MESSAGE
| DATE | 2015-09-16 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] the war on encryption: Daily News
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http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/editorial-poisoned-apple-article-1.2361932
Editorials
BY Editorials
The poisoned Apple
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, September 15, 2015, 6:41 PM
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Owners of iPhones and iPads on Wednesday can start downloading Apple’s
spanking-new iOS 9 operating system, complete with a smarter Siri
assistant, better battery life and terrorist-friendly encryption technology.
Apple and fellow tech-giant Google are producing phones that users can
encrypt — and that only the users can unlock, which places data stored
on the devices beyond the reach of law enforcement authorities even if
the authorities have proper court-issued warrants.
Defying calls for responsible corporate conduct by FBI Director James
Comey and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Apple has increased the
impenetrability of iOS 9 by battening down the security hatches in
feature after feature, including upping personal unlock codes from 4
digits, with 10,000 possible combinations, to 6 digits, with a million
possible combinations.
Henceforth, criminals and terrorists will only use phones and computers
on which stored data, such as photos, emails and instant messages, is
locked tightly away.
The dangers are not hypothetical. According to The New York Times, Apple
spurned a Justice Department warrant for real-time texts in a
guns-and-drugs case, saying the company had no means of retrieving the data.
Meanwhile, in congressional testimony, Vance has cited cases from around
the country in which Apple and Google rebuffed local murder
investigators, each time saying the companies were powerless to unlock
phones, warrants or no warrants.
Which, in a post-Edward Snowden, NSA-fearing frenzy, blows past the
Fourth Amendment into an absolute guarantee against all searches and
seizures. This cannot stand — not if the government wants half a chance
of interrupting major plots against innocent people.
The United States needs comprehensive federal legislation to force
Apple, Google, Microsoft and other high-tech companies to make
communications and telephone data available to law enforcement with
proper warrants.
Statutes must force the companies to keep so-called keys to the
encryption services they provide. Selling the ultimate in extreme
privacy even to the evil, they are selling out public safety.
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