Former FBI Director James Comey Reveals How Apple and Google's Encryption Efforts Drove Him 'Crazy' (fastcompany.com) 351
An anonymous reader shares a report: In his explosive new book, A Higher Loyalty, fired FBI director James Comey denounces President Trump as "untethered to the truth" and likens him to a "mob boss," but he also touches on other topics during his decades-long career in law enforcement -- including his strong objection to the tech industry's encryption efforts. When Apple and Google announced in 2014 that they would be moving their mobile devices to default encryption, by emphasizing that making them immune to judicial orders was good for society, "it drove me crazy," he writes. He goes on to lament the lack of "true listening" between tech and law enforcement, saying that "the leaders of the tech companies don't see the darkness the FBI sees," such as terrorism and organized crime.
He writes, "I found it appalling that the tech types couldn't see this. I would frequently joke with the FBI 'Going Dark' team assigned to seek solutions, 'Of course the Silicon Valley types don't see the darkness -- they live where it's sunny all the time and everybody is rich and smart." But Comey understood it was an unbelievably difficult issue and that public safety had to be balanced with privacy concerns.
He writes, "I found it appalling that the tech types couldn't see this. I would frequently joke with the FBI 'Going Dark' team assigned to seek solutions, 'Of course the Silicon Valley types don't see the darkness -- they live where it's sunny all the time and everybody is rich and smart." But Comey understood it was an unbelievably difficult issue and that public safety had to be balanced with privacy concerns.
Good (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
He is crazy. Look at this statement:
public safety had to be balanced with privacy concerns
These are the SAME THING. If you weaken encryption people become less safe from those who want to invade their privacy and steal their data.They become more vulnerable to criminals and oppressive governments.
He seems to live in a fantasy world where there are good guys and bad guys and magical thinking actually works.
Re: Good (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it's more that he axiomaticly believes that the Good Guys could never become the Bad Guys. He can't even conceive the possibility.
He cannot see what us right in front of his face, that his former bosses are not Good Guys.
The tech guys get it, that as bad as the Bad Guys may be, it is even worse for everyone when the Good Guys become bad actors and/or act in bad faith.
I as a naive peon simply see the FBI as being lazy. they have more than enough tools, techniques etc to do what us peons need them to
Re: Good (Score:4, Interesting)
He has to believe that the Good-Guys can't become Bad-Guys, in his book he admits he didn't recommend HRC be prosecuted for mishandling classified material because they thought she would become President; which makes him one of the Bad-Guys. He sold-out for political favor, then found he had backed the loser!
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
public safety had to be balanced with privacy concerns
In some ways he's right about this: there are situations where you really do need to balance one against the other. And that's the whole problem. The FBI, NSA, etc. decided it was up to them where to strike the balance, which of course meant giving themselves as much power as possible. And since they knew a lot of rabble rousing citizens wouldn't agree with their decisions, they went to huge lengths to hide what they were doing (and are still doing). If you keep your actions secret, you don't have to worry about anyone criticizing you.
By doing that, they betrayed democracy. If a balance has to be struck between safety and privacy, it's up to the people to decide where to strike it. Not the police. Not the government. And the people can only make that decision through a fully informed public debate. The FBI and NSA didn't want a public debate, so they just did what they wanted and slapped "top secret" on everything to keep the people from finding out. By doing that, they made themselves into the bad guys. And they will remain the bad guys until they come clean about everything they have done, and accept that it's up to the people, not up to themselves, to decide where to strike the balance.
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Well, you see, you just don't get it. By public, they do not mean you, you don't count, you are not a person, not a real one, not the one percent that is, you are the 99%, the consumables. They want to be safe from us, when they lie to us, when they cheat us, when they steal from us and when they kill us. So their public safety (the only people that count, the one percent) has to be balanced against our privacy the 99%, well, the completely and utter total lack of it, hell, they don't concern themselves wit
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for it transforms millions of targets into a single target, protected by someone else's incompetence.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the Chinese and Russian governments demand keys to ALL Apple devices, because devices sold outside their countries MIGHT be imported and used in China or Russia.
Or the US government demands to hold keys to devices sold worldwide for the same reason. People living outside the US shouldn't be subject to the US's whims and caprices either.
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If the US government did this to EU devices they would violate GDPR, so it won't work in Europe, unless the EU starts making exclusions, which would be a steep and slippery slope.
