New York's District Attorney: Roll Back Apple's iPhone Encryption (mashable.com) 215
An anonymous reader quotes Mashable:
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said Thursday that he wants Apple's encryption to go back to how it was in early 2014. Back then, police could basically extract any information they wanted after getting a warrant. "Doing nothing about this problem will perpetuate an untenable arms race between private industry and law enforcement," Vance said on Thursday. "Federal legislation is our only chance to lay these arms aside."
Vance said he's got 423 "lawfully-seized Apple devices" that his employees can't do anything with. Forty-two of those devices "pertain to homicide or attempted murder cases" according to the district attorney's office, and a similar number "relate to sex crimes." The argument, of course, is that the district attorney's office would have an easier time solving crimes if they had access to these phones... Apple believes being forced to hack into phones at the government's will is an unreasonable burden.
ZDNet adds that "the call for federal legislation could be given a popular boost by president elect Donald Trump, who previously called for a boycott on Apple products when it refused to help the FBI."
Vance said he's got 423 "lawfully-seized Apple devices" that his employees can't do anything with. Forty-two of those devices "pertain to homicide or attempted murder cases" according to the district attorney's office, and a similar number "relate to sex crimes." The argument, of course, is that the district attorney's office would have an easier time solving crimes if they had access to these phones... Apple believes being forced to hack into phones at the government's will is an unreasonable burden.
ZDNet adds that "the call for federal legislation could be given a popular boost by president elect Donald Trump, who previously called for a boycott on Apple products when it refused to help the FBI."
I love Big Brother! (Score:2, Insightful)
The Victory Gin is kinda gross but whatever
stupid DA, encryption is for everybody (Score:4, Interesting)
if it isn't flatfoots exceeding their warrant authority, it's thieves and hackers. out in user land, we can't tell the difference. so encryption is getting better, and the world is better off for it.
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First, I don't know Tim Crook. Maybe he deserved to die, and I don't want to find his killer.
Second, if I'm murdered, either I won't be able to find out who killed me, or I will already know without hacking an iphone.
Re: I love Big Brother! (Score:2)
Won't somebody think of the children!
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No, if I'm dead I wouldn't care. That's sort of what bein dead means.
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I care now about what will happen after I die, even though after I'm dead I'll be incapable of caring.
What about the rest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Forty-two of those devices "pertain to homicide or attempted murder cases" according to the district attorney's office, and a similar number "relate to sex crimes.
So 80% of the phones they want to decrypt aren't related to crimes serious enough to mention.
Re:What about the rest? (Score:5, Informative)
Following the links [manhattanda.org] we get the real percentages:
- sex crimes: 9%
- homocide: 10%
- assault/robbery/burglary: 14%
Those are the violent crimes. Then
- non-violent property crimes: 36%
And finally police busybodying and misc:
- drug prohibition: 24%
- weapons charge: 5%
- other: 2%
Re:What about the rest? (Score:5, Interesting)
100% of the searches violating the 4th amendment.
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100% of the searches violating the 4th amendment.
Was that before or after he said he wanted to go to a judge and get a warrant?
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Shopping around for an easily persuaded judge does not mean the constitution should be ignored.
Re:What about the rest? (Score:5, Insightful)
When a prosecutor cites child porn as a rationale for grabbing our Constitutional rights, you can bet that the real reason is to save a bunch of those ever-lucrative nonviolent drug cases.
Re:What about the rest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and what kind of "sex crimes" are we even talking about? We already see kids getting arrested as "child pornographers" for sexting their BF or GF, and other such nonsense. Police seem to spend far more time and resources on policing consensual interactions than on actual crime. We need to get the government out of the personal morality business altogether.
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You Democrats crack me up.
Re: What about the rest? (Score:2)
Re:What about the rest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about the rest? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a strange position to take whether or not you are for or against this. It could be applied to literally any technology, policy, or anything that helps law enforcement solve crimes. Crimes were solved before computers, although I don't think anyone would argue that the cops should just get along fine without them.
