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President Obama urged students to open up their digital life to the federal government, if they wanted to be protected by the government, calling the current privacy expectations from Americans unrealistic. “People have a whole new set of privacy expectations that are understandable. They also expect though that since their lives are all digitized, that the digital world is safe, which creates a contradictory demand on government,” he said. Obama discussed the issue during a conversation about the Supreme Court at the University of Chicago, where he used to teach Constitutional law. He pointed out that citizens expected the government...

FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday that the government had purchased "a tool" from a private party in order to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. "Litigation between the government and Apple over the San Bernardino phone has ended, because the government has purchased, from a private party, a way to get into that phone, 5C, running iOS 9," Comey said. Law enforcement officials revealed in late March that they had finally cracked the iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of two shooters in the December 2015 attack that left 14 people dead. But they...

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is slamming messaging platform WhatsApp for turning on end-to-end encryption for all of its users.... WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook and is particularly popular outside the United States, said on Tuesday that it would start offering encryption for its users as the default setting. That will apply to the different types of messages on the service, which include video and voice. "Every day we see stories about sensitive records being improperly accessed or stolen," WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton said in a post announcing the change. "And if nothing is done, more of...

"But I will tell you what: the first man that walks in my daughter’s bathroom, he ain’t going to have to worry about surgery.” -- Lt. Gen. (ret.) William “Jerry” Boykin I’m sure there are a great many people who are probably shocked to see that quote from William Boykin, but why should they be? Men have had that sort of protective attitude toward their daughters for as long as anyone can remember. That hasn’t changed, but what has recently changed is the profoundly unhealthy attitude many people in our society have taken towards transsexualism. Determining what percentage of the...

All signs are pointing to Cellebrite, an Israeli company, as the mysterious "outside party" that helped agents unlock the iPhone used by the San Bernardino terrorist. An elite group of engineers at Cellebrite -- led by a "brilliant" hacker in Seattle -- helped the FBI crack the iPhone 5C last week, according to two people with direct contact to the team. Everyone at the company has since been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements to remain silent about the matter, one of them said. Additionally, government records now show that Cellebrite landed its biggest contract ever with the FBI -- one...

The battle between the FBI and Apple ended on Monday with “no clear winner,” according to The New York Times. Not so. The clear winner is the American people, and the clear loser is Apple.The FBI had requested Apple’s help in unlocking a cell phone used by the San Bernardino killers--Apple refused. The Justice Department took the dispute to court, arguing that a search warrant required Apple to program a “backdoor” into Syed Farook’s password- protected iPhone5. A judge initially decided in favor of the government, but Apple appealed the ruling; the case was expected to end up at the...

Some Los Angeles Lakers players are upset with rookie point guard D’Angelo Russell for recording a private conversation between himself and forward Nick Young, ESPN’s Baxter Holmes and Marc Stein report. In the video Russell asks Young, who does not seem aware that he is being filmed, about having relationships with other women. Young is engaged to rapper Iggy Azalea.

First, the legislators came for encrypted phones, because terrorists were apparently using encryption. (Except they weren't.) Now, they're coming for prepaid phones. Sure, customers will still be able to buy prepaid phones. They'll just have to "register" with their local retailer in order to do so. A bill proposed in congress this week would require that all users provide identification and register prepaid ‘burner’ phones upon purchase.... Even if this passes, it will do little to allow law enforcement agencies to follow up on burners recovered after attacks. Criminals and terrorists won't be presenting identification -- at least not theirs...

Apple announces plans to hand over iCloud encryption key management to users Apple has announced its plans to transfer iCloud encryption key management to account holders, a move which could stand in the way of or even prevent the FBI and other law enforcement agencies from requesting users' information.The tech giant currently manages the encryption key management for all iCloud account holders.eWeek reports that because of this level of control, Apple provided federal authorities with several iCloud backups of Syed Rizwan Farook, an individual who participated in a mass shooting and attempted bombing in San Bernardino, California back in December....

