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FBI Director Wray calls inability to access electronic devices an ‘urgent public safety issue’
MacDailyNews ^ | January 9, 2018

Posted on 01/09/2018 2:21:44 PM PST by Swordmaker

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is increasingly unable to access data from some electronic devices that could help in prosecuting criminals and terrorists, which is an ‘“urgent public safety issue,’ said Christopher Wray, director of the agency, speaking at a cybersecurity conference here Tuesday,” Sara Castellanos reports for The Wall Street Journal. “In fiscal year 2017, the FBI was unable to access the content of 7,775 devices tied to defendants and victims in criminal cases, Mr. Wray said in a speech at the International Conference on Cybersecurity. That number represents more than half of all the devices tied to criminal cases that the FBI attempted to access during that year, he said.”

“He implored technology companies to help law enforcement agencies prosecute criminals by ensuring that there are ways to access secure information on electronic devices with a court order,” Castellanos reports. ” Executives of technology companies including Apple Inc. have argued against what they call ‘backdoors’ for law enforcement, which the companies say create security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and threaten the privacy of customers. ‘We’re not looking for a backdoor, which I understand to mean some kind of secret or insecure means of access,’ Mr. Wray said at the conference, hosted by the FBI and Fordham University. ‘What we’re looking for and asking for is the ability to access the device once we’ve had a warrant from an independent judge who has confirmed there is probable cause.'”

MacDailyNews Take: In other words, a backdoor.

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: For the umpteenth time: Encryption is either on or off. This is a binary issue. There is no in-between. You either have encryption or you do not.

There have been people that suggest that we should have a back door. But the reality is if you put a back door in, that back door’s for everybody, for good guys and bad guys. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, December 2015

This is not about this phone. This is about the future. And so I do see it as a precedent that should not be done in this country or in any country. This is about civil liberties and is about people’s abilities to protect themselves. If we take encryption away… the only people that would be affected are the good people, not the bad people. Apple doesn’t own encryption. Encryption is readily available in every country in the world, as a matter of fact, the U.S. government sponsors and funs encryption in many cases. And so, if we limit it in some way, the people that we’ll hurt are the good people, not the bad people; they will find it anyway. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, February 2016



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: applepinglist; cellphones; electronicdevices; fbi; nationalsecurity; privacy; security; wray
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To: Mariner

Hey, we are only now learning our “locked down” communications we’re still opened up with those FISA secret warrants signed off as necessary so that the FIBIES and others listened to each and every word spoken in the Trump Tower before he moved to his NJ club, so even warrants are worthless in the hands of traitors and spies!


21 posted on 01/09/2018 2:41:30 PM PST by zerosix (Native Sunflower)
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To: BenLurkin

“...put cameras in every room of our homes”. No problem. People are doing it voluntarily via “smart homes”


22 posted on 01/09/2018 2:41:31 PM PST by Cold Heart
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To: RFEngineer

“I’m betting that the Intel “flaw” was deliberate, and someone spilled the beans so they are pretending it was an “error”.”

You may be right, but the other chip manufacturers also said they were vulnerable. Does anyone know exactly the the ‘flaw’ was, or at least how such a flaw in the chip allows vulnerability? Does it somehow allow for access to data before it is encrypted?


23 posted on 01/09/2018 2:41:49 PM PST by neverevergiveup
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To: SpaceBar
On Coast to Coast AM last night, a guest predicted that the US public would get fed up with insecure American (branded) electronics and China seeing a commercial opportunity would develop them, circumventing our domestic snoops. I find that prediction highly plausible.

They don't even need to do that. There are plenty of third party encryption apps out there that will encrypt your data for you. Only Apple provides a built-in end-to-end standard 256bit AES encryption of everything. . . Android expects the user or a vendor to provide it as a bolt-on app and then only a partial encryption is provided. . . but it can still work to keep prying eyes out.

24 posted on 01/09/2018 2:42:37 PM PST by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you racist, bigot!)
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To: Swordmaker

What an ass. Who the hell told them the government should have a right to possess every bit and bye of information in America?

Fascist A-hole.

And what good would it do? They knew the San Berdoo shooter woman was a jihadi when she applied to come into the country.
They knew about the Boston Bombers.
They knew about Major Hassan.
They knew about the pulse nightclub shooter.

Their problem isn’t too little information.


25 posted on 01/09/2018 2:44:04 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
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To: a fool in paradise

“Why do they need access to phones themselves?”

