption coattails. Another year passes and Vance still comes to the same conclusions about phone encryption: it's bad for law enforcement and something (legislative) needs to be done to keep the criminal apocalypse at bay.

His opening remarks at a recent cybercrime symposium set the tone:

In my Office alone, 423 Apple iPhones and iPads lawfully seized since October 2014 remain inaccessible due to default device encryption. Approximately 10% of our warrant-proof devices pertain to homicide or attempted murder cases, and 9% to sex crimes. And while we’ve been locked out of approximately 34% of all Apple devices lawfully recovered since October 2014, that number jumped to approximately 42% of the devices recovered in the past three months.

With over 96% of all smartphones worldwide operated by Apple and Google, and with devices running older operating systems rapidly aging out, the trend is only poised to continue. In other words, the risks associated with warrant-proof encryption remain, and are growing.

This is all just Vance's pitch for the 2016 edition of his "Phone Encryption is Bad" report. It's available at the DA's website but you'll have to dig around for it. (Or simply download it using this link.) It's the same things Vance said last year, only with some added bold print surrounding his pitch for legislated backdoors. (All emphasis in the original.)

As illustrated by the San Bernardino domestic terrorist attack in December 2015, as well as by the ever-increasing number of smartphones lawfully seized by law enforcement that cannot be accessed by law enforcement or by Apple, the threat to public safety is increasing rapidly.

This isn't much of a pitch. The FBI fought a long battle seeking a favorable precedential ruling before turning the phone over to a foreign company. The FBI likely believed the phone was as useless as it ended up being (it was a work-issued phone -- hardly the sort of place someone stores incriminating communications), but it wanted something it could take to the next legal battle over encrypted data. The presumed increase to "public safety threats" is never more than a theory -- one that presumes every locked phone contains a wealth of usable evidence.

Vance's push for anti-encryption legislation continues, even as he notes there's very little in terms of precedent for what he's proposing.

Several foreign nations, often spurred by the fear of terrorism, have addressed the question of whether manufacturers and software providers can be compelled to extract data from smartphones that they manufacture or for which they provide software. These nations’ efforts in this endeavor have been halting.

The few legislative efforts he can name are all dead in the water, including a few state efforts that have seen little forward momentum. This leads Vance to the conclusion that the only way to fix this is to make it a federal effort, something that still seems to have little chance of success.

Federal legislation is required to address the problem of smartphones whose contents are impervious to search warrants. Two proposed bills, the Compliance with Court Orders Act, drafted by Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, and a bill drafted by our Office, would adequately address the problem.

Elsewhere in the report, Vance details other law enforcement agencies' struggles with encrypted devices. Then he throws out this statement, which makes it clear those fighting device encryption are still unwilling to provide accurate numbers about how often locked phones thwart investigations.

These figures [number of locked devices] are almost certainly artificially low, because law enforcement agents who encounter a locked device in the field often do not have the time to make note of the device before moving on to the next investigative step.

You would think that law enforcement agencies -- those presumably interested in the possibility of legislated backdoors -- would be tracking each and every instance in which encryption is encountered. But Vance's speculation seems to indicate that other law enforcement agencies aren't nearly as troubled by encryption as he is... or that they're just generally kind of sloppy when handling potential evidence.

The entire report presents a world where ever-growing encrypted "darkness" is turning law enforcement agencies into useless extensions of the government. A world where even the best-funded agencies with the access to a variety of tech solutions can be beaten by a consumer communication product. It's not exactly apocalyptic, but it does present the situation as being wholly untenable without the federal government stepping in and kicking open a backdoor.

Vance -- like others who only see mandated backdoors/encryption bans as workable -- also claims tech and law enforcement should work together to create solutions -- a statement that really means tech companies should be more willing to compromise their principles for the greater good of the government.

Filed Under: backdoors, cy vance, encryption, going dark

Manhattan DA Continues To Claim 'We Don't Want Crypto Backdoors...' By Which He Means He Wants Crypto Backdoors

from the same-old-song dept

Ever since last year, Manhattan DA Cy Vance has been singing the same old tune: demanding backdoors to encryption while insisting that he's not demanding backdoors. The only way this makes sense is that he doesn't seem to have the slightest clue about what he's talking about. Either that or he's willfully misrepresenting things. Neither is a good look.