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Until the Chinese and Russian governments demand keys to ALL Apple devices, because devices sold outside their countries MIGHT be imported and used in China or Russia.
Demand? Hah, why ask for permission when you can just ask for forgiveness later.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, this chestnut again. Let's review what actually happened...
Apple ignored a Federal warrant requiring them to assist in accessing a phone used by a dead terrorist.
No, they didn't. They provided law enforcement with the data they had - iCloud data, keychain contents...whatever data they actually-had, they handed over. What the government wanted was for Apple to write a firmware update that would enable the FBI to brute force the passcode requirement and push it to the phone. The reason there was all kinds of fanfare was because the FBI was trying to compel Apple to write software that didn't exist, for the sake of reducing security that everybody, everywhere, ever, knew was not going to be used in just this one singular case.
They claimed it would cost them to much money and tie up too many resources.
Well, yes. Writing software takes time and money, from intelligent humans. Apple doesn't have a central database of passcodes camping out on a Macbook in Tim Cook's office in Cupertino that they were simply refusing to query.
They claimed their security was so good that even they might not be able to retrieve any data from the phone.
Well, if Apple wrote firmware that worked well enough on their test unit, but ended up failing on the phone of interest for whatever reason, would the FBI have been okay with that? Or would Apple have been liable for obstruction of justice? Only a fool would give any form of guarantee.
They used the entire episode to showcase their commitment to a users privacy.
The way this is written, it sounds like it's intended to be derogatory...but I really don't see a downside to such a commitment.
In other words they used their actions to sell more devices.
You have a dizzying intellect. People want phones that are secure. The FBI indicates they are having trouble unlocking the phone. The FBI brings the issue to the court of public opinion. Apple affirms that their devices are so secure, the FBI has to compel them to write software that doesn't exist in order to maybe-kinda-sorta get access to it. People trust Apple more, and buy more phones as a result due to their security. Welcome to how capitalism is supposed to work.
And a couple of days later they ended up getting a big kick in the nuts as a third party proved Apples vaunted security technology was complete bullshit.
Well, that's quite a leap there. Third parties have *always* managed to find a vulnerability in iOS. Take a look at the history of jailbreaking; time and time again iOS has fallen given enough poking and prodding. If an Israeli company managed to successfully exploit a vulnerability as a last ditch effort, that's far different than Apple using their software developers and their signing keys to write software they did not want to write, at the behest of their own government officials, who would have ended up using the incident to cement into case law the ability of the FBI to require work to be done by private companies in order to meet their own ends.
Now, if you want to take it one step further...how come the last thing we heard from the case was that the Israeli company unlocked the phone? If there was any useful data at all on that phone, you KNOW the FBI would have been shouting from the rooftops how they arrested a dozen more terrorists because of what was on the phone, and how Apple got in the way. Instead, we heard nothing thereafter. If Apple was full of it with respect to their security argument, then the FBI was ten times worse and they never owned up to being wrong.
But hey, everyone has Graykey now, so you win.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
>And the key storage would be as secure as the primary key storage you're currently using, so there is no additional vulnerability there either.
Of course there is. Primary key storage is done by *you* - the only way anyone can get access to your device is to target you specifically, and manage to determine your personal key.
Secondary "back door" key storage is done by the government, and used regularly by them if it offers any actual value - and thus there are likely hundreds, if not thousands of individuals with legitimate access to that key. And the moment any *one* of them is subverted - be it by bribe, blackmail, the temptation of the enormous black-market value of that key, or just plain old incompetence, *everyone* loses any real security on their phone. People are after all almost always the weakest link in any halfway decent security system.
Not to mention, one of the prime "bad actors" encryption protects against are the "legitimate" authorities, who have a long rack record of abusing their power - encrypting phones became popular in large part in response to the revelations of illegal government surveillance programs.
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Another point is I don't trust the government to keep my escrowed key safe. Leaks happen, hacks happen. The more places my secrets are stored, the more danger there is of them being stolen. And when it happens, I won't know, and even if I find out I have no recourse other than throwing away my device and going back to a normal PC where I can install proper, non key escrow encryption software.
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even if I find out I have no recourse other than throwing away my device and going back to a normal PC where I can install proper, non key escrow encryption software.
