I like Mr. Obama, but this is such disappointing bullshit from him. He's the boss of the FBI and the DoJ. He should first tell them to chill.
Obama wants his legacy to be the administration that bullied the private sector, compromised encryption, civil liberties and the Constitution. Bravo el presidente!
Best thing Obama could if he wants to turn this ship around is to fire FBI James Comey and AG Lynch.
Dronebama, our fearless civil liberties compromiser, used to be a "Constitutional Law" professor, but now he is an encryption expert...and so are FBI chief Comey and AG Lynch....
Where in his statement did he profess to be an encryption expert? I must have missed that part.
Witness an object lesson on the origins of sophistry. The chuckle, of course, is that Obama has to know this. Much of Western pragmatism is premised on the logical fallacy that "the truth lies between two extremes" - which is hogwash. Gravity isn't defined as the midpoint between floating around in the air and Jovian pressures keeping us flattened against the ground. Etc..
The crucial questions of privacy, liberty, are defined by our constitution and the bill of rights - and if Obama and his peers in the snooping industry want to change that all they need is a constitutional amendment.
Not that I'm confident that a society that revels in something called reality TV wouldn't roll over to protect the children, stop terrorism, prevent the evil empire of darkness from existing after sunset, blah, blah, blah.
I have a serious question I hope someone can answer. Say the government and FBI fight all the way to SCOTUS and win. They get to tell Apple a Blackfoot must be created. Apple still refuses. Then what? Are they just fined every day? Would someone go to jail? Could the government shut down Apple? On the flip side, say SCOTUS upholds the FBI and Apple DOES make a backdoor-- and then proceeds to make a different, even tougher encryption which their backdoor can't access. Then what?
Just like in Wargames, it seems the only solutions is not to play. Sadly, the government does not like to appear weak
I have a serious question I hope someone can answer. Say the government and FBI fight all the way to SCOTUS and win. They get to tell Apple a Blackfoot must be created. Apple still refuses. Then what? Are they just fined every day? Would someone go to jail? Could the government shut down Apple? On the flip side, say SCOTUS upholds the FBI and Apple DOES make a backdoor-- and then proceeds to make a different, even tougher encryption which their backdoor can't access. Then what?
Just like in Wargames, it seems the only solutions is not to play. Sadly, the government does not like to appear weak
The FBI is threatening to knock down their doors in Cupertino and seize the iOS source code and secure keys.
If that happened, and supposing Apple really wanted to stick to their guns, they could just copy their source code and keys to an encrypted device(s), and FBI would be back to square one.
I have a serious question I hope someone can answer. Say the government and FBI fight all the way to SCOTUS and win. They get to tell Apple a Blackfoot must be created. Apple still refuses. Then what? Are they just fined every day? Would someone go to jail? Could the government shut down Apple? On the flip side, say SCOTUS upholds the FBI and Apple DOES make a backdoor-- and then proceeds to make a different, even tougher encryption which their backdoor can't access. Then what?
Just like in Wargames, it seems the only solutions is not to play. Sadly, the government does not like to appear weak
Apple will not resort to civil disobedience. Flouting a SCOTUS decision will crater Apple's business. They have shareholders. There is a law that requires management to act on the best interest of shareholders. Apple management is not stupid.
This is not the corporation's responsibility, it's the government's. They needs to revisit their failed foreign policy and their authoritarian behavior. They are supposed to protect our rights and civil liberties, not strip them away and bully corporations around
Everyone posting here agrees that providing the FBI with the backdoor they want is a horrible idea. The main reason for this unanimous agreement is that the posters here UNDERSTAND the issues here. You guys know the ramifications if Apple gives the FBI what they want. That being said, Obama knows that they average voter out there does NOT understand these things, and he's working to convince them that what the FBI wants is a good idea for the general public.
We need to talk about this issue to the people that are not tech-savy so that they do not support the governments agenda. Help them to understand the stakes here. Help them to understand that Obama and the FBI are framing this as a minor issue affecting one iPhone when in reality, it will undermine the privacy of every person in the country (and perhaps every person in the world).
