FBI head criticizes Apple, Google over data encryption

[webfact]

FBI head criticizes Apple, Google over data encryption

Washington (AFP) - Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey hit out at Apple and Google over new data-security measures designed to reassure customers wary of government prying.

Google and Apple this month announced they are hardening encryption tactics on devices powered by their mobile operating systems.

The move should mean that even if law enforcement agencies have court-issued search warrants, they will be blocked from getting hold of pictures, messages and other personal data stored on newer Android or Apple smartphones and tablets.

"I am a huge believer in the rule of law," Comey told journalists.

"But I also believe that no one in this country is beyond the law. What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law."

Comey said the FBI had had initial discussions with Apple and Google about the new security measures. He said law enforcement, with a search warrant, must have access to data on criminals' smartphones.

In a reference to US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, the FBI head said that in a "post-Snowden world... this is an indication (some corporations) go too far."


-- (c) Copyright AFP 2014-09-26

[soundman]

I don't want anybody looking at my personal photos without my permission.

[JockPieandBeans]

Comey said the FBI had had initial discussions with Apple and Google about the new security measures. He said law enforcement, with a search warrant, must have access to data on criminals' smartphones.

Then the answer is fairly simple.

Provide evidence as well as a search warrant and I am fairly confident that these two institutions will be more than happy to comply.

The flip side to that is, when you make an ass of it, make sure that you pay copious amounts of compensation to those that you search for no reason.

Everyones a winner.

[robblok]

Governments love to pry however with a court order they should be able to see the data..

[JockPieandBeans]

Governments love to pry however with a court order they should be able to see the data..

If they have compelling evidence I agree.

As a matter of course, no they should not.

[robblok]

Governments love to pry however with a court order they should be able to see the data..

If they have compelling evidence I agree.

As a matter of course, no they should not.

I would hope that a court order means compelling evidence if not I 100% agree with you.

[JockPieandBeans]

Governments love to pry however with a court order they should be able to see the data..

If they have compelling evidence I agree.

As a matter of course, no they should not.

I would hope that a court order means compelling evidence if not I 100% agree with you.

I believe that you might be a Dutch Ex-Copper. So you can draw your own conclusions about Holland.

There have been too many miscarriages of Justice in the UK, that it only draws one conclusion. That warrants were obtained on BS.

[robblok]

Governments love to pry however with a court order they should be able to see the data..

If they have compelling evidence I agree.

As a matter of course, no they should not.

I would hope that a court order means compelling evidence if not I 100% agree with you.

I believe that you might be a Dutch Ex-Copper. So you can draw your own conclusions about Holland.

There have been too many miscarriages of Justice in the UK, that it only draws one conclusion. That warrants were obtained on BS.

No I am not a cop never been one, don't know why you think so. I do have a cop friend (former cop) and sure there are always miscarriages of justice but they are thankfully not a majority.

[JockPieandBeans]

No I am not a cop never been one, don't know why you think so. I do have a cop friend (former cop) and sure there are always miscarriages of justice but they are thankfully not a majority.

Dont read anything into my assumption, just goes to show, never make assumptions I thought I had read it somewhere.

My point was, that these miscarriages of justice, whether a minority or not. Somewhere along the line, convictions were obtained by BS means, which must have included the signing off on search warrants.

Search Warrants issued with no compelling evidence

[robblok]

No I am not a cop never been one, don't know why you think so. I do have a cop friend (former cop) and sure there are always miscarriages of justice but they are thankfully not a majority.

Dont read anything into my assumption, just goes to show, never make assumptions I thought I had read it somewhere.

My point was, that these miscarriages of justice, whether a minority or not. Somewhere along the line, convictions were obtained by BS means, which must have included the signing off on search warrants.

Search Warrants issued with no compelling evidence

I get your drift, im an bookkeeper / tax adviser. Anyway some search warrants were done then with no compelling evidence. But others had compelling evidence. I think a search warrant is enough and later when there was no compelling evidence make it a court case and get money from them. I dont want to block it all because of some mistakes that are made. That is just my opinion, for the death penalty i would block it as mistakes cant be corrected, here they can with a fat amount of money.

[NeverSure]

BS. The NSA has more than embarrassed itself by spying on citizens and now citizens are striking back. The buzzword "corporations" may fool some people, but it's the people who want the security and who will use it.