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It's the invasiveness of data searches and the insistence on devices absolute searchability, not law enforcement access to technology for the solution of crime. Of course police should use modern technology to make them more efficient at solving crimes, but that shouldn't enable new powers to strip mine individual devices and technology for the purpose of solving crime.
Re:What about the rest? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/... [npr.org]
If you're murdered in America, there's a 1 in 3 chance that the police won't identify your killer.
To use the FBI's terminology, the national "clearance rate" for homicide today is 64.1 percent. Fifty years ago, it was more than 90 percent.
And that's worse than it sounds, because "clearance" doesn't equal conviction: It's just the term that police use to describe cases that end with an arrest, or in which a culprit is otherwise identified without the possibility of arrest — if the suspect has died, for example.
That's just murder, but it was easy to find.
Then I found this:
http://www.governing.com/topic... [governing.com]
Data recorded in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program show just how widely clearance rates vary across larger police departments. Of the 100 cities reporting the most murders in 2013, 11 cleared less than a quarter of their cases. Meanwhile, eight departments registered clearance rates of 90 percent or more. The national murder clearance rate was 64 percent for 2013.
It probably varies widely by crime as well.
Re:What about the rest? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I know what you meant, but you got the terminology a little off. For the police, only an arrest is important. For the prosecutor, a conviction is important. A correct conviction is important for nobody (except the victims of the system, of course).
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Everyone wants to get re-elected, and you don't get re-elected by focusing on outdated concepts like truth and justice.
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It all depends on who gets murdered. If, for instance, a black gang member murders another black gang member, first off, probably no one will talk. And on the other end, no one will pursue it with much vigor. If, on the other hand, you murder a middle-class white person, a lot more effort will go into solving that crime. Witnesses will be more forthcoming. This is why big cities have a lower clearance rate for murders.
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Maybe they should be forced to watch the whole DVD collection of Columbo. Maybe they'd learn a thing or two about investigating.
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Re: What about the rest? (Score:3)
Even more interesting how society managed to function at all before smartphones. We even had crimes :D
I could go back to a " dumb " phone pretty easily, but I know most cannot.
Treat your phone like anything online. If you don't want others to know about it, don't keep that data where it can be found.
Especially on network connected devices.
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I know, I know, Crimes where also not committed through the use of cell phones back then?
Is this why, when drug dealers used to use pay phones and get incoming calls to them, there was a 100% clearance rate on crimes related to drug dealing?
>*crickets*<
Thought so...
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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But you need a lawful warrant. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Fat chance o'dat (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the abuse of rubber-stamping courts that brought the need to do encryption that's inaccessible to the 5-0. Y'alls made your bed, now kip in it.
Re:Fat chance o'dat (Score:4, Interesting)
I could compromise on this. No more secret courts with secret warrants. No more searching phones without a warrant. Go back to obeying the Constitution (as it's written not as you interpret) and I can see making the phones with two keys. One for the user and one for the courts. But to open the phones so that the government can ignore the 4th amendment is wrong.
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You mean a court key which would be like the key to decrypt DVDs and BluRays where no one is supposed to know that except a few people who apparently don't have their own agendas or people they want to spy on for reasons?
You know the best way to keep a secret? Don't tell anyone. Don't let anyone else know. Keep that to yourself and you will never have to worry about that shit ever again.
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Honestly, if you're keeping shit on your phone that can send you to prison you're too stupid to live. IF I was involved in any sort of felony the last fucking thing I'd do is have any kind of phone anywhere near me. It's going to leave a trail no matter what you do and I'd never bet my freedom on anyone's encryption. I'm amazed at how many people get caught in crimes because they texted shit or called someone or had their phone on and were someplace they said they weren't. People are stupid. That's not
Re:Fat chance o'dat (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, if you're keeping shit on your phone that can send you to prison you're too stupid to live.
And there we go. The just world mentality rears its ugly head.
People are stupid.
Yeah - usually the people who think they are smarter than everyone else.
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People are stupid.
Yeah - usually the people who think they are smarter than everyone else.
If you think believing people are stupid implies the believer thinking he's exempt, I'd invite you to meet a fellow named Socrates [wikipedia.org].