He's back at it again, speaking at a cyber security conference and repeating his ridiculously clueless mantra:

Vance, speaking at the International Conference on Cyber Security here, said that law enforcement officials did not need an encryption "backdoor," sidestepping a concern of computer-security experts and device makers alike.

Instead, Vance said, he only wanted the encryption standards rolled back to the point where the companies themselves can decrypt devices, but police cannot. This situation existed until September 2014, when Apple pushed out iOS 8, which Apple itself cannot decrypt.

Right. You see, that "point" where companies themselves can decrypt? THAT'S A BACKDOOR. And it makes everyone less safe from malicious hackers and criminals. And that's why companies are moving to real encryption -- because they want to keep the public safer. You'd think that someone like the Manhattan District Attorney would be in support of a plan that keeps the public much safer. But Vance just doesn't get it.

"Tim Cook was absolutely right when he told his shareholders that the iPhone changed the world," Vance said. "It's changed my world. It's letting criminals conduct their business with the knowledge we can't listen to them."

First of all, criminals have always had ways to conduct business with the knowledge that law enforcement can't listen to them. It's called meeting in person with people. Or using code words and phrases. Encryption doesn't change that. And, of course, using encryption properly isn't easy, and it still leaves plenty of other clues. Law enforcement is never supposed to be able to get absolutely everything already. And these days, there's so much more data available to law enforcement than ever before -- things like location data from mobile phones, or information from other connected devices. The idea that his job has become more difficult is complete hogwash.

Vance's speech seems to be a repeat of what he's said before, but it's been debunked before and he just keeps making it. It's difficult to take him seriously when he keeps being so ridiculously wrong.

Filed Under: backdoors, cy vance, cyrus vance, encryption, going dark, unlock justice

Former Homeland Security Advisor: Tech Companies Have The Burden Of Proving Harm Of Backdoored Encryption

from the FORTUNES-READ-AND-IGNORED---$5 dept

Last week's one-sided "hearing" on encryption -- hosted by an irritated John McCain, who kept interrupting things to complain that Apple hadn't showed up to field false accusations and his general disdain -- presented three sides of the same coin. Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance again argued that the only way through this supposed impasse was legislation forcing companies to decrypt communications for the government. The other two offering testimony were former Homeland Security Advisor Ken Wainstein and former NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis.

Not much was said in defense of protections for cellphone users. Much was made of the supposed wrongness of law enforcement not being able to access content and communications presumed to be full of culpatory evidence.

But one of the more surprising assertions was delivered by a former government official. Wainstein's testimony [PDF] -- like Vance's -- suggested the government and phone makers start "working together." "Working together" is nothing more than a euphemism for "make heavy concessions to the government and prepare to deliver the impossible," as Patrick Tucker of Defense One points out. Wainstein says phone manufacturers must do more than theorize that weakened encryption would harm them or their companies. They must hand over "hard data" on things that haven't happened yet.

Kenneth L. Wainstein, a former assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice, told lawmakers that the burden is on technology companies and privacy advocates to show how backdoors would harm user security, rather than on law enforcement to prove that altering the encryption scheme would be safe.

“For the tech industry and civil liberties groups, this means laying out technically specific support for the contention that a government accommodation would undermine the integrity of default encryption. They should provide hard data that demonstrates exactly how—and how much—each possible type of accommodation would impact their encryption systems. It is only when Congress receives that data that it can knowledgeably perform its deliberative function and balance the potential cybersecurity dangers posed by a government accommodation against the national security and law enforcement benefits of having such an accommodation in place,” he said.

The only thing harder than proving a negative is proving how badly things might go if backdoors are inserted or companies are required to retain encryption keys.

As usual, the "smart guys" are ahead of the curve on this bizarre demand. Last year, multiple encryption experts collaborated on a research paper [PDF] that laid out the problems that would result from government-mandated access.

