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FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

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Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#101

Post by FreedomToCreate »

autoreleasepool wrote: post #96
FreedomToCreate wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that encryption is good and bad, but we can't completely enable it to be utilized for criminal activity. There will be the need for a resolution to be reached on who gets access to this information, in what situations, and maybe even strict prosecution if the information is ever used incorrectly.

Encryption is either secure or it isn't. You can't have a middle ground. It's unfortunate that under rare, and very particular circumstances criminals can perhaps evade crimes because they have access encryption, but it's also unfortunate that they can get away with crimes because they have access to guns, knives, vaults, cars, basements, gasoline, matches, duck tape, chain saws, shovels, etc... Yet we don't cripple…

>unfortunate that they can get away with crimes because they have access to guns, knives, vaults, cars, basements, gasoline, matches, duck tape, chain saws, shovels, etc...

But investigators can get access to basements, cars, knives and guns and use them to solve the crime. In this case, post-crime, there is no way to gather information that could be important.

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#102

Post by pnwhyc »

I think it's reasonable to say that the HN crowd is predominantly more educated on this matter than the average American. We are not the target audience of this letter. Neither is Apple. Comey is playing on the emotions and technological ignorance of the bourgeois. He refers to brute force hacking as, "...try to guess the terrorist’s passcode..." Then he plays on Americans' current distaste for large corporations and says that the, "American people," need to decide whether this is right or wrong. No, we don't. Every cryptologist, cyber-security expert and halfway decent IT is saying that this is a catastrophic proposal with the power to mutilate the fourth amendment and send a whole Jenga tower of rights tumbling after it. It shouldn't even be a question.

The FBI appears to be using this tragedy as a trojan horse by which to commit atrocities upon our crucial freedoms. No, our thoughts and prayers are not enough, but our privacy and security is far too much.

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#103

Post by schismsubv »

ikeboy wrote: post #98
schismsubv wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty certain you and rtpg don't understand stare decisis. This isn't about this specific phone, or even the methodology. This is about the FBI cherry-picking a nearly throwaway (in terms of probable data value) case to set precedent in what is obvious to practitioners as a continuation of their War on Cryptography. The US legal system and education pertaining to it is largely composed of studying prior case law…

All I did was give some technical information. How did you conclude that I'm ignorant of law? If a new case is not similar to this case, then this case doesn't count as precedent. If a new case is similar to this case, then the arguments put forward for this case apply to the new case, and we shouldn't care about precedent setting. If the new case is similar but different in important ways, then when that new case is…

I conclude that you potentially misunderstand what is perhaps the core governing doctrine of US law because you keep re-presenting the same tired argument that this is about a single firmware tied to a single phone. If you truly believe it's about one phone, we don't have much to discuss.

Whatever you think they should do, judges absolutely consider the precedent effect when ruling on accepting arguments, and lawyers most certainly consider precedent and setting it when presenting those arguments. There may be some intentional offloading of those decisions from lower courts to the appeals process, but no judge makes their decision in a vacuum. Nor should they.

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#104

Post by rl3 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #71
bradleyjg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing him how? If he came back with nothing, that's his answer. The answer of the American people. Perhaps he should learn what no means.

Except the American People also gave him the job to following any and every possible lead. There is a fundamental conflict with how law enforcement and intelligence does it's job and the way people communicate today. Period. If people want more secure communications they are going to have to tell the FBI in no uncertain terms "we are ok with you dropping leads." Apparently in this specific case that has happened as a…

>So based on this statement it seems like they should back off, say shit happens, lets mourn our dead and move on.

Agreed. It's not like the investigators are totally in the dark here, either.

In addition to the rest of the FBI investigation, given the terrorist/national security nature of the case, it's likely that anything the shooters did online during the past few years was pulled and analyzed—including internet history, e-mail, chat and phone conversations—rendering a pretty good picture of both their interests and associations.

If the FBI didn't do this (they can if it's a national security case), then the intelligence community certainly did.

