> Comey went so far as to claim that Apple’s new system risks creating an environment in which the United States is “no longer a country governed by the rule of law.
That made me laugh. As opposed to a country where several enforcement agencies including cops can spy on masses of people to their heart's content? It wasn't too long ago that cops could get someone's phone and look through it as much as they wanted. It took a battle to the Supreme Court to stop that from happening (hopefully). So I think there's a much higher chance it's them who are violating them law when the devices aren't encrypted, than the other way around.
I'm glad at least some journalists are calling out FBI director's BS arguments. Others like Washington Post and NY Times seem more than happy to give him a platform on which he can spread his propaganda to millions. It's a good thing for him that spreading propaganda on US soil isn't illegal anymore, I guess.
Any arguments about the rule of law from agencies that lie to courts and mislead them about how evidence was obtained so they can't be challenged on using illegal tactics are a mockery.
I am not sure that people really comprehend what "the rule of law" means, because the FBI's use of the phrase betrays a fundamental misunderstanding.
From the Oxford English Dictionary (also used in the Wikipedia entry): "The authority and influence of law in society, esp. when viewed as a constraint on individual and institutional behaviour; (hence) the principle whereby all members of a society (including those in government) are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes."
"Rule of law" is more of a procedural guarantee for the citizenry than an assurance the people will abide by laws.
Yes. It is used to contrast with "the rule of men."
In Russia, Afghanistan, and Venezuela, the laws don't seem to matter very much; if Putin or the oligarchs/warlords/chavistas want things to be a certain way, there isn't much to stop them despite laws that in theory constrain them. That's the rule of men, as opposed to the rule of law, and it's antithetical to a free society.
"That's the rule of men, as opposed to the rule of law, and it's antithetical to a free society."
Not sure the rule-of-law / rule-of-men dichotomy with regards to measuring a free society is as clear cut.
Civil disobedience, corporate political spending, judicial activism, selective legal enforcement at the local level, federal/state disagreement. These are not all good or all bad things.
The smart criminals, the ones we truly want to catch - like sophisticated terrorists, organized crime, hackers, are already encrypting their communications. Default encryption on ios8 now protects the digital trail of an otherwise lazy criminal who is more than likely leaving breadcrumbs elsewhere and is largely involved only in petty affairs. Law enforcement just needs to go back to more traditional investigative tactics instead of invading everyone's privacy for the purpose of making their jobs a little easier.
> The smart criminals, the ones we truly want to catch - like sophisticated terrorists, organized crime, hackers, are already encrypting their communications.
I'm pretty sure that most people want the non-smart criminals caught, too. I certainly have not heard too many victims or relatives of victims of murder, sex crimes, hate crimes, robbery, gang violence, and the like say that they don't truly want their crimes solved because they were victimized by non-smart criminals.
I think the assumption is dumb criminals are likely to leave other traces. Personally, I would rather pay a little more for policing than give them free access to any and all data.
>...it is impossible to create a back door into an operating system that eliminates the possibility that other unauthorized access will occur...
This idea of back doors being opened up to black-hat hackers seems to be the crux of the current leading argument against key escrow. Even the EFF is beating this drum.
Bear with me, I'm not disagreeing with that argument, but isn't there another point to be made here? And that is:
Key escrow systems ask us to assume that the current "good" guys in positions of authority will always remain good. Isn't that a bit too much of an assumption?
they are always the 'good guys' until they are coming after you.
I can imagine, a time when government would have requested comms from the Occupation movement. The problem is that they get to determine who the current enemy is. We all agree that the extremes are negative (i.e. ISIS, Narc Terr etc.) but what if a government is elected that decides that reproductive rights, equal pay, race equality, pot legalization etc. are an issue...Are you still ok with back doors? There would have been a time in the very near past that these things would have been a very powerful weapon in the authority's arsenal that would have stifled our culture's advancement (imho).
>but what if a government is elected that decides that reproductive rights, equal pay, race equality, pot legalization etc. are an issue...Are you still ok with back doors?
To statists, the state is infallible. If race inequality is the standard codified by law, then race inequality is good, because the government has declared it so. So many people operate under these assumptions, giving exception only to a few partisan issues which they've never even thought critically about.
I agree with you, but this argument seems to succeed with people of certain political orientations more than with others. Your argument requires a skeptical (or cynical) view of the (bureaucratic and political branches of) government, and possibly the voters; almost all libertarians would agree, while conservatives and neoliberals often do not (, they believe the government is capable of executing their vision of 'what should be').
To me, the biggest argument is that they lost this fight with PGP almost two decades ago when it was determined that they could not constitutionally suppress its export.
There were a lot of questions in that talk along the lines of "How is this going to work?" which Comey admitted he had no good answers to.
Ah, let's see: Here in the US we have a
Constitution. Now I remember, once
I downloaded a copy. Right, here it is.
