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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, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:54PM
According to Stanley Milgrim's experiments anyways, it's more specifically that about 2/3 of people find authoritarianism appealing enough that they'll participate in killing a friendly innocent-seeming person just because somebody else told them to without any threats or coercion whatsoever. Apparently, our brains don't like spending the time and energy on moral calculations, so we are perfectly fine letting somebody else do it for us.
And yes, this manifests in other ways, e.g. having your religious leader tell you what you're supposed to think is good behavior rather than figuring it out for yourself.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.