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#105

Post by owtM »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #101
autoreleasepool wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encryption is either secure or it isn't. You can't have a middle ground. It's unfortunate that under rare, and very particular circumstances criminals can perhaps evade crimes because they have access encryption, but it's also unfortunate that they can get away with crimes because they have access to guns, knives, vaults, cars, basements, gasoline, matches, duck tape, chain saws, shovels, etc... Yet we don't cripple…

>unfortunate that they can get away with crimes because they have access to guns, knives, vaults, cars, basements, gasoline, matches, duck tape, chain saws, shovels, etc... But investigators can get access to basements, cars, knives and guns and use them to solve the crime. In this case, post-crime, there is no way to gather information that could be important.

What's working at the pentagon like?

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#106

Post by zaroth »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #46
dclowd9901 wrote: post #11

You don't get it, Comey. The problem isn't that you want this information. Obviously you want this information as an investigator of a crime. The problem is, we can't fucking trust you or anyone enough to cross that bridge, because we know if it's there, you're just going to want more. You and every law enforcement agent in the United States has lost our trust. Call it overreach, or overzealous prosecution, high inca…

A few things. If you want to make your argument legit, refrain from calling the other person names. Second, besides drinking and making yourself essentially useless, what are you doing to improve this situation. One person may not be enough to make a difference but its better than zero. America is entirely being driven by fear and anger. The current presidential race is a perfect reflection of the hate, anger, and fe…

It is not a matter of trust. People should never simply trust their Government, rather, Government must be accountable to the People. This particular government has not merely done "extremely questionable" things, they have knowingly and willingly broken the law and violated the privacy of just about every American because they believed the means justified the ends.

Of course encryption will obstruct justice in some cases. The same applies equally to the 4th amendment. Sometimes criminals will escape justice because the means to identify them are simply not reasonable. Obstructing justice is not always considered a bad thing. Where we draw the line is crucially important.

The law demands that the particulars of the crime are irrelevant. We must accept that whatever capability we give police can be deployed, with probable cause, in any criminal investigation. So I'll completely ignore your hypothetical case. If bypassing encryption is possible, then bypassing encryption becomes routine. Apple was routinely tasked under the AWA to assist in recovering phone data prior to them deploying encryption which they believed they could not crack.

Worse still is the fact that all police powers will be, at times, abused by the police. So another important question is are you comfortable with this capability being used disproportionately against the poor and marginalized, being used to harass and intimidate, and being used to suppress political dissent?

I believe the police must be capable of working with some limitations on their ability to access our personal electronic devices. Compelling manufacturers to create backdoors in our devices to bypass their security might help the police solve cases, but it would do at an unacceptable risk to the security and privacy of everyone who uses those devices. Generally available and widely usable encryption is a vital national interest. It is the linchpin enabling trillions of dollars of electronic commerce. Even if you dilude yourself into thinking the backdoor would only be lawfully accessed, its mere existence would inflict real economic damage by furthering global distrust of American technology. And it would set the stage for even more troubling backdoors in the future, because the All Writs Act is the wrong legal framework for them to get it.

Under the AWA, how is compelling the creation of this backdoor any different from compelling creation of any software which might produce evidence of co-conspirators? If tomorrow the FBI wants access to an iPhone 6s's camera and microphone, or the ability to remotely download the phone's contents? What if the FBI needs Mozilla to install a backdoor in the Tor Browser Bundle? How can the AWA grant one backdoor and not the other?

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#107

Post by autoreleasepool »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #101
autoreleasepool wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encryption is either secure or it isn't. You can't have a middle ground. It's unfortunate that under rare, and very particular circumstances criminals can perhaps evade crimes because they have access encryption, but it's also unfortunate that they can get away with crimes because they have access to guns, knives, vaults, cars, basements, gasoline, matches, duck tape, chain saws, shovels, etc... Yet we don't cripple…

>unfortunate that they can get away with crimes because they have access to guns, knives, vaults, cars, basements, gasoline, matches, duck tape, chain saws, shovels, etc... But investigators can get access to basements, cars, knives and guns and use them to solve the crime. In this case, post-crime, there is no way to gather information that could be important.