Hmm .... Okay, how about this part:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Note: I added the emphasis. Maybe I'd wish
the emphasis would be letters 10 feet high
with two pounds of black ink each, but I'm
not seeing a way to do that on HN.
Seems pretty clear to me.
Now when I lived near DC, as I recall, the
FBI HQ was not far from the National Archives
with the original copy and also not far from
the Supreme Court where, maybe, the FBI could
get some eighth grade civics tutoring on
what that part of the Constitution means.
To me, what the part means is, in simple terms,
keep your filthy, sticky hands the F off my
stuff. That is, unless you have one of
those warrant thingies. And I don't even own a mobile device.
I sound pissed off? Right: A lot of really
good people fought and died to give us the
freedom to write and adopt that Constitution.
To track mud all over it now is, in a word,
a bummer, and that's putting it very mildly.
The FBI needs to return and repeat eighth
grade civics.
I know; I know; apparently some people in the
FBI would say that
the Constitution was written
long ago, and now the FBI has much, much, much
more important things to worry about than
those old fuddy duddies who wrote that old
piece of paper and, besides, they didn't
have smart phones then. Some people might
say such things, but I don't go along, and
we do have a way to get an answer -- that's
just what the SCOTUS is there for, in this
case for a reading comprehension lesson
in eighth grade civics.
That text I
emphasized above is difficult to read and understand?
Ah, now I get it, for some in the FBI, easy to
read and understand but difficult to accept and
easy to violate.
>no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
with encryption such Warrant becomes impossibility while their unquestionable loyalty to Constitution would protect your unencrypted data from Warrant-less access. Such position would play very well in public mind, and i kind of pessimistic here in the sense that i expect that compromise with escrow master-keys would probably be struck here, a compromise that we'll learn about only very long time after it happens.
This gets repeated incorrectly every time this issue comes up, but data you hand over to third parties isn't black and white and is subject to access from other entities.
Sorry, I typed quickly. I was referring to
encryption on the iPhone, not on some
cloud server. From recent media stories,
some people in law enforcement want to
be able to take a person's mobile device
and see what data is on it and also want
the right to demand that the owner of the
device decrypt the data. My view of this
part of the Constitution is that the person
and their device are protected and law
enforcement is wrong.
So, the way I read the Constitution,
if I have an iPhone
and the data on it is encrypted, then I
don't have to give the FBI so much as
a spit if they don't have one of those
warrant thingies. Even if they do have
a warrant, do I have to decrypt the
data for them? I'd guess and hope not,
but that might need a SCOTUS opinion.
But, for the cloud,
hmm, let's see: I write a very personal
diary and store it in a safe deposit box
at a bank. Now that diary is no longer part of
my "personal papers"? I would hope that
that part of the Constitution would continue
to apply to my diary, even though it is in
bank's box.
And if I type my diary into a computer file
and store it, encrypted, on a cloud server,
again I would think that that file on the
cloud server was still my "personal papers
and effects".
The only reason people hand data over to third parties is that that's how the software works. If they knew how many rights they were giving up by doing so the they might be more careful.
It should be legally irrelevant whether I handed someone a photo or sent it to them using an app and a network.
The FBI went through a lot of trouble to invent cell phones, then smart phones, and then to distribute them to every adult in the country just to protect us all from each other. Before cell phones we were overrun by crimes of all nature; there was no hope and no stopping it. Now Apple has the nerve to implement features that might lock out law enforcement from information they have a god given right to? Information critical to preventing your neighbours from killing your children in the dead of night with impunity. Of all the ways we have to communicate and store information securely, it's cell phones that MUST have a law enforcement back door because reasons!
And people have the nerve to COMPLAIN? I bet these same people will be up in arms when law enforcement wants back doors on our 24/7 encrypted voice box recorders @.@
> The FBI went through a lot of trouble to invent cell phones
The government has every reason to have us all use as much technology as possible because whenever our life touches technology, it leaves a trace which will eventually be a part of your personal profile.
I doubt that the Apple/Google encryption is a serious hurdle to the government. It's very likely that this is just a campaign to make the consumer trust these brands again because huge tech companies live (some maybe forced to live) in a symbiosis with government agencies. If the government doesn't want tech companies to unite and turn against it, which still hasn't happened yet and probably never will, then they must also give them something after/before they take something.
Readit News
That made me laugh. As opposed to a country where several enforcement agencies including cops can spy on masses of people to their heart's content? It wasn't too long ago that cops could get someone's phone and look through it as much as they wanted. It took a battle to the Supreme Court to stop that from happening (hopefully). So I think there's a much higher chance it's them who are violating them law when the devices aren't encrypted, than the other way around.
I'm glad at least some journalists are calling out FBI director's BS arguments. Others like Washington Post and NY Times seem more than happy to give him a platform on which he can spread his propaganda to millions. It's a good thing for him that spreading propaganda on US soil isn't illegal anymore, I guess.
