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Apple’s rivals wary of taking stand on encryption issue, against the FBI

As Apple resists the US government in a high profile stand-off over privacy, rival device makers are, for now, keeping a low profile.

Most are Asian companies — the region produces eight of every 10 smartphones sold around the world — and operate in a complex legal, political and security landscape.

Only China’s Huawei has publicly backed Apple CEO Tim Cook in his fight to resist demands to unlock an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of those who went on a shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California in December.

“We put a lot of investment into privacy, and security protection is key. It is very important for the consumer,” Richard Yu, chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group, told reporters at the Mobile World Congress earlier this week.

But Yu stopped short of saying explicitly that Huawei would adopt the same stance. “Some things the government requires from vendors we cannot do,” he said, citing an example of unlocking an encrypted Android device. “These are important things for the consumer, for privacy protection.”

Lenovo Group CEO Yang Yuanqing declined to say whether he backs the Apple position, saying the issue required time and consideration.

“Today it happens to Apple, tomorrow it could happen to Lenovo mobile phones. So we must be very serious to consider. We need to take some time,” Yang told Reuters.

Samsung Electronics Co and Chinese device maker Xiaomi declined to comment, while ZTE Corporation did not respond to requests for comments.

South Korean mobile maker LG Electronics Inc said it takes personal privacy and security very seriously, but declined to say whether it had ever worked with any government to insert so-called “backdoors” into its products or whether it had ever been asked to unlock a smartphone.

“Nobody wants to be seen as a roadblock to an investigation,” said a spokesperson for Micromax, India’s biggest local smartphone maker. “Nobody wants that kind of stigma. We have to take care of both customer security as well as (a) genuine threat to national security.”

Many Asian countries don’t have privacy laws that device makers can fall back on to resist demands from law enforcement authorities.

“As part of the evidence gathering process provided for under the law, law enforcement agencies in Singapore may request information from persons or organizations,” Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs Spokesperson told Reuters.
An official at India’s telecom regulator said authorities can ask for private user data from technology companies, as can those in Indonesia, said Ismail Cawidu, spokesman for Indonesia’s Communication and Information Ministry.
Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University, said he wouldn’t be surprised if technology firms weren’t being asked for access to their devices.

“It’s just that these are not made public. You can imagine for the technology companies, they are also concerned about the publicity — if they are seen to be caving in to law enforcement agencies, there is always a fear that people may not use their products and services,” he said.

Micromax said this was commonplace in India. “I can’t say no to a law enforcement request, and every day there is one,” the company’s spokesperson said. “You have to comply with requests in the larger interest of national security.”

The Apple battle may even spur regulators in some markets to demand device makers to grant them access.
Thailand’s telecoms regulator said it is studying the possibility of having separate agreements with handset makers and social media firms such as Facebook and Naver’s LINE to help extract data from mobile phones.
“There is political pressure” for regulating devices, said Rob Bratby, manager of Olswang Asia, a technology-focused law firm based in Singapore.

He said there was no evidence of any such regulatory interest yet, but it was a matter of time.

Encryption is Not a Threat to Our Safety, But Political Correctness is

The legal battle between Apple, Inc and the US government has no sign of abating. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, indicated that he is willing to fight the US government all the way to the Supreme Court. Apple Inc. just upped the ante by announcing that its engineers are working on new iPhone security features, which would make the iphone almost impossible to hack into by the company itself or government agencies. On the other hand, many government officials and politicians argue that encryption deprives them of opportunities to track the activities of bad guys and stop them from doing harm. Some in Congress are working on a new law to compel technology companies to grant the US government “limited” access by circumventing encryption.