Here is kind of a good idea. 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.
Here is another kind of good idea. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Who tells who what to do?
We already had this encryption battle in the past. The whole clipper chip garbage. The government lost that time. Now here we are once again fighting the same thing. Didn't work in the past, let's try again after most people have forgotten. Terrorists works great to scare people!!!
There is far more harm done with back doors then without. There is no middle ground obj this topic. It's either have real security, or weak security that won't do a single thing to stop a terrorist. Looking at a phone after the fact didn't stop anything!!!.
How about a phone with no encryption, zip, the terrorists bash their phones into pieces. It's now secure with no back doors! Quite frankly using pain old paper, you can have very good encryption. How is the government going to stop that? They can't, just like they tried too stop PGP and the code was just printed out in paper book format making it legal. Free speech!
Simple fact of the matter is anyone with a little effort can install on their own 3rd party encryption software out of the U.S. And there's no back doors and no way for the U.S. Government to change that.
For Apple, have no encryption on the iPhone, but include a link to download it in your own from outside off the U.S. And install it and have your encryption and no back doors and the government not being able to do anything about it.
Thats a false premise, there is no such thing as perfect encryption. It is also impossible to find a middle ground on this, that's typical for a politician. The whole 'debate' is a non issue, anyone can use encryption apps to make sure things like email and drive data are completely encrypted with an arbitrary long key and in several layers. FBI NSA and other even more secret organizations operating outside the democratic realm have enough tools at there disposal to break weaker and even strong encryption, but can also fallback on other methods to get information, they should not have to worry about this, unless of course they are lazy and incapable in a broader sense.
Speaking on the encryption debate at SXSW Interactive in Austin on Friday, President Barack Obama carefully navigated the waters between government overreach and civil liberties, saying that while both sides need to make concessions, encryption advocates should avoid taking an absolutist stance on the issue.
During a lengthy and wide-ranging discussion with Evan Smith, Editor in Chief of The Texas Tribune, Obama delivered what at first blush appears to be an even-keeled presentation of a topic that has, over the past month, morphed into a war of words between the Department of Justice and Apple.
"Technology is evolving so rapidly that new questions are being asked, and I am of the view that there are very real reasons why we want to make sure the government cannot just willy-nilly get into everybody's iPhones -- or smartphones -- that are full of very personal information," Obama said.
A federal magistrate judge in February ordered Apple to help the FBI break into a passcode-protected iPhone used by San Bernardino terror suspect Syed Rizwan Farook. The company is resisting, claiming, among other things, that the creation of a software workaround inherently weakens iOS encryption mechanisms and would thus put all iPhones at risk.
Unlike other politicians, Obama appears to have a good grasp of the issue's technical details, noting he thinks Apple's argument is likely true, albeit overstated. However, he did caution against an "absolutist" stance on the matter, saying un-hackable encryption is not an ideal solution. Law enforcement agencies exist to ensure public safety, and they need certain tools and levels of access to do so.
Obama suggested a solution that allows for constrained government access to private data. He likened the intrusion to TSA checks at the airport, drunk driving road blocks or tax enforcement; all accepted policies that, while potentially unpleasant, are recognized as important to the greater good.
"This notion that somehow our data is different and can be walled off from those other tradeoffs we make, I believe is incorrect," he said. "My conclusion so far is that you cannot take an absolutist view on this. So if your argument is 'strong encryption no matter what, and we can and should in fact create black boxes,' that I think does not strike the kind of balance we have lived with for 200, 300 years. And it's fetishizing our phone above every other value, and that can't be the right answer."
But the issue, of course, is in finding a system of checks and balances that appeases law enforcement requests while at the same time offering high levels of protection for consumers. Obama said one solution could be allowing very narrow access to personal data, which basically describes a privileged backdoor. Apple and fellow tech companies are vehemently against such concessions.
