Hould The Fbi Require Companies To Maintain Access To Communication Devices And Services?
F.B.I. Says It Needs Hackers to Keep Up With Tech Companies
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F.B.I. Official Testifies About Privacy
A senior F.B.I. official told Congress members that she thinks the government generally should non employ third-parties to aid in the hacking of phones, but that the agency must decide on a instance-by-case basis.
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WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. dedicated its hiring of a third political party to break into an iPhone used past a gunman in terminal year's San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting, telling some skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday that information technology needed to join with partners in the rarefied world of for-turn a profit hackers as technology companies increasingly resist their demands for consumer information.
Amy Hess, the Federal Agency of Investigation's executive assistant managing director for science and technology, fabricated the comments at a hearing by members of Congress who are debating potential legislation on encryption. The lawmakers gathered law enforcement government and Silicon Valley visitor executives to discuss the issue, which has divided engineering science companies and officials in recent months and spurred a debate over privacy and security.
The hearing follows a recent collision between the F.B.I. and Apple over a court order to force the company to help unlock an iPhone used by ane of the San Bernardino attackers. Apple opposed the order, citing harm to the privacy of its users. The F.B.I. subsequently dropped its need for Apple'southward help when it found a third-political party alternative to hack the device.
Yet that has done little to quell the controversy. The encryption debate has continued with new hearings, proposed legislation and other cases that involve locked iPhones and law enforcement demands that the devices exist opened to aid investigations.
In Tuesday's hearing, Ms. Hess did not provide details on how the F.B.I. ultimately gained access to the San Bernardino iPhone but said the agency had come to rely on private sector partners to go on up with changes in engineering. She said that there was no ane-stop solution and that the agency generally should not utilise third parties to hack into systems but lacks the expertise to suspension by encryption.
"These types of solutions that we may employ crave a lot of highly skilled, specialized resources that we may non have immediately bachelor to united states of america," Ms. Hess said.
The focus on 3rd parties at the hearing illustrates a growing discomfort by some in Congress and in the tech industry with the apply of "grey hat" hackers, who are hackers who may button the boundaries of the police and anger companies but whose intentions are non malicious.
"I don't call back relying on a third party is a practiced model," said Representative Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado. She questioned if the utilize of third-political party hackers was ethical and whether it could open up greater security risks because sensitive and valuable information could exist accessible to outside groups.
Ms. Hess did non answer direct when asked about whether at that place were upstanding bug in using third-political party hackers just said the agency needed to review its functioning "to make sure that we identify the risks and benefits." The F.B.I. has been unwilling to say whom it paid to demonstrate a manner around the iPhone's internal defenses, or how much, and it has non shown Apple tree the technique.
Apple's full general counsel, Bruce Sewell, said at the hearing that encryption did not preclude the authorities from solving crimes.
"Equally yous heard from our colleagues in law enforcement, they take the perception that encryption walls off information to them," Mr. Sewell said. "Merely technologists and national security experts don't run into the world that way. We encounter a information-rich world that seems to be full of data. Information that law enforcement can use to solve — and forbid — crimes."
Mr. Sewell also defended Apple's security practices, saying the company always aimed to proceed its devices safe from prying eyes. Within the final ii years, he said, the Chinese government has requested Apple's source code but the company has refused to hand it over. In a public report on Monday, the company said American law enforcement officials made 4,000 requests for customer data covering more than xvi,000 devices in the second half of last yr.
Constabulary enforcement officials testifying before the committee on Tuesday expressed frustration over their inability to run a number of cases to ground — especially sex activity abuse and kid pornography cases — because of encrypted phones. They said the recent publicity over the event could end up helping criminals.
"Brand no mistake — criminals are listening to this testimony and learning from it," said Charles Cohen, commander of the Indiana Internet Crimes Confronting Children Task Force.
The F.B.I. said there has been an increase in the number of devices it has acquired through investigations but was unable to gain access to because of encryption. Ms. Hess said that since October, 13 percent of the devices obtained past the F.B.I. were impenetrable by the bureau. When asked at Tuesday'south hearing if the relationship between the tech industry and constabulary enforcement had become adversarial, Ms. Hess responded, "I hope not."
The encryption debate is standing in other quarters. Apple tree is fighting an order in a federal courtroom in New York to provide access to a telephone involved in a criminal drug investigation. And concluding week, Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Commission and a Republican, and Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the committee, released a draft version of a bill that would require tech companies to decrypt information if requested by a court.
Tech companies, which have largely banded together in support of Apple'southward pro-encryption position, are lobbying against the draft bill.
Timed to the Tuesday hearing, trade groups representing pinnacle technology companies including Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft sent a letter to Senators Burr and Feinstein, opposing their bill.
"Nosotros believe it is critical to the safety of the nation's, and the world'south, it infrastructure for us all to avoid deportment that will create authorities-mandated security vulnerabilities in our encryption systems," the groups, which include the Reform Government Surveillance and Computer and Communications Industry Association, said. "Whatever mandatory decryption requirement, such every bit that included in the discussion draft of the bill that yous authored, volition to lead to unintended consequences."
Michael Petricone, senior vice president for government diplomacy at the Consumer Technology Association, added, "This is urgent because the i thing you don't desire is Congress coming in a knee-jerk fashion and doing something with all sorts of negative consequences, which is what we may be seeing happen now."
City and state law enforcement officials back up the Senate draft bill, but information technology faces strong opposition from many in Congress.
President Obama has washed piffling to assuage concerns past the tech manufacture. In a spoken communication in March, the president warned against "fetishizing" encryption and urged more compromise betwixt tech companies and the F.B.I.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/technology/fbi-iphone-apple-house-encryption-hearing.html
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