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I don't have a problem with you keeping shit on your phone that can send you to prison. Feel free. It's a self solving problem.
Re:Fat chance o'dat (Score:4, Informative)
You're missing the GP's point.
If your phone can be searched without warrants and without technical encumbrance it's fairly certain that there will be something on it that can be used to implicate you in a crime of some sort.
Federal and municipal law is not only filled with arcana but also with many outdated laws that could be used to convict people who are basically upstanding citizens.
Until 2003, for example, sodomy laws were valid in 14 US states. Another example is that it is illegal to discard mail delivered to you but addressed to someone else [cornell.edu], a federal crime punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
tl;dr: chances are very high that a search of your smartphone could provide incontrovertible evidence that you have violated a crime.
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I keep hearing bullshit like this but that's what it is, bullshit. I don't like unreasonable search and I don't defend it. I think the 4th amendment is important and should be upheld. Even so, the number of times someone is jailed for minor crap is minuscule, people jump on the occasional over reach and act as if it's the norm. Sodomy laws were mostly used in the last few decades as an additional punishment in rape cases. Regardless the supreme court struck those down so they're as meaningless as the o
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Don't be a total dipshit. I never said it didn't happen. I said it's rare. People harp like there are millions of people in jail for nothing.
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Really man? Assault? For something on your phone? Did you lose track of the thread? You have child porn on your phone??? WTF!
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Ah, but I plan to obey the law. I find that the very best way to stay out of prison. I don't really worry about cops wandering through my phone as long as I don't get in trouble for them dying from boredom.
Re:Fat chance o'dat (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but I plan to obey the law. I find that the very best way to stay out of prison
Your plan has flaws. One is trying to obey the law - fundamentally impossible. The other is thinking you have to break the law to end up in prison. Sadly not the case, especially in the US with its for-profit prison system.
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I don't doubt some people get jailed that are innocent. I don't think it's rampant though given that everyone I've ever known to go to prison deserved to go there. Many I thought got way too many second, third, and fourth chances.
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Until and unless plea bargaining is significantly changed there is no justice in the US.
It's an inherently corrupt system.
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If you listen to a lot of these clowns 90 percent of the prison population is innocent people.
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> one for the courts
You mean like the keys that can open anyone's luggage that only the TSA is supposed to have but you can 3D print from files available all over the internet? Those keys?
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Y'alls made your bed, now kip in it.
Tarnation ta' gawd blimey, you confuse me. Are you American Southerner or British!
Note to 5-0 (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't trust Apple no more than I trust government agencies, because despite their pro-privacy posturing, they really work for the man - just like Google and all the others. Therefore, when I want to commit a crime and store files about it on my cellphone, PC or transmit said files to my fellow criminals, I encrypt them *before* saving them. Savvy criminals do the same.
I'm a smart criminal, so you ain't gonna find no clear-text file on none of my computer devices, regardless of the brand.
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You forgot to finish it with "Nyeeaaaah, see?"
Nyeeaaah!
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and the Freedom that gets "NSA Can Access More Phone Data Than Ever" (Oct 20, 2016)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/nsa-p... [go.com]
"... the percentage of available records has shot up from 30 percent to virtually 100. Rather than one internal, incomplete database, the NSA can now query any of several complete ones."
The other fun part is the UK and its ability to legal to do "equipment interference" on any device connected to any UK network. So the tech exists.
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I only send encrypted files about my criminal activities to smart criminals. I don't send anything that could compromise me to Boss Hogg.
My point was, only dumb criminals get caught with readable shit on their cellphone. Those who are serious about doing illegal things know better - or don't use computers, cellphones or tablets in the first place. In fact, the more the man turns on the heat on digital stuff, the more smart criminals will stay the hell away from it, ultimately defeating the man's purpose.
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Smart people don't do criminal shit. Can't get caught if you're not doing it.
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I keep my phone encrypted and I've crossed the Canadian/American border a dozen times this year alone and nothing more than "have a good day".
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Your name is probably closer to "Thomas McGee" than to "Muhammad 'Abd al-Hussein".
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John McAfee has a series of videos on the right and wrong ways to bribe a cop south of the border (in general).