> But investigators can get access to basements, cars, knives and guns and use them to solve the crime. In this case, post-crime, there is no way to gather information that could be important.

Which is irrelevant to how these individual items are used to actually prevent the crime from being solved.

While encryption prevents access to information that may or may not be useful, guns are used to kill witnesses that are never found, shovels are used to burry bodies that take decades to find, cars are impounded or destroyed after a getaway, I could go on. Often enough, even if any of these items are found, it doesn't help solve the crime because the criminal was simply too smart.

I fail to see why encryption is being treated differently than any other legal thing we, as free and innocent citizens, have access to. The cynic in me believes the only actual difference is in the level of familiarity the majority of the voting population has with this particular legal thing. They seem to have, unfortunately, been misinformed and poorly educated about this issue and technology in general.

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#108

Post by CodeWriter23 »

> We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist’s passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly. That’s it.

Bull crap. The FBI has it within their power to break the encryption in less than a decade by spinning up tens of thousands of EC2 GPU instances. Forcing Apple to develop products that don't yet exists is simply a choice of economy, with the added benefit of being able to strongarm any other business into creating new products in the future if it suits the FBI.

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#109

Post by ikeboy »

schismsubv wrote: post #103
ikeboy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I did was give some technical information. How did you conclude that I'm ignorant of law? If a new case is not similar to this case, then this case doesn't count as precedent. If a new case is similar to this case, then the arguments put forward for this case apply to the new case, and we shouldn't care about precedent setting. If the new case is similar but different in important ways, then when that new case is…

I conclude that you potentially misunderstand what is perhaps the core governing doctrine of US law because you keep re-presenting the same tired argument that this is about a single firmware tied to a single phone. If you truly believe it's about one phone, we don't have much to discuss. Whatever you think they should do, judges absolutely consider the precedent effect when ruling on accepting arguments, and lawyers…

> you keep re-presenting the same tired argument that this is about a single firmware tied to a single phone

I mention that only when people assert incorrect facts about the case. Correcting someone when they're wrong about a matter of fact does not imply any legal opinions.

About your point: there's a difference between "If I agree with argument X in this case, I should agree with it in that case; however, X shouldn't apply in that case, and I can make no principled distinction between the two. Therefore, X can't apply even in this case" and "I agree with argument X in this case, but not in that case; here's a principled distinction between the two; however, since it might lead to someone misinterpreting it down the line, I'm going to rule against X."

The first is a concern for precedent that I'm fine with, the second is not. My understanding is that judges will lay out the reason X applies here but wouldn't apply in the other hypothetical, which makes the concern about it being used as precedent later unwarranted.

The form of the argument here seems to be the second. "Yeah, this one is mostly fine, but we're fighting because of precedent. If they can force us to sign software and install it on a single phone, who's to stop them from forcing us to put software on every device we sell?"

And the clear distinction between the two is that one is only being put on phones that have a warrant (and belong to the government, to boot), and the other would also harm innocents. So the proper response should be "comply with this order, but specifically because of the fact that no innocents are being caught up", and that way it doesn't set any harmful precedents.

Or if you think there's a different reason why this case is fine but the general case isn't, then that itself is a reason for the general case not to have this case as precedent. Whatever those reasons are, make them explicit. If Apple puts those arguments into the court record, and the judge explicitly says "it's ok for X but not for Y",that defeats the harmful precedent.

Am I misunderstanding anything, or do we just disagree?

Re: FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter

#110

Post by tracker1 »

rtpg wrote: post #24
symlinkk wrote: post #16

> We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land. This directly contradicts Tim Cook's statement, in fact he used the same term "master key": > In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. It either is a master key or it isn't.

It isn't. the FBI asked for a specialised OS image that would have a check so that it could only work on this specific phone. Combined with Apple's encryption/signing of the update, this image could not be applied to any other device. So the "work" asked of Apple would produce something that would only work on the phone with the warrant

Until the next time the government asks apple to do it, with an attached gag order.
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