I have a partition on my laptop that's not only encrypted, it's invisible. (unmounted, hidden partition.) Only a very dedicated person with knowledge could find it and mount it and then it would be 256 encrypted with a 16 character password.

Why? NSA, TSA. It's simply none of their business.

[cloudhopper]

LOL these new measures are designed to reassure users that the new security is unbreakable and the FBI guy is playing his part.

[JockPieandBeans]

No I am not a cop never been one, don't know why you think so. I do have a cop friend (former cop) and sure there are always miscarriages of justice but they are thankfully not a majority.

Dont read anything into my assumption, just goes to show, never make assumptions I thought I had read it somewhere.

My point was, that these miscarriages of justice, whether a minority or not. Somewhere along the line, convictions were obtained by BS means, which must have included the signing off on search warrants.

Search Warrants issued with no compelling evidence

I get your drift, im an bookkeeper / tax adviser. Anyway some search warrants were done then with no compelling evidence. But others had compelling evidence. I think a search warrant is enough and later when there was no compelling evidence make it a court case and get money from them. I dont want to block it all because of some mistakes that are made. That is just my opinion, for the death penalty i would block it as mistakes cant be corrected, here they can with a fat amount of money.

My first post on this thread.

Then the answer is fairly simple.

Provide evidence as well as a search warrant and I am fairly confident that these two institutions will be more than happy to comply.

The flip side to that is, when you make an ass of it, make sure that you pay copious amounts of compensation to those that you search for no reason.

Everyones a winner.

[BATHIK]

Then the answer is fairly simple.

Provide evidence as well as a search warrant and I am fairly confident that these two institutions will be more than happy to comply.

Nope, the idea behind these latest tools is that Google and Apple do not store nor to do have access to encryption keys. They couldn't help you even if they wanted to.

It's the same idea Kim Dotcom used for his latest cloud service Mega - he doesn't know what's stored on his own servers, only users can decrypt their stuff. He has access to his servers, sure, he can delete stuff, copy it, hand it over to FBI, but without encryption keys it's just a garble of ones and zeros.

Pretty much like a letter written in some code you keep in a safe deposit box in a bank - the bank can open it but wouldn't know how to read it.

[quicky]

But I also believe that no one in this country is beyond the law.

WOW! That's great to hear so we should expect Obama's arrest any day now then, right?

[ukrules]

I know a thing or two about encryption and how to use it properly.

For many people the use of strong encryption has barely begun even though it's been around for a very long time.

This situation is rapidly changing, everywhere.

[NoBrainer]

If they have enough evidence to get a warrant, then they should arrest and charge you.

Anything else is just a fishing expedition to try to find evidence that they obviously do not have, and should not be permissible.

It should fall under the section of the constitution, that you can not be forced to provide information that may incriminate you.

[ggt]

This FBI complaint is just bunk...what the man means is...we don't like anyone interfering with our ability to monitor US and foreign citizen's personal conversations...which is against the law...

The security forces in the US...using the bombing of the World Trade Centers in NY...as an excuse to do away with human rights and privacy...

[Loptr]

The FBI, CIA, NSA, and every other alphabet soup US agency can just develop algos to get around the new encryption model, although it will take time... What is really telling is their very public disapproval that someone would actually snub them and lock them out... Kudos to Apple on this one as it is well past time that the lawlessness of the US intelligencia be brought down...

[alfalfa19]

I feel that it's nice to see major Internet presences getting away from the Microsoft model, which involves building a gigantic, wide open back door into their latest consumer OS, (Win 8) so the govt can have a look at the entire contents of anybody's computer at any time, no legalities necessary.

[whaleboneman]

BS. The NSA has more than embarrassed itself by spying on citizens and now citizens are striking back. The buzzword "corporations" may fool some people, but it's the people who want the security and who will use it.

I have a partition on my laptop that's not only encrypted, it's invisible. (unmounted, hidden partition.) Only a very dedicated person with knowledge could find it and mount it and then it would be 256 encrypted with a 16 character password.

Why? NSA, TSA. It's simply none of their business.

My guess is you have some very important stuff there...or some very embarrassing stuff.

[manarak]

"But I also believe that no one in this country is beyond the law. What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law."

This is such a ridiculous statement.

The LAW is to get a WARRANT before looking at personal communications.