That doesn't help at all if backdoors are baked into the silicon of your CPU, BIOS, etc.
But, no worries, mate! I've got you covered!
I've got an old 64-bit SGI Octane with IRIX UNIX installed (complete with the latest then-current Netscape Navigator browser!!) & matching monitor I'll give you a good price on if you pay shipping! :D (combined weight in the near-100lb/45kg range!!)
Strat :)
He has a book to sell (Score:2)
When selling a book it is a good idea to sell it in large numbers. Who's going to buy it ? His friends in high places ? There are only a few of them, not enough to make a profit for his book.
So now that he wants those he screwed to fork their hard-earned cash and help him meet his sales target, he has to make it sound like he was suffering while screwing them.
As if corporate interests like Apple and Google did not know that if they wanted the tax loopholes to stay firmly in place they will have to play nice
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In short, eavesdroppers seeking access to the session key must use two keys to decrypt the LEAF: the family key (which is common to all chips) and the chip key (which is different for every chip). Assuming that the family key will be in fairly wide circulation,{194} t
Re: (Score:3)
Key escrow does not make you more vulnerable to a 3rd party. Sure, you're at risk from the 2nd party (government).
Yeah, it’s not as if any of the government agencies which would likely be involved in key escrow has ever suffered a serious data breach of extremely sensitive information.
And if the keys were held by the companies themselves - it’s not as if law enforcement has ever requested - and been granted - sweepingly broad subpoenas.
Ummm. No. (Score:4, Informative)
for encryption the government is not a defacto 2nd party.
That would imply that you had the intention of sharing the information with them.
For communications, the other end of the conversation is the 2nd party.
For storage THERE Is NO SECOND PARTY!
The government is a 3rd party, as you had no intention of supplying them with access to this information.
They are trying to FORCE people who have committed no crime to make them a default 2nd party.
they have also show extreme bad faith in automatically recording and storing information illegally, without any knowledge of the public (whom they claim to represent) and keeping that information because they want it..They only got caught out by accident and did their very best to block that knowledge from the general public.
They have also established secret courts that claim to protect rights, however there is no public discussion of such things, no transparency, even long after the fact, and they have been caught intentionally lying about such things to hide their actions in court, destroying due process (parallel construction).
Is there any surprise that the public feel a need to protect themselves from such actions?
Note however that the government HAS worked to put in place protections for themselves against this, although with limited success, by trying to put in place exceptions for government officials.
That is not democracy, that is a surveillance state where the government wants the ability to dig through peoples history if and when it wishes for whatever purpose it wishes. It would be more democratically correct for the opposite to be in place - so the public has the right to dig through the history of the people asking to be placed in control.
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Key escrow does not make you more vulnerable to a 3rd party. Sure, you're at risk from the 2nd party (government). But it in no way weakens the encryption algorithm. And the key storage would be as secure as the primary key storage you're currently using, so there is no additional vulnerability there either.
A basic axiom of physical security is that if the value of something exceeds the value of stealing it, your security is inadequate. Security is a constant battle to find "cheaper" ways to steal the item vs. making safes that are harder from which to extract valuables.
If keys are held in any secure place, whether in single key (really, really stupid) or a number of keys, their value is nearly immeasurable, especially as they are not physical items. That makes their theft quite possibly undetected. The money
It's not (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey Comey, didn't you serve on the board of directors overseeing the laundering of drug money while at HSBC of like 1.9 BILLION dollars????
I don't see that in your book.
Re: Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Last I checked, the IV amendment doesn't say:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" EXCEPT WHEN IT ANNOYS THE FBI DIRECTOR.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, I have to agree with tsa and the AC on this one. It's like the meaning of the word "unreasonable" in that sentence went completely over your head. People and courts can argue about precisely what that word means in that sentence until the end of time (or until a new amendment is passed to override it), but the way US law stands right now, if the courts find it reasonable, law enforcement officials have the right to violate your privacy. Feel free to complain about it all you like, it's not likely to c
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What's to stop someone from using an imported device NOT originally sold in the US in the US, thus bypassing the key escrow? Or will the US gov't need to demand keys for devices sold worldwide by US companies, since some of them MAY be used in the US? Will people in other countries be happy to give up their privacy to the whim of the US government?