Why would you go into a corrupt shithole without learning the local customs? (just keep a $20 taped to the back of your license).
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Go read the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments (Score:2)
The FBI is issuing a warrant to seize all devices of jcr and decrypt them.
The new administration (Score:2)
Dear Mr Vance (Score:2)
What you know... (Score:5, Insightful)
The moment a law is passed that mandates law-enforcement access to our electronic devices, we are giving them access to what we know. Today that may or may not be reasonable. But tomorrow, the day after, or a hundred years from now we will have these devices integral to ourselves. Implants within us, most likely, that augment our memories. It's not unreasonable to predict a (likely distant) future where a device taps our optic nerve and provides us "augmented reality". Can't remember the name of the person you're looking at? The device will do that for you. But it will also be able to record what you see, or hear, for future perfect recall.
So what happens when the iPhone law is applied to internal storage? It's mind-reading. This legislation is one step shy of "police must be allowed to read your mind if it is possible". That disturbs me.
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The problem with encryption is not that the police shouldn't have access to the data (with a warrant), it's that there's no way to grant only the police access. Those who want strong encryption believe keeping the data private from third parties is the greater good.
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So, before electronic storage, the police shouldn't have had access to paper storage? Why memorize a phone number if you can write it down?
The problem with encryption is not that the police shouldn't have access to the data (with a warrant), it's that there's no way to grant only the police access. Those who want strong encryption believe keeping the data private from third parties is the greater good.
No, the police shouldn't have access... if you scrambled/encrypted the data. Only your knowledge can decrypt that data on the paper. If it's in plain text... you haven't really made the data knowledge-dependent. Writing something down in plain-text is equivalent to saying what you know out loud.
I hear you, but I don't agree I consider my mind a sanctum that is mine alone. Period. Ever. Not the least... I know I've had had "don't think of the purple elephant" horrible thoughts. Thoughts that don't
Re:What you know... (Score:4, Insightful)
It goes against the text (Score:4, Insightful)
Nowhere does it say I have to rely on a governmental promise not to do an unreasonable search, it says I have a right to secure myself against such a search.
The proposal goes against the plain meaning of the fourth.
flipped positions (Score:4, Insightful)
Those are not telephones (Score:2, Informative)
Can we please stop calling these gadgets "telephones" --? Telephones are devices with embedded systems that can handle Telephony and not much else. These so-called "smart" so-called "telephones" are actually locked-down computers for the brainless masses: computers controlled by someone else and not you.
From that perspective, since the user already has no actual control of what their device is actually doing, why would anyone not expect the treachery be relentlessly notched up beyond its already intolerabl
Is there a precedent for this? (Score:3)
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What would happen if there was suspected related papers to a case in a safe? Would the safe company have to open it, or was it left to the police to deal with? Or a safety deposit box - do banks have to comply? There's probably some precedent for this out there, would be interesting to see what it is..
LEOs are left to deal with the issue. The thing is that with the devices you mentioned, it's physically possible to deal with them if the accused chooses to not provide the combination for example. In the case of smartphones they can be made so that it is impractical to unencrypt the data.
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The physical safe analogy is not a good precent for strong encryption because no safe was secure against the government. If the evidence was important enough, they could find a way to open any safe to access it. (It costs less to break open a safe than it cost to make the safe.) As far as we know, correctly implemented strong encryption can be secure against any attack unless a brute-force attack is stunningly lucky. This makes governments uncomfortable.
Banks certainly have to comply with lawful orders
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I was confident in my opinion. Search online for "safety deposit box search warrant" and you'll find plenty of confirmation from credible sources.
NY DA and the rest can GET FUCKED (Score:5, Insightful)
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Governments will continue to spy on their citizens no matter what happens. I took the most extreme cell phone surveillance countermeasure of anyone I know. I "opted out" of the issue by no longer owning a cellphone. Problem. Solved.
Maybe, temporarily.
Until the "cashless society" is more fully-implemented.
Then you'll need your smart phone to buy a stick of gum or pay the neighbor kid to mow your lawn, or buy/sell/rent anything from/to anyone. Laws will be passed requiring the carrying of a government-approved hardwired 'always-on' smart phone when not at home.
