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FBI failed to access 7,000 encrypted mobile devices
Agents at the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been unable to extract data from nearly 7,000 mobile devices they have tried to access, the agency's director has said.
Christopher Wray said encryption on devices was "a huge, huge problem" for FBI investigations. The agency had failed to access more than half of the devices it targeted in an 11-month period, he said.
One cyber-security expert said such encryption was now a "fact of life". Many smartphones encrypt their contents when locked, as standard - a security feature that often prevents even the phones' manufacturers from accessing data. Such encryption is different to end-to-end encryption, which prevents interception of communications on a large scale.
Cyber-security expert Prof Alan Woodward at the University of Surrey said device encryption was clearly frustrating criminal investigations but it would be impractical and insecure to develop "back doors" or weakened security.
In a time when the government is committing criminal acts, is it not advisable for citizens to do what they can to protect themselves from that crime?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:43AM (2 children)
I think, basically, the FBI wants your phone to incriminate you for SOMETHING, ANYTHING, so that they don't have to do real investigative work. Investigating can be hard, you know? If they can just grab some device with which you record alll of the intimate parts of your life, they can find SOMETHING with which to threaten you. If you were an agent, why would you prefer to *work* for a conviction, if instead, you can just get a person's detailed journal/diary containing incriminating evidence? But, worse than a mere journal, the damned device keeps detailed logs. You connected to a site once, and so did Al Jazawi Howie - guilt by association. The phone and the telco never forget which sites you connected to, of course. It doesn't matter that you did a search, that random site came up, you clicked, and the material was entirely irrelevant to your purposes. The fact is, you've used the same site that Howie did, so you're a terrorist.
Yeah, we all want backdoors into our devices. Being patriotic citizens, none of us wants an FBI agent to actually WORK for a conviction. We need to make those agent's lives as easy as possible!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday October 24 2017, @03:11AM
Disputed, but still:
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:29PM
exactly. these pigs are looking for leverage and/or planting evidence. they are lazy, kid killing scum. fuck them.