Time for you to upgrade to a smart phone!


26 posted on 01/09/2018 2:44:22 PM PST by TexasGator (Z)
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To: Swordmaker

Sorry, FIB, I don’t trust you at all, and never will again.

Choices, consequences.


27 posted on 01/09/2018 2:44:37 PM PST by chris37 (Take a week off racist >;-)
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To: Cold Heart

Good point. And we’re not safe unless he has immediate access to those.


28 posted on 01/09/2018 2:44:53 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: MNDude
Inability to read our minds is a pretty serious problem also.

Maybe that will be the next thing on their agenda.

29 posted on 01/09/2018 2:46:55 PM PST by Mark17 (Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning GOD....And the rest, as they say, is HIS-story)
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To: BenLurkin

Room?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Transumanist+implant


30 posted on 01/09/2018 2:49:08 PM PST by HLPhat ("TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS" -- Government with any other purpose is not American.)
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To: neverevergiveup

“Does anyone know exactly the the ‘flaw’ was, or at least how such a flaw in the chip allows vulnerability? “

Basically, the Kernel was compromised, allowing, under a specific set of circumstances (normally used to increase chip performance), access to CPU memory areas that would normally be forbidden and impervious.

It smells fishy. The people who design processors, and the people who write the microcode that drives them are not careless folks. A flaw such as this would have been discovered by any reasonably curious chip designer designing the next chip generation using the previous generation as a starting point.

It’s possible, perhaps even likely, that this flaw was deliberately propagated by design over the past 20 years or so.

There is even precedent for this sort of thing.

I do not believe


31 posted on 01/09/2018 2:49:18 PM PST by RFEngineer
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To: Swordmaker

TigersEye call the inability to trust the FBI a much bigger ‘urgent public safety issue’.


32 posted on 01/09/2018 2:49:21 PM PST by TigersEye (0bama. The Legacy is a lie. The lie is the Legacy.)
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To: chris37

very foolish attitude.

as a sanctimonious purist you tar with a wide brush knowing there was a cabal at the top deserving your wrath


33 posted on 01/09/2018 2:50:11 PM PST by Thibodeaux (2018 is looking good)
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To: Swordmaker
Unintended consequences of having irresponsible people in positions of authority.

Law enforcement are given a special trust. When they just wink and start playing politics, it puts us all in danger.

No matter how many laws, or constitutional amendments are made to protect us against their human frailties, they still persist.

I'm starting think there should be a stiffer penalty for misusing the authority granted to them by the people.
Golden parachutes don't seem to scare them.

34 posted on 01/09/2018 2:51:01 PM PST by oldbrowser (There is a striking similarity between Islamist, BLM, Antifa, Nazis, anarchists, and the democrats.)
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To: Mariner

They can have all the warrants they want.

I think security in your papers is worth having the government fail in a few criminal cases.

No backdoor. None.


35 posted on 01/09/2018 2:52:01 PM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: Swordmaker; All

“Even Apple does not have the passcodes or a means of unlocking a modern iOS device. “

NSA does.

And if the FBI can make a legitimate and plausible argument on why any specific phone is important, truly, to National Security...they will have no problem getting NSA to crack it.

Eff ‘em.


36 posted on 01/09/2018 2:52:30 PM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: MNDude
Inability to read our minds is a pretty serious problem also.

Tenser said the Tensor, tenser said the Tensor
tension apprehension and dissension have begun!

37 posted on 01/09/2018 2:52:44 PM PST by TigersEye (0bama. The Legacy is a lie. The lie is the Legacy.)
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To: neverevergiveup

Oh, and the next generation of Intel chips will have another “flaw” that will allow for the “right” people to access everything connected to the next generation of processors, same as this one.

They think we are stupid.


38 posted on 01/09/2018 2:53:54 PM PST by RFEngineer
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To: Thibodeaux

And here you are again to lick some FBI boots.

Laughable to claim the FBI is the first agency in history where the top is, and has been, rotten to the core for decades, but the rank and file are pure and dedicated hardworking patriots.

The culture there is “we are above the law and answer to nobody”. It is pervasive all the way down to the secretarial staff.


39 posted on 01/09/2018 2:54:25 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
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To: RFEngineer

You’re probably right. It sounds intentional. The world has changed dramatically. Now there are so many levels at which those with the intent can insert themselves in our lives - and it appears to be getting worse.


40 posted on 01/09/2018 2:54:36 PM PST by neverevergiveup
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