That is, until they get the chip implants rolled out. Then people will be "chipped" immediately after birth.
Strat
It's an econoimic race ... (Score:2)
... because Apple knows the market wants secure phones.
That market includes EVERYBODY: The consumers, businesses, government, and LEO as well.
If Apple doesn't provide phones that are locked down, someone else will and EVERYBODY will drop iPhone for the new secure kid on the block.
Why aren't Androids in the news?
I'm sure Apple appreciates the publicity.
Except it was designed for celebrities. (Score:2)
Yet you fail to acknowledge that it only came about when compromising photos of celebrities started appearing on the Internet as a whole.
It wasn't designed for the people at large, but for a small subset of their deep-pocketed customers.
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Uh, the celebrity photos weren't stolen from their phones, so encryption on them means nothing. Please help the average slashdot reader's IQ go up, by staying off the site.
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I can only fail to acknowledge by rejecting that which is presented.
iPhone's market is much larger than the subset population of celebrities.
Additionally, I would like to associate myself with the comment below by KingMotley ( 944240 ) in that you are confused on a point.
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This changes nothing because it's kind of obvious phones don't store conversations, anyway.
commentsubject (Score:2)
I'm not even arguing that on ethical grounds, or The 4th - they were simply lucky to enjoy a window where they were blessed with the brute force power to override the efforts of citizens to have private documents.
Honeymoon's over, deal with it. Pay some gray hats if you want to keep getting access you're not supposed to have.
And so, it begins... (Score:5, Insightful)
With Trump as president and a republican majority in congress, how much - realistically speaking - do you think privacy will last in the US?
My guess is: not too long.
Here's a prediction: forget Apple, this has all to do with public service and government's power. With all the stuff Trump promised, he'll just lean on the side - as several republican politicians do, and some liberals too - of ignorance, pushing for laws and forcefully having their way regarding encryption, fundamentally weakening security and privacy for all. These people cannot understand the importance of privacy and strong encryption, they'll always dismiss the importance of it by seeing only how criminals can potentially use it, because they are essencially blind on how much their own lives depend on it.
Companies' stances on those will weaken and collapse overtime, cases of abuse of power will rise, and hacker activity will gain new grounds.
Police and government will innevitably end up leaking or being hacked for very sensitive information, information from innocent people that was never meant to go public will, press will come after the government harder than ever, and it'll start an information/cyber civil war as Trump's government already doesn't like the press a whole lot.
Of course, crime and criminal activity won't go down because of that. Even if the US weakens their own stance on privacy and security, that does not mean other countries will follow suit. But businesses and people dependant on services located in the US will be forced to conform.
Banks and other types of secure services will suffer from this because every device now has some sort of backdoor or weakened encryption, private data from people inside the government that was favorable for weakening encryption will leak, but now it's too late to go back - the damage is done.
Private companies that feel threatened by all the measures being taken by the FBI and sanctioned by the government will, with enough pressure, move to countries that understands the importance of privacy and encryption. It'll take a while because it has to reach a point of making economical sense, but it will.
All the morons who were favorable on weakening iPhone and other devices encryption will come crying talking how they didn't know that making security weak for criminals also meant making security weak for everyone else, which in turn just made criminals' lives easier.
But of course, this will only help the fear and paranoia agenda of the current office anyways, so in the next election the candidate who shouts louder will continue winning the races.
It's extremely enticing for law enforcement with such a miopic, poor understanding and complete ignorance of how encryption came to be to dismiss it just so that they can catch more criminals, "terrorists" and whatnot. Short term wins, they are one step ahead, and blahblah. But if we can't have law enforcement thinking on the mid to long term, it can be as damaging as letting vigilante forces control crime in your country.
Power corrupts, and eventually all the data the FBI, NSA and police forces are collecting on innocent civilians will be used for bad - it's probably already happening, we just don't have all the cases in hand to show.
Re: And so, it begins... (Score:2)
Republicans say they're all for smaller government and less personal intrusion. Cursory glance at their actual actions does not support their assertions. You keep on believing that, however, if it helps you sleep.
