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posted by mrpg on Saturday November 11 2017, @10:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the fight-the-bad-fight dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

"We have an ongoing dialogue with a lot of tech companies in a variety of different areas," he [Rod Rosenstein] told Politico Pro. "There's some areas where they are cooperative with us. But on this particular issue of encryption, the tech companies are moving in the opposite direction. They're moving in favor of more and more warrant-proof encryption."

[...] In the interview, Rosenstein also said he "favors strong encryption."

"I favor strong encryption, because the stronger the encryption, the more secure data is against criminals who are trying to commit fraud," he explained. "And I'm in favor of that, because that means less business for us prosecuting cases of people who have stolen data and hacked into computer networks and done all sorts of damage. So I'm in favor of strong encryption."

[...] He later added that the claim that the "absolutist position" that strong encryption should be by definition, unbreakable, is "unreasonable."

[...] Rosenstein closed his interview by noting that he understands re-engineering encryption to accommodate government may make it weaker.

"And I think that's a legitimate issue that we can debate—how much risk are we willing to take in return for the reward?" he said.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/doj-strong-encryption-that-we-dont-have-access-to-is-unreasonable/


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @02:16AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @02:16AM (#595825)

    > there isn't anything to be gained by going through a dead terrorists phone, or even a live one.

    Are you retarded? Of course there is. Otherwise they wouldn't want to do it so bad.

    A list of contacts and recent calls. Who his friends and relatives are. Who he buys guns from. Possible links to other terrorists or the leaders who give the orders. Call logs with triangulated location data to know where the terrorist has been.

    All of these are quite valuable information.

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  • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:30AM (7 children)

    by JNCF (4317) on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:30AM (#595842) Journal

    Despite your flamebaitery, you are correct. There is something to be gained. I'm still not willing to trade strong encryption for that something (and I would go further than frojack -- his criteria for allowing government backdoors doesn't impress me).

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday November 13 2017, @01:34AM (6 children)

      by frojack (1554) on Monday November 13 2017, @01:34AM (#596033) Journal

      I doubt there is anything of importance on the phone that they can't get by other means.

      Texts, phone calls, will all be on pen register down at the phone company. They quickly find out where these guys live, and track down their landlord, friends, credit cards and where they were used, and who's phone was in the area the perpetrator's phone was in in the weeks, days before the attack. Dump all that into a computer and its worth more than a text message saying "Grandma is doing fine".

      What exactly were you expecting to find? There was nothing on the phones of the Bataclan terrorists, they didn't even bother to encrypt. There was nothing on the phone of the 2015 San Bernardino shooters after the phones were decrypted. (you might have noticed how the feds just shut up about that after the Israelis decrypted it for them. )

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      • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday November 13 2017, @02:27AM (5 children)

        by JNCF (4317) on Monday November 13 2017, @02:27AM (#596040) Journal

        But what if they hypothetically did encrypt their messages? Or what if they saved the name of a contact who was using an otherwise hard to trace burner phone? Accepting that the government gained nothing from a couple of anecdotal cases doesn't disprove the general principle. We can't simultaneously argue that we need to hide things from the government and that the government has access to all of those things already (though you could still oppose a backdoor on the grounds that it could be exploited by actors without access to those other channels).

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 13 2017, @10:12AM (4 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday November 13 2017, @10:12AM (#596119) Journal

          If terrorists go free because of encryption, so be it.

          Fuck the government.

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          • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday November 13 2017, @01:19PM (3 children)

            by JNCF (4317) on Monday November 13 2017, @01:19PM (#596156) Journal

            I agree, I'm just saying they might!

            • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 13 2017, @01:56PM (2 children)

              by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday November 13 2017, @01:56PM (#596175) Journal

              Yeah. Some people pretend it can't happen because when pressed for evidence that this is an actual problem, the FBI gives out a list of dogshit examples [theintercept.com]. Or because they have other means to catch criminals (which may be true in many cases).

              Encryption could aid terrorism if used properly, by allowing secure communications, or at least hide information (say on a locked iPhone) that would otherwise lead to more people getting caught. The problem is that it's not worth it to ban/restrict encryption to stop a fraction of a tiny threat. Most terrorists won't get caught beforehand unless they are dumb or baited by FBI informants. All you need is a nice motor vehicle to get started, maybe with easily obtainable guns as a garnish. Maybe view your preferred propaganda over Tor to work up the nerve, and don't make inflammatory statements on social media.

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              • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday November 13 2017, @03:39PM (1 child)

                by JNCF (4317) on Monday November 13 2017, @03:39PM (#596222) Journal

                The problem is that it's not worth it to ban/restrict encryption to stop a fraction of a tiny threat.

                If the amount of preventable deaths was huge -- say, comparable to car wrecks -- my answer would be the same. Even scaling far past that, I'd look for other solutions rather than allow the government to peek at everything (but I'm opposed to the mere existence federal government).

                • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday November 13 2017, @03:54PM

                  by JNCF (4317) on Monday November 13 2017, @03:54PM (#596231) Journal

                  existence federal

                  existence of the federal