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Obama sides with tech companies, will not force decryption
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MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
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FBI Director James Comey, a vocal advocate for forcing computer manfacturers to install "backdoors" in computers so that various law-enforcement and spy agencies can gain unfettered access to US and foreign citizens' data, announced on Friday that the Obama administration had opted not to force tech companies to decrypt encrypted communications and files in testimony before Congress. Comey added that talks with tech companies about how to help with law enforcement had, however, become "more productive." Currently, a number of tech companies (led by Apple, the strongest proponent of user privacy among the big tech companies) encrypt messages between users, emails, data store in cloud services, and other data that must be collected from users in order for certain services to work. The iPhone maker has been adamant that it could not decrypt the data even if a court ordered it to do so -- it simply lacks the keys for decryption, which are unique to the user and not shared with the company.
This has fallen foul of surveillance and law-enforcement agencies such as the FBI, which demand not just the right to examine such data with a court warrant, but also on demand without a public warrant under the "secret court" system that shields requests from transparency under the so-called Patriot Act, passed in a panic following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Government entities, particularly the secretive National Security Agency, have demanded that tech companies, telecom carriers, and other entities dealing with user data create deliberate security flaws -- "backdoors" that would let them decrypt such files and communications, usually under the guise of fishing for terrorism plots (though files made public by various groups have shown that the system is easily prone to abuse).
Comey said that the administration will continue to "put pressure" on tech companies to come to some compromise on some methods by which agencies could, in certain circumstances, obtain some level of data. Apple has said that its mobile operating systems iOS 8 and iOS 9 are entirely encrypted, while OS X is optionally so, and thus the company can only provide general information, such as when an email was sent or received, but not the contents of the email -- even then would only do so under a public order unless gagged from reporting the request by a secret FISA court. Agencies already have access to tools that will let them decrypt devices they have physical access to, but this can sometimes take quite some time to accomplish.
The FBI director told senators at the hearing that "a lot of the venom" -- mostly generated by the obstreperous Comey -- had disappeared from talk with the tech companies, allowing discussions to become "increasingly productive." The report suggests that the change in tone led the administration to forego any more forceful measures. Tech companies have maintained that creating an intentional security flaw for the benefit of the government also creates one for cyberattackers, and that overreaches into foreign-owned servers by US agencies will open the door to assertions of rights by foreign and authoritarian governments into US servers, and other unintended consequences.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Seattle
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No surprise there. The only people Obama stands up to are elderly Catholic nuns and the Christian owners of small bakeries. He cowers before even the pettiest of tin-pot dictators. His foreign policy is easily summarized: betray allies and pander to enemies. There was never a possibility that he'd take on Apple, Google or Microsoft.
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Author of Untangling Tolkien and Chesterton on War and Peace
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Truckee, CA
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Inkling take your right-wingnut commentary to the Lounge. That is the proper place to express (IMO sicko) support for bigot Christian small business owners.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Maitland, FL
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I agree with SierraDragon, but: so taking a stand in favor of consumers and US citizens' rights is "pandering to enemies?" Because that is what you have written there ...
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Charles Martin
MacNN Editor
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: 888500128, C3, 2nd soft.
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It's ridiculous to imagine that these back doors could and would be exploited ONLY by the government that put them there.
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hayesk
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@Inkling, seriously? You're standing with government intrusion, and opening the door for more hacking incidents in the future?
This is the one time where consumers and corporations are on the same side and you disagree with it?
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: 888500128, C3, 2nd soft.
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Inkling almost never, ever returns to news comments to read replies to his posts. As an author, he tends to be interested only in one-way communication.
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