Sam argument applies for China, Russia, and Zimbabwe, with regards to devices sold in the US, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:nuts (Score:5, Informative)
Do you really think strong encryption keeps your phone from being 'hacked'. All it does - and all it's supposed to do - is keep someone in possession of your phone from reading its contents without unlocking it. But once you've unlocked your phone and the OS is running, any malware you've got on it has no problem reading all your data, stealing your bank account, etc.
Now I'm not saying that it's not a good thing to have your phone encrypted - and strongly so. But let's not pretend that law enforcement - or even bad government actors - are the same thing as your everyday fraudsters that are able to steal your info just fine with the best encryption Apple can provide. Encryption does not protect your from OS bugs and malware that you installed and granted access to your device.
Re: (Score:3)
And let's not pretend anything in the government's hands is safe. You might recall a fairly well known event where a guy called Snowdon managed to get hold of all the US Governmetn's secret stuff. How many others have also got it, but kept their mouths shut?
Rest assured, other governments are no better at keeping data secret.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember, half the population is of below average intelligence,
That is completely untrue. Intelligence is an inverted bathtub curve. Most people are of average intelligence, and it's not statistically possible to differentiate between them. So a huge hunk of the population is about the same intelligence.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, he'd be using a government phone where the keys would be kept a lot more securely than consumers phones, so he wouldn't have to worry about it.
It's always going to be a challenge (Score:3)
Google it (Score:5, Insightful)
He goes on to lament the lack of "true listening" between tech and law enforcement, saying that "the leaders of the tech companies don't see the darkness the FBI sees," such as terrorism and organized crime.
You colossally ignorant savage, you see tiny issues like terrorism and organized crime and don't see the darkness George Orwell, the Founding Fathers, and many others saw -- a boot stepping on a human face, forever.
Billions continue to live in despotism as their leaders use the tech you want for "crime" to catch and punish any challengers to their power.
Both Russia and China have leaders currently consolidating power for the long term, at least partly because of the lack of crypto government can't get into.
Thou impious fool.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, because they rarely get to advertise when shit goes right and legitimate bad guys are stopped.
Why? Aren't the trials supposed to be public?
He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
"the leaders of the tech companies don't see the darkness the FBI sees"
They see a different, more dangerous kind of darkness: one brought about by the FBI and law enforcement and the rest of the government itself. The 4th amendment and the broader right to privacy itself is supremely important to avoiding a tyrannical government.
This is more important than any benefit against terrorism and organized crime.
Re: (Score:3)
"the leaders of the tech companies don't see the darkness the FBI sees"
They see a different, more dangerous kind of darkness: one brought about by the FBI and law enforcement and the rest of the government itself. The 4th amendment and the broader right to privacy itself is supremely important to avoiding a tyrannical government.
Er, except when it comes to "progressive" causes. In that realm, it's perfectly fine to, say, target you with the IRS for wrongthink :)
Comey... (Score:5, Interesting)
So what we know about Comey is:
(1) He was politically motivated in Hillary's E-mail case, trying to help her gain legitimacy after election.
(2) He was politically motivated to hurt Trump.
(3) He likes to spy on American citizens.
"A Higher Loyalty" indeed. The FBI started out being run by megalomaniac, corrupt authoritarians, and little has apparently changed.
Re: (Score:3)
The FBI started out being run by megalomaniac, corrupt authoritarians, and little has apparently changed.
No one has accused Comey of cross-dressing, though.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Comey... (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying Hillary was under investigation 11 days before an election was hardly helping her. Democrats are all oh so mad about that. He was just point out a possible upside.
He seems motivated by a personal code of morality that is intentionally oblivious to political reality.
Re: (Score:2)
While I think the Democrats are fucking full on retarded that they think HURR EMAILZ immediately before the election had an effect
I'm not a Democrat (and didn't vote for Clinton, either of them), but anyone who thinks that the October surprise didn't make a difference is a drooling idiot. The effect was immediately obvious in the poll numbers. While the polls turned out to be less accurate than usual (most likely due to large numbers of people who were embarrassed to admit to a pollster that they wanted to vote for Trump, but did it in the privacy of the voting booth), given how razor-thin Trump's win margin was (remember he actually
Re: (Score:2)
Higher loyalty indeed.
You just don't know what the higher power is to which he gives his loyalty.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Comey... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, and he has personally stated why. He didn't do it to hurt Clinton, he did it because he assumed she was going to win and thought it would help her to deal with this before her coronation.
