I'm
sure the FBI would find their job easier if they had a backdoor into
all encryption systems, but they must realize that is impossible. (I
can write an encryption program in minutes) Nor do they seem to need
them in any significant percentage of cases. (9/3576 = 0.0025 or
slightly more than ¼ of one percent)
From the wiretap report available from USCourts.gov:
… The number of federal and state wiretaps reported in 2013
increased 5 percent from 2012. A total of 3,576 wiretaps were
reported as authorized in 2013, with 1,476 authorized by federal
judges and 2,100 authorized by state judges.
… The
number of state wiretaps in which encryption was encountered
increased from 15 in 2012 to 41 in 2013. In
nine of these wiretaps, officials were unable to decipher the plain
text of the messages.
Encryption was also reported for 52 state wiretaps that were
conducted during previous years, but reported to the AO for the first
time in 2013. Officials were able to decipher the plain text of the
communications in all 52 intercepts.
F.B.I.
Director Hints at Action as Cellphone Data Is Locked
The
director of the F.B.I.,
James B. Comey, said on Thursday that the “post-Snowden pendulum”
that has driven Apple and Google to offer fully encrypted cellphones
had “gone too far.” He hinted that as a result, the
administration might seek regulations and laws forcing companies to
create a way for the government to unlock the photos, emails and
contacts stored on the phones.
But
Mr. Comey appeared to have few answers for critics who have argued
that any portal created for the F.B.I. and the police could be
exploited by the National Security Agency, or even Russian and
Chinese intelligence agencies or criminals. And his position seemed
to put him at odds with a White House advisory committee that
recommended against any effort to weaken commercial encryption.
…
Any technology that allows the United States government to bypass
encryption in the name of solving crimes could also allow hackers and
foreign governments to bypass encryption in the name of stealing
secrets.
(Related)
In
Defense of iPhones the FBI Can't Search
(Related)
I can't resist asking, is there is a business opportunity here?
Surveillance-R-Us?
Tim
Cushing writes:
The less the
public knows about law enforcement surveillance technology, the
better. That’s the thought process governing the purchase and
deployment of technology like Stingray
devices and automatic license plate readers. In the case of the
former, even the nation’s top cops (the FBI) actively
discourage talking about the cell tower spoofers through the use
of restrictive non-disclosure agreements.
[...]
If the normal routes — as deferential as they are — seem to be a
bit too “leaky,” many law
enforcement agencies have a third option available to keep the public
in the dark about their technology acquisitions: private funding.
Read
more on TechDirt.
A
poor choice of which fight to fight?
Over
on HIPAA, HITECH, and HIT, Elizabeth Litten comments on FTC’s
administrative case against LabMD, a case I’ve been following here
for the past few years. After recapping the case, she writes:
This case isn’t over, and it remains to be seen whether
[Administrative Law Judge] Chappell will find the witness’s
testimony credible and/or relevant to a finding that LabMD violated
Section 5. It also remains to be seen whether the FTC and Tiversa
will end up looking like cyber-sleuths out to uncover, and protect
the public from, lax security practices, or will look more like
cyber-thieves grasping for money, power, publicity or something else.
Either way, this case is ugly and certainly does not create a high
level of confidence in the cyber-security investigation and
enforcement tactics utilized by the FTC.
Read
her full column on HIPAA,
HITECH, and HIT.
Have
I not been saying all along that even if FTC could go after LabMD, I
did not think this was a good use of their resources? And have I not
been saying all along that this case strikes me as somewhat unfair to
LabMD whose security – other than an employee not following policy
(which still happens ALL the time) – was on a par with other
HIPAA-covered entities’ data security back in 2008? If HIPAA
decided not to go after LabMD for violations of its Security Rule,
should FTC being take a sledgehammer to LabMD?
There
are those who will claim that the only reason the FTC went after
LabMD was because LabMD didn’t play the game and cooperate by
jumping at every request and turning over thousands of pages of
documents. But when all is said and done, does this action by the
FTC do a damned thing to protect consumers? I think not, and can
think of a lot of serious cases in the healthcare sector that the FTC
should pursue – like a breach where patients weren’t even
notified that their SSN and details were available for free download
on Pirate Bay.
The
FTC has done tremendous yeoman service in protecting consumers’
privacy, but sadly, not in this case.
It's
better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission?
Dan
Novack writes:
What’s public for me is private for thee. At least that’s what
Monroe County, N.Y. believes when it comes to where you drive your
car.
Monroe Police have been using high-speed cameras to capture license
plates in order to log vehicle whereabouts. As of July,
the County’s database contained 3.7 million records, with the
capability to add thousands more each day. The justification for
cops having records of the whereabouts of law-abiding citizens is
that the vehicles are driven in public and therefore drivers have no
expectation of privacy. It’s an argument that’s at odds with the
Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in U.S. v. Jones. In Jones,
a GPS tracking case, the court held that individuals do have
an expectation of privacy when it comes to their long-term
whereabouts, even when using public roads.
Read
more on The
Intercept.
So,
real-time requires a real warrant?
John
Wesley Hall writes:
Real-time cell site location information is protected under Fourth
Amendment. Tracey
v. State, SC11-2254 (October 16, 2014). This is a fascinating
opinion, and it’s the most sensitive review of the issue yet
Read
an excerpt from the opinion on FourthAmendment.com
An
infographic for those of us who remember all these things...
Famous
Internet Firsts And Where We Are Now
A
tool my students could use to create their own infographics.
Canva
Launches an iPad App for Creating Beautiful Infographics and Slides
Canva
is a great service for creating infographics, slides, and photo
collages. The service launched last fall and has steadily grown
since then. The latest update to Canva was the launch of their free
iPad app.
The
Canva
iPad app allows you to create infographics, slides, and photo
collages in much the same way as the web version of the service. To
create a graphic on Canva start by selecting a template then dragging
and dropping into place background designs, pictures, clip art, and
text boxes. Canva offers a huge library of clip art and photographs
to use in your designs (some of the clip art is free, some is not).
You can also import your own images to use in your graphics. Your
completed Canva projects can be saved as PDF and PNG files. You can
also simply link to your online graphic.
Interesting.
The world, she is a-changing.
Essay
· The future of the book
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