Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is frustrated because he claims criminals are able to hide many of their actions on their phone with special encryption software that is permitted by the phone makers. He claims that phone companies will not try to make their software "responsible" because they will only want safer and safer software due to competition. For this reason, he believes that courts should be allowed to view content in a criminal's phone on order through a "back door," which would also cause the phone to be more prone to hacking and breeching of content. Rosenstein believes that the way this issue was dealt when Apple had been called to court for not allowing the FBI into the phone of a San Bernardino shooter was very poor and time-wasting, even though the FBI eventually did gain access to the phone with a third-party software.
I believe that although many Americans would Rosenstein's ideas as unfair and inappropriate, looking through a criminal's phone after an intense crime is committed should be allowed, and there should be no reason for a phone company to want to stop this search. This would obviously require a search warrant, however, but making encryption software that is almost impossible to break through in any circumstance at all would indeed allow criminals to hide lots of information that could possibly lead to the catching of other criminals. Criminals should not be able to get away with covering for other criminals that may commit as horrible acts as they would themselves. This impermeable encryption software allows them to do so, and therefore should be prohibited. I know that this means that our privacy would have to be sacrificed a bit, but many of us don't even use this hi-tech encryption software ourselves, and we should be able to give up this little amount of privacy in order to protect ourselves and prevent future horrifying events. For these reasons, I believe Rosenstein is correct in that phone companies should let the justice system look through a criminal's phone without backlash or resistance.
What is your take on this issue; should encryption software be less unbreakable or not? How do you think Americans in general would react to Rosenstein's claims? What could possibly change in the future (ex. new law or new court decision) regarding this issue?
6 comments:
Banning/weakening current encryption simply means that only the 'bad guys' to have access to it as there are so many open-source encryption projects out there that anybody could use. By doing this, you also give people an easier way to commit cybercrime.
Some suggest adding a backdoor or 'master key', but if a company such as Apple gives this key to the U.S. government, what is stopping a potentially more shady government such as China's (who Apple has a massive userbase in) from asking the same? Who would buy an iPhone then?
In the end, companies are happy to give their cloud data & logs to aid an investigation, and while in the short run it may seem logical to weaken encryption you have to think of the long-term consequences.
In my opinion, the pros of easier access through encryption software definitely outweigh the cons. Yes, it takes away some privacy, but with so many people in the country with a cell phone, it's not practical to assume that the government or hackers will be looking at everyone's phone data. On the other hand, easier encryption software could allow the courts to find valuable evidence and not have to go through what happened with Apple. I disagree with what Robert said about other governments accessing our phone data. As I said earlier, it's impractical to hack everyone so people shouldn't be afraid to buy a phone simply because there's a small threat info on there can be found. Addressing Sahith's last question, I think as tech starts to get more and more advanced, encrypted data on phones might become a bigger issue and then a law might be passed allowing full access with a warrant or cause similar to how the government can access some of our phone and internet data now.
As an avid fan of Criminal minds (which I know some of y'all will say is unrealistic and an inaccurate representation of the FBI), the technical analyst often accesses the criminal's laptop or phone, through their IP address and a search warrant. I mean yes, they probably do not have intense encryption software on there. Anyways. However, in reality, if the DOJ has the right to look at the person's data and information if he/she is a suspect, they should be allowed to as long as they have a warrant. But, computer scientists and engineers come up with new software all the time, and if criminals were actually trying to hide something, they would be able to create new things to block people from accessing it.
This is an interesting question, but people developing encryption software should be allowed to make it as secure as they want. People finding better encryption methods in the past have helped with other aspects of internet security (beyond searching for information about criminals). And anyway, there isn't much the government can do to stop people from encrypting messages. People who want to message securely can just encrypt messages themselves, send the encrypted message normally, and let the receiver decrypt it with some special key given to them. It's similar to if someone wanted to message his or her friends in a made-up language; no one can stop them from doing that.
I do believe that it is important for courts to be able to have access to criminal's data, but by asking companies such as apple to have back doors to make it easier to break into a phone seriously puts ordinary people's privacy on the line. While it may be important to access data to bring down these criminals, making companies give up personal information sets a scary precedent for the future of people's privacy. It may be important to help in the single investigation, but keeping data encrypted protects individuas more than the investigation. Overall, people's privacy is more valuable than the information that could be obtained by breaking into the phone, and should be watched over at all costs.
In response to Haley, one has to only look at the Equifax breach. Half of America's data was basically exposed and now is up for sale, a disaster for those affected. Just because tons of data isn't collected doesn't mean it can't be sifted through.
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