Actual Title: Snoopers Charter 2: Apple teams up with Facebook, Google, Twitter and more to ask Government to change Investigatory Powers Bill Link only due to copyright infringement issues:

The government’s issue over access to personal data will likely come up again. Earlier this week, the FBI stalled its impending court date with Apple after it revealed that it might have found a way to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone without Apple’s help. Just 24 hours before the hearing, the FBI’s filing stated that it would use alternate means to access the data on Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone. Since the filing, it has been reported that Cellebright, a provider of mobile forensic software, will be the third-party aiding the FBI. But without any specification as to what specifically...

"all you have to do is go in the lab, apply more technology, and you should be able to make a bigger quantum computer" So the only thing preventing a more general purpose quantum computer is money and enough engineers... Hmm... (POLL-AT-LINK) Via: PC World: Much of the encryption world today depends on the challenge of factoring large numbers, but scientists now say they've created the first five-atom quantum computer with the potential to crack the security of traditional encryption schemes. In traditional computing, numbers are represented by either 0s or 1s, but quantum computing relies on atomic-scale units, or...

On Monday, less than 24 hours before the hearing was scheduled to start, the US government asked to cancel its big court date in the Apple vs FBI fight. The judge convened a quick conference with the Department of Justice and Apple attorneys. A transcript shows the judge repeatedly emphasizing that the order to compel Apple to create a backdoor for the government is “unenforceable” and has been so since the court battle began weeks ago.The March 22 hearing was set to be an all-out battle. Both sides planned to call witnesses, with one to two hours of live...

An Obama Administration regulation may require the FBI to hand over the hack developed by what ever company that may succeed in hacking into the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone 5c, so that Apple can plug that vulnerability. What irony. . . Link only due to copyright considerations: Thank You for Hacking iPhone, Now Tell Apple How You Did It (link only due to copyright issues)

Just because Apple and the FBI avoided an historic showdown in court this week over a previously issued court order for Apple to create a so-called “government OS” that bypasses normal iPhone security measures, that doesn’t mean the whole thing was tidily wrapped up.For one thing, no legislative precedent was set here – at the eleventh hour, the FBI said it thinks a mysterious outside party (which may have now been identified) will be able to help it get inside an iPhone used by one of the San Bernadino shooters – leaving the law enforcement agency free to pursue a...

FBI acknowledged today that there “appears” to be an alternative way into Farook’s iPhone 5c – something that experts have been shouting for weeks now; in fact, we’ve been saying there are several viable methods. Before I get into which method I think is being used here, here are some possibilities of other viable methods and why I don’t think they’re part of the solution being utilized: A destructive method, such as de-capping or deconstruction of the microprocessor would preclude FBI from being able to come back in two weeks to continue proceedings against Apple. Once the phone is destroyed, there’s very little Apple can do...

Possible modes the FBI may use to break into the iPhone 5C proposed by USA Today. Link only due to copyright only due to copyright restrictions: FBI could be using these hacks to break into killer's iPhone

The FBI just filed a motion to delay Tuesday's hearing in the San Bernardino iPhone case, claiming that an "outside party" may be able to help it break into the phone without Apple's help. The motion comes after weeks of escalation tension in the case with Apple, the FBI, and other stakeholders arguing the case in public before it reached courts. It's not clear who is helping the FBI or what the new method entails, but it may not coming from the NSA, despite speculation that the intelligence agency has the ability up its sleeve; today's filing suggests that the...

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has broken with other Silicon Valley giants by backing the FBI in its battle with Apple over hacking into a locked iPhone as part of the investigation into last December's San Bernardino terror attack. In an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Gates said a court order requiring Apple to help the FBI access a work phone belonging to gunman Syed Farook was " a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case."

.....Gawker Media is forced to talk out of both sides of its mouth, on the one hand callowly apologizing to readers (and, let’s be honest, advertisers) for one of its writers launching a disgusting pro-bullying attack on a marginalized group while simultaneously apologizing for the apology and denouncing anti-Gawker campaigns as little better than “fascism” in order to maintain their street cred with their bros. It’s a genius move, in a way, one that allows Gawker to tell the companies it relies on for revenue that it’s really and truly sorry while also doing nothing to alienate its core readership...