"If everybody goes to their respective corners and the tech community says, 'you know what, either we have strong, perfect encryption, or else it's big brother and [an] Orwellian world,' what you'll find is that after something really bad happens the politics of this will swing and it will become sloppy and rushed," Obama said. "And it will go through Congress in ways that have not been thought through. And then you really will have a danger to our civil liberties because the disengaged or taken a position that is not sustainable."
And that's why Apple is saying no to the FBI and the DOJ. They want to rush and get what they want now by forcing Apple to work for the government as a security agency. Break there operating systems encryption leaving the back door open for every crook, hacker, terrorist, and evil government to take everyones data. That's why Apple is saying NO!!!
While we're at it, manufacturers of paper shredders should be forced to incorporate scanners that scan the paper before shredding it, then store the information so government agents can retrieve it if they ever need to. We have the technology for this, people, why hasn't it already been done?
And maybe even better, force gun manufacturers to incorporate a remote-disable feature, so law enforcement can disable any gun being used for a crime in progress. Seems like a no-brainer, right?
And just make people fly naked with no luggage. Problem solved!
I believe this is less about the President and more about FBI director James Comey. This public grandstand by the FBI and the DoJ is turning into an embarrassment for the administration. I think Comey started this, and that the President is now stuck having to support the FBI – reluctantly.
Why did Comey do this? There is strong evidence that, unlike the FBI, the NSA has the budget and the capacity to "break" strong encryption now. And that FBI director James Comey's reason for grandstanding publicly at this particular moment was that the FBI was in fact right in the middle of requesting to increase their budget by more than double.
Mr. Comey essentially wants to make his job easier. And his strategy appears to be to either get Congress to change the law to force the device makers to give the FBI – and ostensibly all other law enforcement agencies – easier access, or to give the FBI the capability (like the NSA) on their own – with a vastly bigger budget for more manpower and super-computers to brute-force the encrypted devices.
The WSJ reported in Feb: "The FBI this month was asking Congress for $69 million to "counter the threat of "Going Dark"– being unable to access data because of encryption and other techniques.The bureau currently devotes 39 people and $31 million to this effort."
In other words, the FBI is using the Apple iPhone "access" demand to convince Congress to more than double their budget from $31 million to $69 million "this month".
To those who do not believe the NSA has the capability to break encryption, read this article "NSA is Mysteriously Absent From FBI-Apple Fight"
My conclusion: This is a power play and money grab by FBI director James Comey. His history points to this – he was part of the Bush Administration and is one of the architects who helped write the 'Patriot Act', before being appointed as FBI Director in 2013. So he is a very experienced Washington insider. I also happen to believe he is an authoritarian zealot masquerading as a law enforcement bureaucrat. When he states that 'this is the hardest thing he's ever done', I would take that literally – it is indeed very hard to get your way in Washington and convince Congress to make new law. Mr. Comey's entire agenda is to make his job (and law enforcement) easier. When he uses 'double-speak' and says things like "personal privacy and liberty are very important to me", what he really means is it is very important to him because the FBI wants unfettered access around it. George Orwell is turning over in his grave.
Avoiding "absolutist" positions is even possible in this debate?
It's a binary option. Either there is a backdoor/weakness or there isn't. There is no middle ground.
So much for Obama having "a good grasp of the issue's technical details." He's not doing any better than any other politician (from both sides of the aisle) saying exactly the same thing in different words.
Same old Political talk. Saying a whole lot of nothing. Can't be a flip-flopper if you take a stand on a matter and then change later. This whole Encryption debate already happened in the past. Backdoor's FAILED, and Strong encryption came out on top. The whole hardware clipper chip that the Government wanted in all devices to gain backdoor access failed. I believed it has hacked in like a couple months.
I think this explains it quite well!
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/what-the-government-shouldve-learned-about-backdoors-from-the-clipper-chip/
Rest assured my fetish is with hot babes in sexy lingerie. Not my iPhone. That's just a tool. And it never will be more than that.
If you succeed in having your backdoor created for you, people will have not much choice but to remove all their apps to do with finances, banking, insurances, stocks etc. from their phones and go back to doing it all on their desktops. Which, of course, cannot be done at all hours in all places. We will be stepping back in time. So much for being on the leading edge of progress.
