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from the gettin-the-camel's-nose-under-the-tent dept.
AG Barr seeks 'legislative solution' to make companies unlock phones:
ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Brett Max Kaufman responded to [US Attorney General] Barr's comments, saying "Every time there's a traumatic event requiring investigation into digital devices, the Justice Department loudly claims that it needs backdoors to encryption, and then quietly announces it actually found a way to access information without threatening the security and privacy of the entire world. The boy who cried wolf has nothing on the agency that cried encryption." While Barr's push for backdoors and cooperation from phone manufacturers raises concerns, Kaufman's response doesn't address that the DoJ isn't seeking the ability to unlock phones, but to do so as quickly as possible.
Apple's refusal to work with law enforcement has been an issue for years. The company wants to ensure its users feel confident in trusting Apple with their data, yet police and the FBI say that the refusals to cooperate hinder investigations and put lives at risk. It sounds like Barr wants to put a system into law that would oblige Apple to comply in future cases. How realistic this plan is -- or how much buy-in from politicians it will get -- remains to be seen, though it would force Apple to rethink how it approaches user privacy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday May 19 2020, @09:15PM
It would be if the world was one-dimensional.
Is your device secure from you? If so you'd probably buy another device. Is your device secure from me? How can your device be open to you and not to me and you still call it secure???
It is likely possible to build a truly secure device. "Likely" because usually in security it is always safe to assume there are no absolutes - security is relative. For security is merely an expression of the degree of confidence that one has mitigated risks one is concerned about. How much will you invest to mitigate the potential risks? On a non-walled garden system you almost certainly have more options to encrypt things in ways that cannot be broken, no matter what the manufacturer has installed.
For example, as in the other story today about the phone being cracked by the FBI. The FBI did crack the phone. And the story also noted that Apple is willing to turn over unencrypted iCloud backups when proper warrants are issued.
The obvious slippery way out (for Apple devices) is for Apple to either voluntarily through negotiation or by legislative action have it mandated that iCloud backups must be always enabled. (And then Apple might retaliate as they threatened to originally in proceeding to encrypt iCloud backups).
At any rate the government might indeed compel what Barr is seeking. Your phones would be insecure. From the Government. (and then any hacker who figures out the scheme or the encryption engineers sell the keys to China or whomever...)
This sig for rent.