In this report, a group of computer scientists and security experts, many of whom participated in a 1997 study of these same topics, has convened to explore the likely effects of imposing extraordinary access mandates. We have found that the damage that could be caused by law enforcement exceptional access requirements would be even greater today than it would have been 20 years ago. In the wake of the growing economic and social cost of the fundamental insecurity of today's Internet environment, any proposals that alter the security dynamics online should be approached with caution. Exceptional access would force Internet system developers to reverse forward secrecy design practices that seek to minimize the impact on user privacy when systems are breached. The complexity of today's Internet environment, with millions of apps and globally connected services, means that new law enforcement requirements are likely to introduce unanticipated, hard to detect security flaws.

So, if Wanstein is looking for answers, he already has them. So does James Comey. So does Cyrus Vance. (Although, to be fair, Vance hasn't really feigned much concern for tech companies or their customers.) They just don't like the answers they've received. This is why they continue to claim that a perfectly safe, government-mandated encryption backdoor is just a "smart guy" breakthrough away. Any day now, someone at Apple or Google will shout "Eureka" and hand over the unicorn Comey, et al insist must exist.

Filed Under: chris inglis, crypto wars, cy vance, encryption, homeland security, john mccain, ken wainstein

Cy Vance Still Arguing For Mandated Encryption Backdoors; Believes Third Party Doctrine Supports His Theory

from the a-bunch-of-bad-ideas,-all-wrapped-up-in-self-righteousness dept

The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services held a hearing about the coming darkness cellphone encryption Friday morning. There was almost no attempt made to address both sides of the issue, most likely because Senator John McCain -- who headed up the "discussion" -- has already made up his mind on how this problem should be handled.

Testimony -- all from government officials -- was presented, with Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance leading off. Vance's tune hasn't changed. Encryption is still (apparently) an insurmountable problem and the only "answer" runs directly through Congress. Vance spent most of his speaking time [PDF] criticizing Apple and suggesting its decision to provide encryption by default on its phones was done purely to spite him and the government.

Given Apple’s own statements about the security of iOS 7, shortly after Apple’s reengineering of its phones to prevent search warrant access by law enforcement, I asked it in a letter dated March 2015, whether there was a bona fide security reason to make its new operating system, iOS 8, warrant-proof. Apple chose not to answer me, but in March of this year, the House Judiciary Committee compelled Apple to answer the same question. That Committee asked Apple the following question, in writing, “Was the technology you possessed to decrypt these phones”—and the clear reference is iOS7 phones and their predecessors—“ever compromised?” Apple’s written response was: “The process Apple used to extract data from locked iPhones running iOS 7 or earlier operating systems was not, to our knowledge, compromised.” (Emphasis added.)

Apple’s answer to this crucial question shows what we have long suspected: That Apple’s method of data extraction under iOS 7 posed no documented security problems. That being so, then there should be no unreasonable security risk going forward if we return to the procedure where court-ordered warrants can be honored by extracting responsive data off of smartphones.

In Vance's view, encryption protocols should not be altered until they've been compromised -- a view that aligns nicely with his presumption that the government should always have access to phone contents but runs counter to good security practices. Vance wants Apple to go back to holding the encryption keys and be on hand to unlock the door whenever the government asks.

Vance is still pushing his "encryption is a godsend to criminals" narrative -- based on little more than same single recorded prison phone call he referenced months ago. Vance may have a pile of cellphones law enforcement can't break into, but that hardly suggests a majority of criminals are gravitating towards encrypted services. The rise in the number of encrypted communications methods will benefit some criminals, but even high-profile terrorist attacks have been coordinated and planned using methods still open to interception and investigation.

The solution is legislation, according to the DA. Vance provides a list of prior legislation crafted to aid law enforcement as support for his theory the government should be allowed access to phone contents. However, his list covers only records collected and stored by third parties -- not the content and communications he's seeking access to.