From the Oxford English Dictionary (also used in the Wikipedia entry): "The authority and influence of law in society, esp. when viewed as a constraint on individual and institutional behaviour; (hence) the principle whereby all members of a society (including those in government) are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes."
"Rule of law" is more of a procedural guarantee for the citizenry than an assurance the people will abide by laws.
In Russia, Afghanistan, and Venezuela, the laws don't seem to matter very much; if Putin or the oligarchs/warlords/chavistas want things to be a certain way, there isn't much to stop them despite laws that in theory constrain them. That's the rule of men, as opposed to the rule of law, and it's antithetical to a free society.
Not sure the rule-of-law / rule-of-men dichotomy with regards to measuring a free society is as clear cut.
Civil disobedience, corporate political spending, judicial activism, selective legal enforcement at the local level, federal/state disagreement. These are not all good or all bad things.
I'm pretty sure that most people want the non-smart criminals caught, too. I certainly have not heard too many victims or relatives of victims of murder, sex crimes, hate crimes, robbery, gang violence, and the like say that they don't truly want their crimes solved because they were victimized by non-smart criminals.
Encryption of all data at rest on the device goes a long way to making good opsec more practical and easily achievable.
Deleted Comment
This idea of back doors being opened up to black-hat hackers seems to be the crux of the current leading argument against key escrow. Even the EFF is beating this drum.
Bear with me, I'm not disagreeing with that argument, but isn't there another point to be made here? And that is:
Key escrow systems ask us to assume that the current "good" guys in positions of authority will always remain good. Isn't that a bit too much of an assumption?
To statists, the state is infallible. If race inequality is the standard codified by law, then race inequality is good, because the government has declared it so. So many people operate under these assumptions, giving exception only to a few partisan issues which they've never even thought critically about.
There were a lot of questions in that talk along the lines of "How is this going to work?" which Comey admitted he had no good answers to.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Note: I added the emphasis. Maybe I'd wish the emphasis would be letters 10 feet high with two pounds of black ink each, but I'm not seeing a way to do that on HN.
Seems pretty clear to me.
Now when I lived near DC, as I recall, the FBI HQ was not far from the National Archives with the original copy and also not far from the Supreme Court where, maybe, the FBI could get some eighth grade civics tutoring on what that part of the Constitution means.
To me, what the part means is, in simple terms, keep your filthy, sticky hands the F off my stuff. That is, unless you have one of those warrant thingies. And I don't even own a mobile device.
I sound pissed off? Right: A lot of really good people fought and died to give us the freedom to write and adopt that Constitution. To track mud all over it now is, in a word, a bummer, and that's putting it very mildly.
The FBI needs to return and repeat eighth grade civics.
I know; I know; apparently some people in the FBI would say that the Constitution was written long ago, and now the FBI has much, much, much more important things to worry about than those old fuddy duddies who wrote that old piece of paper and, besides, they didn't have smart phones then. Some people might say such things, but I don't go along, and we do have a way to get an answer -- that's just what the SCOTUS is there for, in this case for a reading comprehension lesson in eighth grade civics.
That text I emphasized above is difficult to read and understand? Ah, now I get it, for some in the FBI, easy to read and understand but difficult to accept and easy to violate.
with encryption such Warrant becomes impossibility while their unquestionable loyalty to Constitution would protect your unencrypted data from Warrant-less access. Such position would play very well in public mind, and i kind of pessimistic here in the sense that i expect that compromise with escrow master-keys would probably be struck here, a compromise that we'll learn about only very long time after it happens.
So, the way I read the Constitution, if I have an iPhone and the data on it is encrypted, then I don't have to give the FBI so much as a spit if they don't have one of those warrant thingies. Even if they do have a warrant, do I have to decrypt the data for them? I'd guess and hope not, but that might need a SCOTUS opinion.
But, for the cloud, hmm, let's see: I write a very personal diary and store it in a safe deposit box at a bank. Now that diary is no longer part of my "personal papers"? I would hope that that part of the Constitution would continue to apply to my diary, even though it is in bank's box.
And if I type my diary into a computer file and store it, encrypted, on a cloud server, again I would think that that file on the cloud server was still my "personal papers and effects".
Maybe we need some SCOTUS cases.
Am I handing over information to Moleskine when I write in a notebook I purchased?
It should be legally irrelevant whether I handed someone a photo or sent it to them using an app and a network.
And people have the nerve to COMPLAIN? I bet these same people will be up in arms when law enforcement wants back doors on our 24/7 encrypted voice box recorders @.@
The government has every reason to have us all use as much technology as possible because whenever our life touches technology, it leaves a trace which will eventually be a part of your personal profile.
I doubt that the Apple/Google encryption is a serious hurdle to the government. It's very likely that this is just a campaign to make the consumer trust these brands again because huge tech companies live (some maybe forced to live) in a symbiosis with government agencies. If the government doesn't want tech companies to unite and turn against it, which still hasn't happened yet and probably never will, then they must also give them something after/before they take something.
"""
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
"""