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from the nothing-to-hide-vs-none-of-your-business dept.
The New York Times published an interesting story about the fears of the current FBI director:
The director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, said Thursday that federal laws should be changed to require telecommunications companies to give law enforcement agencies access to the encrypted communications of individuals suspected of crimes.
... Mr. Comey warned that crimes could go unsolved if law enforcement officers cannot gain access to information that technology companies like Apple and Google are protecting using increasingly sophisticated encryption technology.
“Unfortunately, the law hasn’t kept pace with technology, and this disconnect has created a significant public safety problem,” he said.
Mr. Comey said that he was hoping to spur Congress to update the 20-year-old Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which does not require companies to give law enforcement direct access to individuals’ communications.
The F.B.I. has long had concerns about devices “going dark” — when technology becomes so sophisticated that the authorities cannot gain access to them. But now, Mr. Comey is warning that the new encryption technology has evolved to the point that it could adversely affect crime solving.
The kicker is this line:
“Those charged with protecting our people aren’t always able to access the evidence we need to prosecute crime and prevent terrorism, even with lawful authority."
Of course, it should be no surprise to the FBI why so many people are going "dark" and using things like Tails. For decades, the government has proven time and again that it can't be trusted to act lawfully and constitutionally. The FBI is responsible for more than its share of that. So naturally those who can are going to take steps to protect their privacy and Apple and Google, among others, are simply responding to that demand.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday October 20 2014, @12:26AM
The problem with that paradigm is that it lets them expend the resources to create the system first, operate it, and then infringe upon an American's rights so egregiously that the American can adequately defend themselves in court and elevate the argument high enough to allow the judiciary to check the others.
Either that or you want some kind of dismissed-with-prejudice type ability to block them from bringing up government back doors again?
Most often people just can't defend themselves that well against a shock and awe campaign from the government where they seize everything, including exculpatory evidence, finances, etc. and throw your ass in prison to await trial. Even somebody somewhat famous like Tommy Chong was quite literally destroyed by an overzealous federal agent that spent tens of millions to stop a man from distributing glass water pipes. He got through the ordeal and wrote books, but many don't.
That's a bit too much damage and I would prefer to not even let their foot get in the door. It may be a pipe dream, but perhaps what we need is a whole new Constitutional Amendment to be proposed and for us to all get off our asses and vote it in.
It could be very simple and spell out very clearly the rights of the citizens to be anonymous and conduct their affairs in private. Even to the extent that it outlines certain services that are not allowed to ask for identity as a prerequisite to sale, directly or indirectly.
Something game changing. Something that simultaneously kicks Big Data in the balls and completely kills any kind of warrant-less surveillance (aka mass surveillance).
Whatever it is, I agree that we need some kind of solid defense before we find ourselves right in a Dystopian future. Who wants to have to deal with that kind of stuff building a web services company or a communications provider? That's a huge damn burden to be putting on companies to require Clipper type chip backdoors for government surveillance. More so with the inevitable honor system the government always demands. In fact, they are really just trying to move towards outright telling companies they don't have legal standing to complain at all. Don't resolve the argument, just say having the argument is wrong. So you won't know if your privacy is being violated, and nobody with technical access can warn you, and the government never discloses their activities against you.
We need to do something legal soon before we find ourselves unable to argue and in nightmarish decades of forced compliance with law enforcement demands on designs and resources before it might be repealed. I've been following this stuff and I'm actually somewhat worried with a douchecanoe like this director making moves towards a forced key escrow design. I'm not sure how many people keep up with CALEA and those kinds of requirements on allowing electronic taps. The FBI has spent over a half billion replacing telecom switches with ones that have built in CALEA compliant stacks. There has always been strong movements towards classifying VOIP and instant messaging platforms in order to group them with telecoms. This forces anyone providing it to also be subject to the same laws to provide those taps... even if that means backdoors in the encryption. Whatever is necessary in order to come into compliance with CALEA.
It's been 10 years since the FBI has been pushing the FCC to reevaluate VOIP and instant messaging, and in that time, the FBI's problem has grown with the absolute explosion of communication methods that don't already come CALEA compliant from the providers.
Soon this [wikipedia.org] will be required by this [justice.gov] to work for all VOIP and instant messaging systems. They keep talking about it, but it's not going our way AFAICT. The FBI is even organized and working with industry to implement this. Every day.
Unless it's a zero knowledge service, one would be foolish to trust any claims that run contrary to CALEA compliance. If it's not the NSA being creepy and unlawful, it's the FBI continuing to push the envelope on what is lawful.
The time for defending is over. Most of the legal framework to force all of the back doors exists already. Our default state is screwed. Time for offense before we can't even deliver packets anymore without our packets having papers and being inspected. At least not through anybody that is a US business providing Internet services.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday October 20 2014, @05:44AM
"Something game changing. Something that simultaneously kicks Big Data in the balls and completely kills any kind of warrant-less surveillance (aka mass surveillance)."
A scandal that will upset the core values of most citizens at the same time might do it. It will probably end there because it's just too tempting to not abuse the system. Once large scale abuse is enabled, the accident will occur once some sets of parameters coincides. So the question becomes how much bad things will happen before then and how long will it take.