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Previously on SoylentNews: Apple Ordered by Judge to Help Decrypt San Bernadino Shooter's phone
Former NSA Director Claims Many Top Gov't Officials Side With Apple
Choice quotes from an interview with Gen. Michael Hayden (archive.is) on Wednesday:
"The issue here is end-to-end, unbreakable encryption—should American firms be allowed to create such a thing?" he told the Wall Street Journal editor John Bussey. "You've got [FBI director] Jim Comey on one side saying, I am really going to suffer if I can't read Tony Soprano's email. Or, if I've got to ask Tony for the PIN number before I get to read Tony's emails. Jim Comey makes that complaint, and I get it. That is right. There is an unarguable downside to unbreakable encryption."
"I think Jim Comey is wrong...Jim's logic is based on the belief that he remains the main body. That you should accommodate your movements to him, which is the main body. And I'm telling you, with regard to the cyber domain, he's not. You are."
And by the way? If I were in Jim Comey's job, I'd have Jim Comey's point of view. I understand. But I've never been in Jim Comey's job...my view on encryption is the same as [former Secretary of Homeland Security] Mike Chertoff's, it's the same as [former Deputy Secretary of Defense] Bill Lynn's, and it's the same as [former NSA director] Mike McConnell, who is one of my predecessors."
It's interesting for this opinion to be coming from this source.
[Continues.]
Another Take on FBI vs. Apple
There's a plenty of reason to believe that Apple complying with the FBI order is bad policy, it's legally shaky, and at least one of the people who makes the strongest arguments in this direction is now voting on a secret government board? What the heck is going on here?
What's going on is Justice Antonin Scalia is dead.
Had Justice Scalia not died unexpectedly a few days ago (notably before the Apple/FBI dustup) and had the FBI pursued the case with it landing finally in the Supreme Court, well the FBI would have probably won the case 5-4. Maybe not, but probably.
With Justice Scalia dead and any possible replacement locked in a Republican-induced coma, the now eight-member Supreme Court has nominally four liberal and four conservative justices but at least 1.5 of those conservatives (Justice Kennedy and sometimes Chief Justice Roberts) have been known to turn moderate on certain decisions. This smaller court, which will apparently judge all cases for the next couple years, is likely to be more moderate than the Scalia Court ever was.
So if you are a President who is a lawyer and former teacher of constitutional law and you've come over time to see that this idea of secret backdoors into encrypted devices is not really a good idea, but one that's going to come up again and again pushed by nearly everyone from the other political party (and even a few from your own) wouldn't right now be the best of all possible times to kinda-sorta fight this fight all the way to the Supreme Court and lose?
If it doesn't go all the way to the Supremes, there's no chance to set a strong legal precedent and this issue will come back again and again and again. That's what I am pretty sure is happening.
takyon: Apple's deadline to respond to the court's order has been extended from Tuesday to Friday. Twitter, Facebook, and Steve Wozniak have expressed support for Apple's position. Here's a blog post describing how Apple could potentially comply with the FBI's request.
(Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Saturday February 20 2016, @01:48AM
Everyone must realize by now the FBI is going to get into that damn phone, and any phone they want that carries it's encryption key on the phone, with or without Apple's help. And this will remain the case until someone comes up with a phone with a physically separate encryption key. It is just that it's easier with Apple's cooperation, but sooner or later they'll do it nonetheless. Now, 'ol Tim could have discreetly coughed up the hack, and the FBI would be on their merry business of brute forcing the phone by feeding it those pins. However, he's decided to cooperate with the government in a different way, and allowed them to make an example of Apple in the press and probably get the law changed too, so that the government can preemptively add back-doors just like they want to, therefore making sure the next generation device with the physically separate key never happens (because the key is secretly stashed).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Francis on Saturday February 20 2016, @03:47AM
What everybody but the FBI seems to realize is that a lot of this push towards encryption comes from the fact that the FBI, NSA, CIA and DSHS don't understand that they're not entitled to all the data they can access. Most people wouldn't care at all about encryption of the agencies hadn't overstepped their limits to a massive degree. I mean, literally it was too much of a hassle to go to the FISA court after the fact with nobody to oppose their demands.
Think about that for a second, it was too much of a hassle to get a rubber stamp after already having accessed the information. That really ought to tell you how much we can trust those agencies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2016, @08:40AM
And this will remain the case until someone comes up with a phone with a physically separate encryption key.
Require strong passphrase entry every time you unlock the phone. Erase the key-expanded passphrase when not in use. Done.
This is the default way every secure login system works. You have to add extra breakable shit to make things "simpler" and make the encryption breakable by making the pass-phrase weaker.
"He who trades security for convenience will have neither"
- Benjamin Schneier
(Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Saturday February 20 2016, @06:58PM
Fail. This is what apple does already, if it wasn't for the wipe after 10 tries, the FBI would be in already. I have a passphrase on my private keys, standard encryption stuff. The only difference is, I don't keep the passphrase encryted key beside the encrypted data, however if the FBI gets the key, it is easy enough, with government resources to brute force it. Even easier if they get a hold of me, I'm not going to pretend I can withstand torture, the moment they lay that mallot on the table I'll be like "I'll talk". Only as strong as the weakest link.