Back Doors to encryption

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A Year After San Bernardino And Apple-FBI, Where Are We On Encryption? December 3, 2016 · 1:00 PM ET

ALINA SELYUKH

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The debate over encryption and government access to secured communications dates

decades back. But for many Americans, it grabbed their attention in the early months

of this year, in the aftermath of the Dec. 2, 2015, mass shooting in San Bernardino,

Calif.

It was a saga that unraveled over weeks. Looking for leads on the terrorist's iPhone,

the FBI wanted to crack the PIN code on the device. The bureau got a court order and

demanded that Apple write special software to thwart security measures that

otherwise threatened to erase its content if muscled through. Apple refused to help

and took its case public.

The two sides battled it out in court, in Congress and in the media. Apple argued such

software amounted to a master key and would encourage other countries, like China or

Russia, to make similar demands for other iPhones. The law enforcement community

said that increasingly secure encryption was making devices "warrant-proof."

The conversation about encrypted devices quickly merged with that about encrypted

communications.

FULL COVERAGE: The Apple-FBI Debate Over Encryption

Ultimately, the FBI paid a mysterious third party and unlocked the phone without

Apple's help. Over the following months, several bills appeared and faded in the

outgoing Congress. The heat has subsided. The conversation moved on. Or so you

might think.

A few weeks ago, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. — a vocal opponent of

insurmountable encryption — renewed his call for new laws to make sure that law

enforcement has a way to extract the content of locked iPhones.

"In (Manhattan) alone, 423 Apple iPhones and iPads lawfully seized since October

2014 remain inaccessible due to default device encryption," the report from Vance's

office says, arguing later:

"There is an urgent need for federal legislation that would compel software and

hardware companies that design or build mobile devices or operating systems to make

such devices amenable to appropriate searches."

From a technical perspective, it's essentially a plea to turn back time.

During and since the Apple-FBI standoff, the push for stronger encryption has been

marching on. On the newer devices, Apple says it's just not technically feasible for the

company to unlock passcodes or otherwise extract data, warrant or no warrant.

Google, despite its struggle to push updated software to the fragmented market of

various Android devices, is also promoting default encryption. WhatsApp, the most

popular messaging platform, has doubled-down on encryption and has even

introduced secured video chat. The list goes on.

"I don't see a situation where the government ... is going to force Apple to roll back

encryption of the iPhone. I think that ship's sailed," says Christopher Soghoian,

principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Law enforcement has to

T H E T W O - WAY

Judges Have More Power In Granting Warrants To Hack Digital Devices

deal with the fact that we live in the world of encryption. And the way the feds are

dealing with it is embracing the hacking."

Soghoian explains that encryption doesn't completely shut down surveillance but

pushes it further out from the networks that deliver the communications — where they

are scrambled — to the devices where it gets unscrambled for the user.

That's one of the reasons why internationally instant messaging apps and

communications platforms have, for the first time, emerged as "the most routinely

targeted tools" by governments. That's according to this year's Freedom of the Net

report by the Freedom House, which found WhatsApp being the most restricted app

around the world.

Earlier this week, judges in the U.S. gained wider power to authorize government

hacking of digital devices well beyond their districts.

Reuters has reported that the newly re-elected Republican Sen. Richard Burr, who

chairs the Intelligence Committee, is likely to reintroduce his encryption legislation

requiring companies to build "back doors" into their products for the government —

but this time, with the support of the incoming Trump administration.

So far, none of Donald Trump's picks for security posts are experts on cyber, and

details of his stance are relatively hard to surmise. During the Apple-FBI debate,

Trump called for a boycott of Apple to pressure its compliance with the FBI's demand.

But he hasn't voiced a specific position on encryption.

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Also unclear is Trump's plan for the post of FBI director, occupied now by James

Comey, who led the bureau's fight against Apple but also played a prominent role

during the campaign-season controversy about Hillary Clinton's use of a private email

server.

One likely possibility, Soghoian says, is a behind-the-scenes push for the right of

government authorities to compel app or device makers to deliver specially created

software to particular phones.

Also possible is an effort to make companies retain more data they collect about their

users — including, for instance, unencrypted metadata, such as time and length of a

conversation, rather than its content. This becomes even more relevant in the era

when more and more things get connected to the Internet without being particularly

secure.

And finally, there's the matter of state and local law enforcement. Investigations across

the country have struggled with the lack of technical expertise and budget to tackle

crimes involving tech devices.

Soghoian worries that when the surveillance or hacking tools begin to trickle down,

abuses will be particularly visible. For now, he expects prominent voices like

Manhattan's Cyrus Vance to continue making their case.

encryption san bernardino fbi apple

A L L T E C H C O N S I D E R E D

Encryption May Hurt Surveillance, But Internet Of Things Could Open New Doors