{"id":12748,"date":"2015-09-29T06:03:19","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T11:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12748"},"modified":"2015-09-29T06:03:19","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T11:03:19","slug":"the-big-secret-that-makes-the-fbis-anti-encryption-campaign-a-big-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12748","title":{"rendered":"The Big Secret That Makes the FBI’s Anti-Encryption Campaign a Big Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Big Secret That Makes the FBI’s Anti-Encryption\u00a0Campaign a\u00a0Big Lie<\/a><\/h3>\n

To hear FBI Director James Comey tell it, strong encryption stops law enforcement dead in its tracks by letting terrorists, kidnappers and rapists communicate in complete secrecy.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just not true.<\/p>\n

In the rare cases in which an investigation may initially appear to be blocked by encryption \u2014 and so far, the FBI has yet to identify a single one \u2014 the government has a Plan B: it\u2019s called hacking.<\/p>\n

Hacking \u2014 just like kicking down a door and looking through someone\u2019s stuff \u2014 is a perfectly legal tactic for law enforcement officers, provided they have a warrant.<\/p>\n

And law enforcement officials have, over the years, learned many ways to install viruses, Trojan horses, and other forms of malicious code onto suspects\u2019 devices. Doing so gives them the same access the suspects have to communications \u2014 before they\u2019ve been encrypted, or after they\u2019ve been unencrypted.<\/p>\n

Government officials don\u2019t like talking about it \u2014 quite possibly because hacking takes considerably more effort than simply asking a telecom provider for records. Robert Litt, general counsel to the Director of National Intelligence, recently referred to potential government hacking as a process of \u201cslow uncertain one-offs.\u201d<\/p>\n

But they don\u2019t deny it, either. Hacking is \u201can avenue to consider and discuss,\u201d Amy Hess, the assistant executive director of the FBI\u2019s Science and Technology branch, said at an encryption debate earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The FBI \u201croutinely identifies, evaluates, and tests potential exploits in the interest of cyber security,\u201d bureau spokesperson Christopher Allen wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Hacking In Action<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are still only a few publicly known cases of government hacking, but they include examples of phishing, \u201cwatering hole\u201d websites, and physical tampering.<\/p>\n

Phishing involves an attacker masquerading as a trustworthy website or service and luring a victim with an email message asking the person\u00a0to click on a link or update sensitive information.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Big Secret That Makes the FBI’s Anti-Encryption\u00a0Campaign a\u00a0Big Lie To hear FBI Director James Comey tell it, strong encryption stops law enforcement dead in its tracks by letting terrorists, kidnappers and rapists communicate in complete secrecy. But that\u2019s just not true. In the rare cases in which an investigation may initially appear to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9366,9367,261,301,2148,7936,9369,9370,793,5567,9368],"class_list":["post-12748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-anti-encryption","tag-anti-terror","tag-encryption","tag-fbi","tag-hacking","tag-james-comey","tag-national-intelligence","tag-robert-litt","tag-terrorism","tag-the-intercept","tag-warrant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12749,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748\/revisions\/12749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}