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Republicans say they're all for smaller government and less personal intrusion.
No, not all Republicans. Nomination of Trump was specifically seen as the end of the conservative movement. Conservatives, generally speaking, were the Republicans who advocated smaller government. Trump has never included smaller government in his platform.
I love it when law enforcement lies (Score:5, Insightful)
If Mr. Vance has evidence that a phone contains information related to a case, Mr. Vance knows he can get a warrant requiring the owner of the phone to unlock it. If the owner of the phone refuses to comply, Mr. Vance can have that person jailed indefinitely until he does comply.
That's with current law.
But what Mr. Vance really wants is a precedent allowing him to demand access to a phone for which he has no idea whether it contains anything relevant at all. Basically this is the equivalent to allowing police to randomly walk into any house they choose and look around for evidence.
You know the last time this was allowed in America? Before 1776. Back then, British soldiers could routinely enter any colonist's house and look around for pretty much anything, whether or not they had any reason to expect it to be present - they only needed a vaguely written writ of assistance, which conveniently never expired. That's why, since 1792, we've had a fourth amendment attached to that crusty old document known as the United States Constitution.
It's sad... the more you read American history from the time around the revolution, the more you see parallels with what's happening today.
To be clear (Score:2)
The police must not have unlimited power (Score:2)
And that is exactly what they are asking for in this matter: They want to be able to decrypt all "lawfully seized" devices. The problem is that if they are able to do that, then they are wayyyy of mission and are in the process of establishing a police-state. The purpose of the police is not and has never been to solve all crime. In a free society, its only purpose is to keep crime at a level that society still functions reasonably well. Only if they provably cannot do that anymore (and there is no indicati
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You're very wrong. By several decades. There was a Republican House, Senate, and President only 13 years ago, from 2003 to 2007.
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He's technically wrong but spiritually correct. The Republicans under Bush 43 were neocons who would be dismissed as RINOs today. They were more like the current Democrats in many ways. Their line is extinct. The people Trump is surrounding himself with are power-mad Jesus freaks and Tea Party fellow travellers.
The Republican party as we knew it before, for better or worse, is as dead as the Whigs. There has never been a time when people of this particular caliber have controlled the executive branch an
Re:All it will take . . . (Score:5, Informative)
You must be unaware that the current administration is pushing for the these backdoors as well, and the current president is a Democrat. In addition, District Attorney Cyrus Vance is a Democrat, whose father served as Secretary of State for President Carter, and lower offices under Kennedy and Johnson.
You should realize these issues are just from the political party you love to hate.
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Both of these suggestions suffer from the same issue: you can't put the shit back in the horse. Encryption is out there, and a reality. If the phone manufacturer compromises their full-disk encryption, then app makers start writing un-compromised encryption into their apps.
Similarly, the surveillance state is our new reality, and it won't be stopped without some pretty major changes happening.
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If it were only so simple! If the underlying OS is compromised and can't be trusted, what's the value of any encryption on top of that?
Let's say Gov't passes an anti-encryption law for smartphones. First thing Apple and Google will (have to) do, is to purge their App Stores from all apps that implement un-snoopable encryption. T
Nope (Score:2)
Call records being stored only if you are logged into iCloud, so if that bothers you do not log into an iCloud account when using the phone.
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The FBI usually likes to avoid high profile jailings of people standing up for the rights of the public, because it's the best way to end up with your shit in the street, and politicians that like to get re-elected working the shovels. Jailing Tim Cook over refusing to implement encryption back doors would represent an FBI fuck up in a New York Times headline kind of way. And it's exactly how the FBI would end up with the entire Congressional delegation from California all up in their shit, if not the ent
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San Quentin? That spelling should be a crime....
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You cannot have been very good at the basics of your job, because otherwise you would know that stiffer penalties have zero prevention values for most crimes. You would also know that most criminals do not expect to get caught. If they would expect to get caught, far more lenient penalties would already be sufficient to stop all crime permanently, because if you get caught, crime universally does not pay (well, unless it is a large enough crime, like what the banksters do, or the like).