Comments
Best thing Obama could if he wants to turn this ship around is to fire FBI James Comey and AG Lynch.
Just like in Wargames, it seems the only solutions is not to play. Sadly, the government does not like to appear weak
If that happened, and supposing Apple really wanted to stick to their guns, they could just copy their source code and keys to an encrypted device(s), and FBI would be back to square one.
Hint: the arrows in the article photograph are pointing at him.
We need to talk about this issue to the people that are not tech-savy so that they do not support the governments agenda. Help them to understand the stakes here. Help them to understand that Obama and the FBI are framing this as a minor issue affecting one iPhone when in reality, it will undermine the privacy of every person in the country (and perhaps every person in the world).
There is far more harm done with back doors then without. There is no middle ground obj this topic. It's either have real security, or weak security that won't do a single thing to stop a terrorist. Looking at a phone after the fact didn't stop anything!!!.
How about a phone with no encryption, zip, the terrorists bash their phones into pieces. It's now secure with no back doors! Quite frankly using pain old paper, you can have very good encryption. How is the government going to stop that? They can't, just like they tried too stop PGP and the code was just printed out in paper book format making it legal. Free speech!
Simple fact of the matter is anyone with a little effort can install on their own 3rd party encryption software out of the U.S. And there's no back doors and no way for the U.S. Government to change that.
For Apple, have no encryption on the iPhone, but include a link to download it in your own from outside off the U.S. And install it and have your encryption and no back doors and the government not being able to do anything about it.
It is also impossible to find a middle ground on this, that's typical for a politician.
The whole 'debate' is a non issue, anyone can use encryption apps to make sure things like email and drive data are completely encrypted with an arbitrary long key and in several layers.
FBI NSA and other even more secret organizations operating outside the democratic realm have enough tools at there disposal to break weaker and even strong encryption, but can also fallback on other methods to get information, they should not have to worry about this, unless of course they are lazy and incapable in a broader sense.
Why did Comey do this?
There is strong evidence that, unlike the FBI, the NSA has the budget and the capacity to "break" strong encryption now. And that FBI director James Comey's reason for grandstanding publicly at this particular moment was that the FBI was in fact right in the middle of requesting to increase their budget by more than double.
Mr. Comey essentially wants to make his job easier. And his strategy appears to be to either get Congress to change the law to force the device makers to give the FBI – and ostensibly all other law enforcement agencies – easier access, or to give the FBI the capability (like the NSA) on their own – with a vastly bigger budget for more manpower and super-computers to brute-force the encrypted devices.
The WSJ reported in Feb: "The FBI this month was asking Congress for $69 million to "counter the threat of "Going Dark"– being unable to access data because of encryption and other techniques.The bureau currently devotes 39 people and $31 million to this effort."
In other words, the FBI is using the Apple iPhone "access" demand to convince Congress to more than double their budget from $31 million to $69 million "this month".
To those who do not believe the NSA has the capability to break encryption, read this article "NSA is Mysteriously Absent From FBI-Apple Fight"
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/35563-nsa-is-mysteriously-absent-from-fbi-apple-fight
My conclusion: This is a power play and money grab by FBI director James Comey. His history points to this – he was part of the Bush Administration and is one of the architects who helped write the 'Patriot Act', before being appointed as FBI Director in 2013. So he is a very experienced Washington insider. I also happen to believe he is an authoritarian zealot masquerading as a law enforcement bureaucrat. When he states that 'this is the hardest thing he's ever done', I would take that literally – it is indeed very hard to get your way in Washington and convince Congress to make new law. Mr. Comey's entire agenda is to make his job (and law enforcement) easier. When he uses 'double-speak' and says things like "personal privacy and liberty are very important to me", what he really means is it is very important to him because the FBI wants unfettered access around it. George Orwell is turning over in his grave.
-kpluck
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/us/politics/whatsapp-encryption-said-to-stymie-wiretap-order.html?rref=politics&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Politics&pgtype=Blogs