Hillary lost because she was a lying, incompetent, corrupt psychopath with no charisma, no political skills, and no redeeming qualities: she caused life-long Democrats like myself to leave the party in disgust.
Polls showed her leading all the way until election day; the polls were simply wrong. Probably a lot of people who hated her hung up on pollsters, like I did. Why help these people manipulate me?
Re:Comey... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and he has personally stated why. He didn't do it to hurt Clinton, he did it because he assumed she was going to win and thought it would help her to deal with this before her coronation.
I'd say that's the least-gracious way to read that. My take is that he didn't think it would be a game-changer for the outcome, and that if the news came out after the election that the'd re-opened the investigation it would undermine the legitimacy of the election (IE, the deep state covering up for Hillary). Moreover, at the time the word on the street was that that folks inside the FBI were going to leak it if Comey didn't speak up, so his hand was forced either way.
Re: Comey... (Score:2)
What was Hillary thinking, anyway? Sending classified information on a crappy Windows server? She should be in Leavenworth for that! You and I certainly would be.
Re: (Score:2)
(4) An excellent judge of character in spotting a mob boss who gained office
(5) Someone with the moral integrity not to give a personal oath of loyalty to an "El Presidente" figure.
I wonder how long Dirty Donald will be able to continue to abuse and debase his political office and menace the world. Personally I can't wait until Mr. Mueller subpoenas his emails and makes him eligible for the extended jail service he so tantalisingly
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, what his "mob boss" comment shows is that he is someone who misuses the authority of his office and fails to fulfill his job function properly.
You have to completely lack moral integrity yourself to think that Comey's corrupt and partisan conduct amounts to "moral integrity".
Context? (Score:4, Insightful)
This book hasn't been released yet. The link provides a short quote and opinions about the context without sufficient information to be useful for anything but marketing hype. The link is an advertorial designed to generate hype.
Works both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
He [James Comey] goes on to lament the lack of "true listening" between tech and law enforcement, saying that "the leaders of the tech companies don't see the darkness the FBI sees,"
Similarly, the FBI appears to be not listening to the tech companies and not seeing the darkness they see. Things such state secrets repeatedly escaping (Snoden, Reality Winner, TSA keys [techcrunch.com]), a perception that when a secret is shared with somebody else, it no longer is a secret and a belief that if one person can "break" encryption, so can somebody else.
James Comey is/was basically a cop (Score:5, Insightful)
Police hold a lot of power. The definition of the boundaries on that power should not be definable by them.
Police (ethical ones) really only care about what they can do within the law to solve crimes. It’s not their job to think about the big questions, and I’m not going to fault them for that (although the top cops should probably try to step outside their box).
But it’s also why I don’t put a lot of weight into their opinions on things like this, or the rights of the accused, or the inviolability of personal property. And it’s one of the many reasons the people who *did* spend time thinking about the big questions gave us a Bill of Rights.
Consider when personal comp started. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hacker culture started during the Baby Boom's coming-of-age period. The government was in a massive crackdown on the young population, in a ways far too numerous and complex to go into here. The reaction was a distrust of the government and institutions related to its support and function, and both cultural and organized resistance to them. This reaction was massive.
Among those institutions were law enforcement and the criminal justice system, which had been massively perverted to attack the government's perceived opposition. This is when the drug war started. This is when RICO was passed, encouraging police to steal people's property. This is when concentration camps for dissidents were legislated and designed (but, fortunately, not used and the legislation later repealed). This is when the FBI, along with special "red squads" of local police, were used to infiltrate and disrupt political organizations (See COINTELPRO),. I could go on. Police were viewed as an invading army.
Similarly, the Vietnam conflict and the draft - a threat of slavery and death - were used to "channel" the new generation into desired occupations - and to stretch their entry into the job market out by pushing more of them into college than would historically have gone, in order to avoid an expected economic crash to dwarf the Great Depression. Institutions in any way connected with the war were considered culpable and attacked: Banks (help fund the war), chemical companies (make explosives, defoliants, and Napalm), the monopoly telephone company (collected a war tax).
In the midst of this (and to a large extent, in the California counter-culture hub that became Silicon Valley), personal computers were developed and the programs and applications for them were designed and/or deployed.
