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U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

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31–40 of 350 posts

Re: U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

#31
> Their requests to the companies may include letters, personal appeals or congressional legislation, said a federal law official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

I love that, in an article arguing against secure privacy, the official requested anonymity.

Re: U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

#32
post #7
post #4

What a terrible article. Excerpt: They have created a system that is a free-for-all for criminals So we should give up all rights to privacy to help catch criminals? What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law Maybe that says more about your laws than the desire for privacy?

My sympathies for the FBI's concern about people being "beyond the law" is lessened a great deal given the past decade of revelations of illegal actions at FBI forensic centers, and the complete lack of prosecutions, not to mention the NSA spying, etc. Even the TSA is in violation of the law (fourth amendment protects against search without warrant, USC 18-242 makes violating that a federal crime, and a felony if don…

Okay the TSA argument is brought up all the time, and the overall consensus as that you are voluntarily giving up your fourth amendment rights by consenting to the search.

Re: U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

#33
post #12

Google and Apple's marketing teams must be relishing this. I'm guessing it's very dangerous in their departments right now with the champagne corks flying everywhere.

I doubt that. I'm sure they anticipated this response, but I think you greatly underestimate how many people subscribe to the "nothing to hide" theory of privacy and/or are genuinely worried this might aid pedophiles or terrorists.

I can't see how you'll see a backlash against the companies on the move, if only because there's no real competition and no value in being "the phone the authorities can easily monitor"

The worst case scenario is that they get large amounts of press (not all positive), fight for the rights of their users to have private data, and lose to a government they never expected to defeat. That's still a win.

Re: U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

#35
"Beyond lobbying the companies, there is little law enforcement can do without congressional action. " Wait, what? Even with the privacy Apple and Google are offering there are huge amounts of ways to access data useful to law enforcement and the law enforcement seems to have the tools to force the companies to give it.

Re: U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

#37
post #16

I have full disk encryption enabled on my Mac since Lion. Why is it such a big deal that I have it on my phone too? Or am I missing something and the keys to my computer storage are leaked to Apple somehow?

By default it is backed up to iCloud through your keychain...

This is why I enabled encryption with the fdesetup command manually so the GUI can't "have a bug" that backs it up to iCloud/keychain anyway.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin...

edit: you want to ensure you don't use the -keychain option, and then you want to write down the recovery key it prints out and store that somewhere safe.

Re: U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

#38
I don't think they care so much about preventing encryption --after all, you can already encrypt your iPhone or Android device, if you really want to.

What they're much more concerned about, IMO, is that this could now be the _default_. No longer would there be a presumption that someone has "something to hide" if they're encrypted when everyone else is, too.

Re: U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

#39
post #24
post #5

This is a bit like protesting door locks because they make it harder to pop in and look around.

I don't support what the government is trying to do here, but minimizing this issue like this is not doing us any favors. The issue isn't that law enforcement can no longer "look around" your phone. The issue is that they can no longer get a warrant and use what is on your phone as evidence in an investigation or court case without the phone owner's cooperation. Basically your phone goes from being personal property…

A big, crucial shift.

Re: U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

#40
post #13

Outside of having a plethora of security experts audit and certify these services I'd say this is about as close as you can get to a ringing endorsement. The only way it gets better is if other governments follow up with the same complaints. Ultimately I'm pleased that this kind of thing even makes the news. Ideally government becomes almost totally transparent and private matters become nearly opaque (there will alw…

> I'd say this about as close as you can get to a ringing endorsement Or they just want criminals to think that all they have to do is buy an Apple or Google phone, and they can't be caught.

> Or they just want criminals to think that all they have to do is buy an Apple or Google phone, and they can't be caught.

There is a greater incentive to let Apple or Google do that kind of marketing and quietly exploit the vulnerabilities (ie, what's been happening with the NSA for some time now). If it had the appearance of working but actually didn't you wouldn't hear a peep from any government.

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