Get a WARRANT, get a look through the backdoor in the encryption. <script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

LOL these new measures are designed to reassure users that the new security is unbreakable and the FBI guy is playing his part.

agree !

[ukrules]

BS. The NSA has more than embarrassed itself by spying on citizens and now citizens are striking back. The buzzword "corporations" may fool some people, but it's the people who want the security and who will use it.

I have a partition on my laptop that's not only encrypted, it's invisible. (unmounted, hidden partition.) Only a very dedicated person with knowledge could find it and mount it and then it would be 256 encrypted with a 16 character password.

Why? NSA, TSA. It's simply none of their business.

There are many ways to recover passwords from regular volumes and hidden volumes, even on separate partitions with the most modern tools available.

The best way to protect data of them all is if the OS boot volume is encrypted itself, that way the common memory leaks where keys are recovered from in pagefile.sys and the hibernation files can be avoided as they too are protected.

Even then if someone gets a snapshot of your RAM when the computer is running and the volume mounted then your key is theirs for the taking.

That 16 character password is also not a secure as you think.

Edited September 26, 2014 by ukrules

[NeverSure]

BS. The NSA has more than embarrassed itself by spying on citizens and now citizens are striking back. The buzzword "corporations" may fool some people, but it's the people who want the security and who will use it.

I have a partition on my laptop that's not only encrypted, it's invisible. (unmounted, hidden partition.) Only a very dedicated person with knowledge could find it and mount it and then it would be 256 encrypted with a 16 character password.

Why? NSA, TSA. It's simply none of their business.

There are many ways to recover passwords from regular volumes and hidden volumes, even on separate partitions with the most modern tools available.

The best way to protect data of them all is if the OS boot volume is encrypted itself, that way the common memory leaks where keys are recovered from in pagefile.sys and the hibernation files can be avoided as they too are protected.

Even then if someone gets a snapshot of your RAM when the computer is running and the volume mounted then your key is theirs for the taking.

That 16 character password is also not a secure as you think.

I disagree. When I go through TSA there's nothing on the RAM. This isn't ten years ago, it's now. But it would take a supercomputer ten years to crack my encryption IF they noticed it was there.

I'm not on anyone's radar and they aren't going to spend a ton of time trying to get useless information from a guy with a clean background.

BTW my %system% drive is not my C:\ drive and even if I encrypted any drive they could remove it, mount it in a supercomputer and use brute force but that would take about ten years.

There are no absolutes. What's needed is a good enough system that they won't bother because they don't have a reason to think they need it anyway.

[lee b]

We live in a world where nothing is secret. I wonder if the FBI know what colour underwear i have on?????

[BernieOnTour]

The Big "Bad Boys" they should chase, as Mafia and drug cartels, anyway keep their keys and certificates anyway by themselves.

Therefore, these measures just restrict the ridiculous spying on Mr. Anybody's private sphere at bay and will also making it more difficult for the numerous fraudsters in the internet. Actually, it should be expected, that especially the FBI (maybe not CIA, NSA) are a strong supporter, because it helps to protect your vital data.

Anyway, anyone a little bit more conscious about his own IT security could achieve this already now, eg. using BoxCryptor to encrypt your DropBox or WUALA to store your data encrypted on cloud storage and keep the keys by yourself...

[ggt]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

We live in a world where nothing is secret. I wonder if the FBI know what colour underwear i have on?????

No...but they do note the size of your member when you go thru airport security...please try not to get a complex...when the young ladies manning the machines...smile when they view your image...

[timendres]

LOL these new measures are designed to reassure users that the new security is unbreakable and the FBI guy is playing his part.

Brilliant! How many years did RSA assure us that there were no back doors to their algorithms, only to discover that back doors had been purchased. When we accept government intrusion for the sake of "security", we are lost. There will always be evil folks and bad deeds, but the vast majority of the people live in secure comfort without the government needing to snoop into every aspect of our lives. The rule of law provides enough for LEA to do their jobs without these vast, illegal intrusions that usurp the rights of free citizens. There is no such thing as 100% security, and those who believe it should be attempted at any cost scare me as much as the criminals.

[Jonmarleesco]

'"But I also believe that no one in this country is beyond the law.'

Then, Mr Comey, perhaps the overlords of certain government departments - both in the US and the UK - should have thought of that before presuming to see themselves as beyond the law.