Is it any wonder companies (pre-institutional-web), founded and built up by the people who grew up in that environment, as part of that culture, would distrust law enforcement and favor the interests of their equipment's users over it?
And who's the point company in this conflict? Apple! Built by Jobs and Woz. Who got their seed money making "Blue Boxes" - devices to bypass the "war-supporting price-gouging" monopoly phone company's billing - during that era.
Doesn't surprise me at all. (Of course I lived through it, and to some extent was part of it. So I no doubt have personally seen more of it than the massively sanitized, repeatedly rewritten, dumbed-down, and politically-warped historical record, as promulgated by the current media conglomerates, will ever tell you.)
LEA already doing a spectacular job (Score:5, Interesting)
With 5 to 6 TIMES percent of U.S. population sitting in prisons vs. European and Australian countries with similar standards of living and systems of governance I would say LEA is already doing an amazing job considering their hands are tied by "darkness".
Look how well they've done with civil assert forfeiture being so successful trend line over decades has actually managed to exceed sum total of everything reported stolen. Way to go LEA!! Truly an amazing result. Imagine would it could be if only speaking in codes unknown to LEA were outlawed.
Steady bending of sentencing to enhance plea deals as an effective means of extortion now results in a 60 to 70% disparity in jail time for the same crime for those whose only additional sin was failure to forfeit their right to jury trial.
What this country really needs is for more people to give up more of their rights so LEA can do an even better job and keep everyone even safer. We're already 5-6 times safer than everyone else....
Oh what's that you say? We're not? You mean even with all of those extra people sitting in jail U.S. is 3-4 times less safe? No... can't be... I'm shocked...
Re: (Score:2)
Yep -- this sums up the American "justice" system quite well. Except if you're the CEO of a firm selling opiates instead of a street-level crack/meth dealer. Then you get a retirement package and die in the Bahamas at age 95. Same goes for being a CEO whose company was convicted of Medicare fraud. No jail, just a cush job as governor of Florida...
To paraphrase Leona Helmsley -- "only the little people pay for their crimes in any serious way."
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Morality (Score:2)
Where their logic falls apart is the "good people" section. Jesus said it best. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Given the homosexual child rape of Catholic monks and the coverup of it, along with the divorces and affairs of countless married ministers, and the blatant greed and avarice of the mega-church pastors in Texas, I don't automaticall
Leftist just had their heads asplode (Score:2)
Comey not only threw some acid on the Hillary email investigation wounds with the admission that the agency effectively undermined any investigation, the fact that there was more to the tarmac meeting than admitted and that there could be more to come if he ever spoke in an investigation. Now he’s admitting that he himself wants to undermine your basic constitutional rights.
Comey’s book is as much an indictment at Trump as it is a big warning of potential blackmail on the Democrats. He’s b
The blind leading the blind. (Score:4, Insightful)
"the leaders of the tech companies don't see the darkness the FBI sees"...
Gee Comey, ever consider the fact that tech companies don't see this because the government chose to keep that CLASSIFIED?!?
Not to mention pointing out the fact that the tech companies kind of woke the hell up with regards to default encryption when Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 what the US Government does when encryption is NOT the default standard. How ironic our OWN Intel community caused this shift in default behavior...
The problem is there is no modern 'wiretap' (Score:2, Insightful)
The old system of the police getting a warrant from a judge in order to wiretap a reasonably suspicious person's telephone, in order to make sure that he's actually a bad guy made sense. There was control and oversight, a reasonable expectation of privacy for the rest of us, and the police could use this tool to catch some bad guys (always with judge oversight).
Nowadays everyone only has to follow some short tutorials to get secure communication channels that
darkness (Score:2)
Comey doesn't recognise the darkness which is the various policing forces.
Don't worry, we see the darkness (Score:4, Insightful)
But we are also capable of something you apparently cannot do: See beyond our own needs. Which is scary considering that your job is to put yourself into the boots of criminals so you understand how they think which allows you to catch them more easily.
We know that catching terrorists is harder when there is encryption. But flawed encryption means that terrorists will use perfect encryption while your industry, having to obey the law, has to use faulty one which can easily be cracked, not only by you but also by, say, North Korea. Which is certainly interesting in case of, say, a company developing new and more efficient means of enriching nuclear material.
