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To hear consecutive FBI directors tell it, unless legislators are willing to mandate encryption backdoors, the criminals (including terrorists!) will win. That's the only option — at least according to Jim Comey and Chris Wray — given that the FBI, with its billions in funding and wealth of brainpower, is apparently unable to decrypt files and devices simply by waving a warrant at them.
All evidence points to the contrary. What FBI directors refer to as "going dark" is actually just the temporary blindness that results from staring directly at the Golden Age of Surveillance sun. While FBI directors waste their time making everyone stupider, law enforcement agencies around the world (including the one represented by these particular misguided loudmouths) are putting plans into action.
Twice in 2021 alone, investigators around the world announced the end results of long investigations that involved taking over message servers or otherwise compromising encrypted communication services that were allegedly marketed almost exclusively to criminals. The FBI, in conjunction with Australian law enforcement, subverted and ran an encrypted messaging server for three years, intercepting millions of messages — something that led to hundreds of arrests around the world. A second investigation targeted a Canadian encrypted service provider, resulting in a number of charges being brought against its CEO.
It has happened again, as Joseph Cox reports for Motherboard. And once again, we can attempt to put FBI director Chris Wray's pouty, anti-encryption bullshit to bed.
Dutch police have cracked another encrypted phone company, this time reading messages from, and then shutting down, "Exclu," according to announcements from the police and Dutch prosecution service.
The news demonstrates law enforcement agencies' continued targeting of the encrypted phone industry, part of which has served organized criminal syndicates for years. The Dutch police specifically have been behind many of these hacks and shutdowns, working on other investigations into companies such as Ennetcom and Sky.
Whether or not these arrests will result in convictions or any perceptible decrease in crime is unknown. But what is certain is that the mere existence of encryption is not a dead end for investigators. The FBI knows this. Its upper management, however, continues to pretend otherwise. Until the FBI can be honest about the challenges posed by encryption, its opinion on the matter can't be trusted.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2023, @11:30PM (4 children)
You can go dark, but you have to be willing to go old school. We make fun of the Russians now because they're bogged down in Ukraine, but a number of years ago they allegedly went back to typewriters for some things in their intelligence community. Plans to meddle in US elections are most likely not accessible at any server, at any IP. Hacking a rusty file cabinet in the Kremlin is not impossible of course, just difficult and I have a feeling we don't have too many of those kinds of agents left... or so I'm told.
If encrypted communications really matter, if the message is critical, if the bandwidth requirements aren't too high, then use a physical random number generator that dumps out a bunch of one-time pads, make sure people know how to use them, and distribute using trusted agents.
People are lazy though, even with real high risk stuff. People get complacent. I think that's how we got Bin Laden. They were doing all kinds of controlled contact and message drops, but somebody got careless or dropped a dime on him. Intelligence isn't just methodology, it's trust.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2023, @11:53PM (2 children)
Is not a problem, my fine Yankee Doodle. I am the kind of agent that you refer to. You tell me which documents you want, and I'll manufacture - errr - liberate them. You want love letters between Vlad and his gay boyfriends? I get!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2023, @01:57AM
Yes, double-agents are a problem when you go old school too. Feed disinformation to both sides. Collect two paychecks. I bet those guys were some sick adrenaline junky psychopaths who didn't care about either side.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday February 16 2023, @05:42PM
Made much easier in the age of ChatGPT.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by bart on Friday February 17 2023, @07:32PM
Thanks Edward Snowden for making all this so completely clear.