Federal regulation is already important in the communications industry. When telephone companies went from using copper wires to using fiber optics and digital signals, the police could no longer use their old techniques of executing wiretap orders, and so Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), mandating that telecom providers build into their systems mechanisms for law enforcement to install court-ordered wiretaps. CALEA has worked. It has saved lives, and it has withstood Constitutional challenge. It has not stifled innovation, as its opponents feared…

[...]

Here are a few other examples: DEA regulations require all U.S. pharmacies to maintain paper and electronic prescriptions bearing the name of the patient and prescriber, drugs dispensed, and dates filled. FTC regulations require any business that checks a customer’s identification to maintain and provide victims and law enforcement with transaction records relating to identity theft. State regulations require private schools to maintain student data records, including records of attendance and suspected child abuse. I could go on.

The point is that companies in nearly every industry are required by law to maintain voluminous customer records and produce criminal evidence when they receive a court order. When your introduction of goods and services into the stream of commerce overlaps with public safety, this is the price of doing business in the United States.

In other words: the government should have access to iPhone contents because it has access to other stuff. It's a clumsy comparison at best. At worst, it's a blueprint for unprecedented government intrusion. Vance may be trying to demonstrate that the government has historically had access to a wealth of information thanks to regulators and the Third Party Doctrine and should continue to be granted access, but this inept analogy is worse than apples-to-oranges. Connecting Vance's dots suggests he views personal data and communications as just another set of records "collected" by cellphone providers. He may not openly suggest these are nothing more than "third party" records, but he obviously believes private corporations "owe" this sort of access to the government.

Vance says he doesn't want a legislated encryption backdoor, but his solution is basically a legislated encryption backdoor.

My Office’s proposed solution is to enact a federal statute providing that data on any smartphone made or sold in the United States must be accessible—not by law enforcement, but by the maker of the smartphone’s operating system—when the company is served with a valid search warrant. And if a person or entity such as Apple offers encryption software, it has to have the ability to provide data in response to a judicial order.

The backdoor may be located at the company's headquarters, but it's a backdoor all the same.

His testimony also suggests more legislation might be needed to further subvert encryption. Like James Comey, Vance suggests harder nerding will make the impossible possible.

This solution is limited to data at rest on smartphones. It would not affect encryption of data in motion. I cannot at this time offer a technical fix to address data in motion. I am confident, however, that engineers from industry and government, working together in good faith, can find one.

"Good faith." That's hilarous. The only time law enforcement is interested in a "good faith" discussion is when it's trying to salvage an illegal search.

Vance -- like Comey -- believes all concessions must come from the private sector. That's how he defines "working together." He's also concerned a 12-month study from a Congressional committee won't address the issue fast enough.

Twelve months of taking testimony resulting in non-binding recommendations in a report will not adequately address the urgency of the problem that local law enforcement faces. Time is not a luxury that local law enforcement, crime victims, or communities can afford.

With a nod to civil liberties:

Our laws require speedy trials. Victims require justice. And criminals must be held accountable before they can reoffend.

I would think that if you don't have the evidence -- if it's on phones that can't be broken into -- you just don't have the evidence. I sincerely hope people aren't being locked up until Congress creates the backdoor Vance is looking for. Of course, we know that is happening, but hopefully not on the scale Vance suggests with his list of police-resistant devices still being held by law enforcement agencies (who assume they contain evidence of criminal activity).

The end result of the encryption study can't be determined at this point. But given the nature of this committee -- and its decision to only present one side of the issue -- it appears its greatest purpose may be nothing more than buying time until backdoor/ban legislation is reintroduced.

Vance's side hasn't budged an inch. While deference is continually paid to the "smart people" at tech companies, it's only done so under the assumption that they're just holding out on the government. The solution Vance, et al want is supposedly possible, even if it isn't. Any arguments to the contrary are continually treated as deliberate antagonism, rather than basic facts. Backdoored encryption -- no matter who holds the keys -- is a security problem. And it's not going to go away, no matter how many times the same arguments are repeated.

Filed Under: cy vance, cyrus vance, encryption, going dark, john mccain, manhattan da
Companies: apple