FBI Director Christopher Wray continues pushing for encryption back doors

“The encryption war is quiet now, but the murky back-and-forth between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., is far from over,” Patrick Howell O’Neill reports for Gizmodo.
“FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday that the encryption issue is “getting worse and worse” for law enforcement around the United States at all levels. It’s a common refrain for government officials over the last half-decade, but it’s been a matter of sharp debate especially since the FBI overstated encryption device numbers last year,” O’Neill reports. “‘It can’t be a sustainable end state for there to be an entirely unfettered space that’s utterly beyond law enforcement for criminals to hide,’ Wray said. ‘We have to figure out a way to deal with this problem.'”
O’Neill reports, “‘I’m hearing increasingly that there are solutions’ for strong encryption that opens the targeted data to law enforcement, Wray said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Once again: There is no “figuring out a way.” Encryption is either present in full or it’s worthless. If Wray is really “hearing increasingly that there are solutions,” then he’s listening to idiots.
Encryption is binary; it’s either on or off. You cannot have both. You either have privacy via full encryption or you don’t by forcing back doors upon Apple or anybody else. It’s all or nothing. — MacDailyNews, March 8, 2017
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There have been people that suggest that we should have a back door. But the reality is if you put a backdoor in, that back door’s for everybody, for good guys and bad guys. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, December 2015
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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 funds 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
SEE ALSO:
Cellebrite, the Feds’ favorite iPhone hacking tool, is selling on ebay for $100 – and it’s leaking data – February 27, 2019
FBI: End-to-end encryption like Apple’s ‘infects’ law enforcement – February 27, 2019
Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others denounce Australia’s ‘deeply flawed’ anti-encryption law – December 11, 2018
Backdoors: Australia passes laws allowing spies and police to snoop on encrypted communications – December 7, 2018
Apple to Australia: This is no time to weaken encryption; access only for ‘good guys’ is a false premise – October 13, 2018
Apple urges Australian government not to destroy encryption with ‘backdoors’ – October 12, 2018
Apple, other tech giants denounce proposed Australian law seeking encryption ‘backdoor’ – October 3, 2018
More proof that iPhone backdoors are a stupid idea: Massive cache of law enforcement personnel data leaks – July 2, 2018
Bipartisan ‘Secure Data Act’ would make it illegal for U.S. government to demand backdoors – May 11, 2018
Tim Cook’s refusal to create iPhone backdoor for FBI vindicated by ‘WannaCry’ ransomware attack on Windows PCs – May 15, 2017
The Microsoft Tax: Leaked NSA malware hijacks Windows PCs worldwide; Macintosh unaffected – May 13, 2017
Bungling Microsoft singlehandedly proves that ‘back doors’ are a stupid idea – August 10, 2016
U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu says strong encryption without backdoors is a ‘national security priority’ – April 29, 2016