Apparently you can't think this far. It's not that hard, really. In other words, I rarely agree with Trump, but firing you was one of his more sensible moves. We don't need ignorant people who are unfit for their job in critical positions.
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Apparently you can't think this far. It's not that hard, really. In other words, I rarely agree with Trump, but firing you was one of his more sensible moves. We don't need ignorant people who are unfit for their job in critical positions.
Thank god we don't any of those kinds of people left...in the government...
The problem is trust (Score:2)
They routinely violated laws in many countries, and when caught they weaseled out of it. Nobody admitted that what they had done was wrong, there was no massive change in leadership or policy. So trust was lost.
Suddenly, being safe from government abuse became a sales point, and tech companies were quick to jump that.
These days security people will discuss how to minimize risks from st
Should have asked (Score:2)
Peace between gun folks and crypto folks? (Score:2)
Read this thread and reflect on how abusive government will take advantage of week crypro, or how criminals will not follow the law anyway, or how you probably not want limits on your key size or registration of all strong encryption. Live and let live!
The Bleeding Obvious (Score:3)
Trump is a scumbag you wouldn't leave alone in a room with your teenage daughter and the FBI hates encryption? Well, that sounds like a book full of amazing revelations; I must get a copy and see if he sheds any light on just what those bears are up to in the woods. Damn bears!
summarized (Score:5, Interesting)
Disgraced formner gestapo chief flatulently criticizes nouveau riche president for insufficient authoritarianism, pretends to be appalled by Silicon Valley tycoons who sell pretend-secure cellphones.
Repeat after me (Score:2)
Repeat after me: "encryption BAD, because of the Donald".
And you have the word of a self-admitted insane person for it.
Ok, there is no solution. (Score:2)
If there's no encryption, the criminals will simply exploit other people's computers, just as they have in the past. This leaves no forensic traces on the criminal's computers. Want to talk darkness? Good place to start, the Involuntary Cloud.
If there is encryption, anything that would leave physical evidence still does so. Forensic labs are underfunded or privatised. In either case, incorrect results leading to false convictions and false rejection of suspects are commonplace. Getting those sorted would ma
Everybody's Fault But Mine (Score:4, Funny)
^ The memoirs of James Comey
Welcome Back to DrugeDot (Score:2)
Comey Lacks Perspective. (Score:5, Interesting)
Comey and other law enforcement types lacks perspective on this issue. They want an easy way to do their job at the expense of a fundamental right of the people who pay his salary. Police and detective work is made hard by our Constitution and laws, as it should be. Law-abiding citizens should not be treated like criminals to make life easier for people like Comey.
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James Woods called the FBI about suspicious Islamic men on one of his flights right before 9/11. Guess he talked to the same FBI employee as the the Florida shooter tipster.
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The Boston Marathon bomber and the father of the nighclub shooter in Orlando were paid FBI informants. Even the Garland, TX terrorists were in communication with the FBI before their attack, and a security guard is suing the FBI for not stopping it. It will be interesting what comes out during discovery.
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Re:Comey should be grateful to Trump (Score:5, Informative)
How about the leaks that could cost him is license to practice law [washingtontimes.com]?
Let's look for more information [google.ca]
The Moonie Times, Zero Hedge, World Nut Daily, Daily Caller, The Blaze, etc, etc, the usual suspects.
What is the basis for this and why are no serious publications reporting on this lawsuit? Because Ty Clevenger's lawsuit has no basis and zero chance of succeeding.
The whole thing is based on an article claiming that 4 out of 7 of Comey's memos had confidential information, and therefore he must have forwarded at least one classified memo to his law-school friend [thehill.com].
But the article doesn't actually cover when the information was deemed classified, it could very well have been classified after the fact in an effort to tar Comey. It also doesn't give any indication whether Comey would have reasonably thought the information to be classified, in fact he explicitly testified that he prepared the memos to be unclassified.
Not to mention the original reporter and only source I found has a history of inaccurate reporting [wikipedia.org], so we could be missing some crucial context.
Re:Comey should be grateful to Trump (Score:5, Informative)
Odd how quickly you trust news stories that come from other biases only and from even less credible sources when you want them to be true.
How often do you put your own beliefs on news through the same process?
I subject my beliefs and sources of information to constant scrutiny.
But I'm under no obligation to treat the far-right propagandist cargo cults masquerading as news organizations with anything other than scorn.
Again with this one, I did my obligatory research, and in place of a fire I found clowns throwing smoke bombs.
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This is a rhetorical pit trap. You've labelled some sources untrustworthy so you don't bother to look at their evidence--and there's plenty of evidence to look at here, it's not like his testimony was recorded on video or anything--so you don't even have to think. Oh, it's from X, I can just stop thinking now! No need to see whether recorded statements contradict each other. Certainly no need to see whether a bar complaint exists. ZeroHedge said it, so it can't be true.
What a convenient position you have. There's no way out of it because no evidence can penetrate!
You miss the part where I dug up and read the original news article (the ONLY source of the claim I found) and researched the history of the reporter who wrote it.
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It's weird how you only claim to have researched the reporter and not the actual facts. You know, the inconsistencies among his claims in his book, videotaped testimony, etc. ...
Yeah, while debunking a hyperbolic claims about Comey leaking classified information via memos it's weird that I didn't mention anything about a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the actual topic being discussed.
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So you don't think Comey lying under oath was a bad thing?
When did Comey lie under oath?
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Perhaps, but no reasonable person would prosecute that case right?
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That's what the DNC would like you to believe when really it was their fixing of the primary in favor of Hillary. Say what you like about Trump, at least he was able to win the primary without engaging in election fraud and voter suppression.
Why should any of use come out to support a candidate that couldn't be bothered to give us a reason why she should win other than vague platitudes and I'm a girl.
Re: Forrest Gump of the FBI (Score:2, Insightful)
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Just from yesterday, the going dark thing wasn't real... https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
When viewed from the narrow perspective of the FBI or law enforcement then total access (no privacy rights for citizens) makes total sense...they're only going after the bad guys (at least till some administration who wants the country to run like a dictator's paradise and the FBI become his/her personal police force and have the Justice Department run like his personal judicial system), cause you do
Re: Forrest Gump of the FBI (Score:3)
Irony: liberals loving America's secret police (Score:2, Insightful)
After all the political policing used by the FBI against MLK, war protesters, and countless other dissidents, it's both hilarious and said to watch the modern American left fall down and worship at the feet of high-ranking officers in the American Gestapo like James Comey, Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller. At least be consistent.
Re:Irony: liberals loving America's secret police (Score:5, Insightful)
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speak honestly about Trump and the horrible behavior of the republican party,
The horrible behavior of your own party doesn't bother you?
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It's clearly true that strong encryption hinders the ability of law enforcement to monitor such communications and potentially prevent crimes rather than prosecute crimes. The far greater danger is government erosion of basic tenets of privacy and freedom, and government-forceable encryption can only lead to ever encroaching polic
Re:Forrest Gump of the FBI (Score:5, Funny)
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Translation: "I'm talking out of my ass because I'm a Trump voter and we're the best at it."
Translation: "I'm a Shillary who anonymously posts lazy ad hominem instead of actually addressing the point raised, because I hope that other lazy liberals will get distracted mentally cheering me on and forget to do a little homework and see that the person I'm pretending to scold is actually correct."
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Trump voters sure are dumb. They think "Shillary" is a clever insult. Boy are you dumb. You're dumb.
It is a clever insult, maybe it's just too highbrow for your low humor. I mean you used dumb, three times. Sure is the height of intellectual humor coming from you. After all, everyone knows the left can't meme. I prefer Hillary "Side of Beef" Clinton myself.
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I'm a Gary Johnson voter and my insult is calling her Hillary Fraudham Clinton.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Any good leader in an organization, anywhere, would fire an employee for not running things as his boss wished. Only to call it "non loyalty" is laughable, it
Re:Big Brother or Big Terror/Crime? Both: (Score:4, Funny)
Not really. Figure that 15 to 30 percent of Internet traffic is porn. That's a lot of images and movies into which data can be injected steganographically. Do you really want to look through all that porn and determine whether it contains hidden messages?
No, wait....
Re:Donald Trump and James Comey (Score:4, Informative)
That's easy. Comey, in both cases. The thing is, Comey didn't think he was sabotaging her. He thought he was helping her by trying to get out a head when she became president. He was 100% sure just like those pollsters that said Hillary had a 98% to win.
That, in itself should bother every single person that believes that law enforcement should be politically neutral. He re-opened the case because he believed it would favor her.