Supporters of either Apple or the US government have written extensively on privacy vs. security issues. But something else has been missing in the current debate. Let’s revisit the San Bernardino terrorist attack. It’s worth remembering that one of the San Bernardino shooters, Tashfeen Malik, didn’t encrypt her radical and anti-America thoughts and ideas on Facebook prior to her visa application, they were posted for anyone to read. But our immigration officials were prevented from reviewing her easily accessible social media postings because the Secretary of Homeland Security feared a civil liberty backlash and bad PR. There is no legal basis for the Secretary’s concern. America has no obligation to grant a visa to any non-US citizen who expresses anti-America sentiment. It was widely reported after the San Bernardino shooting that Tashfeen Malik was responsible for radicalizing her husband Syed. Had someone at the Department of Homeland done half an hour google search, and accordingly denied Tashfeen’s fiancées visa, fourteen lives in San Bernardino could have been saved.

Failing to vet Tashfeen Malik adequately was not an outlier case. The leadership of the Department of Homeland security has a history of ” willingness to compromise the security of citizens for the ideological rigidity of political correctness.” Philip Haney, a former officer who spent 15 years at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), wrote for the Hill recently that back in 2009, he was ordered by his supervisor at DHS ” to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS).”

Apple and FBI to testify before Congress next week over encryption

Over the past few days, Apple has made it abundantly clear that it will not comply with the FBI’s demand that it write a new piece of software to help bypass built-in iPhone security measures.

On the contrary, Apple has said that it wants the FBI to withdraw all of its demands while adding that the only way to move forward is to form a commission of experts on intelligence, technology, and civil liberties to discuss “the implications for law enforcement, national security, privacy, and personal freedoms.”

In the meantime, Apple has vehemently argued that Congress should be tasked with determining the fate of the shooter’s iPhone, not the courts. Come next Tuesday, Apple will finally be able to plead its case directly in front of our country’s lawmakers.

Earlier today, the House Judiciary Committee announced that it will be holding a congressional hearing on encryption on Tuesday, March 1. The hearing itself is called, “The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans’ Security and Privacy.”

Slated to testify on the first panel is FBI director James Comey who, you might recall, recently penned a blogpost arguing that the current debate isn’t about the implications of encryption, but rather about “the victims and justice.”

On the second panel, Apple’s top lawyer, Bruce Sewell, will appear and present Apple’s case. Appearing alongside him will be Susan Landau, a cybersecurity expert, and New York District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.

A statement from the House Judiciary Committee on the upcoming hearing reads as follows:

This should undoubtedly make for a lively hearing.

Speaking to the seriousness with which Apple views this debate, Tim Cook yesterday said that helping the FBI would be tantamount to creating the “software equivalent of cancer.”

Apple CEO defends position in encryption dispute with feds

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview Wednesday it was a tough decision to resist a court order directing the tech giant to override security features on the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino gunmen who killed 14 people in a December terror attack.

However, Cook reiterated to ABC News in his first interview since the controversy erupted last week that if his company complied with the FBI’s demand to unlock Syed Rizwan Farook’s encrypted phone it would be “bad for America.”

“Some things are hard and some things are right, and some things are both. This is one of those things,” Cook said. The interview came as both sides in the dispute are courting public support, through interviews and published statements, while also mustering legal arguments in the case.

Federal authorities have insisted they’re only asking for narrow assistance in bypassing some security features on the iPhone, which they believe contains information related to the mass murders. Apple argues that doing so would make other iPhones more susceptible to hacking by authorities or criminals in the future.

The Apple chief expressed sympathy for the shooting victims’ families, and said his company provided engineers and technical advice to authorities investigating the case. But he said authorities are now asking the company “to write a piece of software that we view as sort of the equivalent of cancer.”

The software could “expose people to incredible vulnerabilities,” Cook added, arguing that smartphones contain private information about users and even their families.

“This would be bad for America,” he said. “It would also set a precedent that I believe many people in America would be offended by.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Loretta Lynch defended the FBI’s push to access the locked phone Wednesday, saying judges at all levels have held such companies “must assist if it is reasonably within their power to do so – and suggesting Congress does not need to get involved as Apple wants.

But Lynch used testimony Wednesday before a House appropriations subcommittee to lay out the DOJ position that courts already have found companies must assist in opening devices.

“If the government needs the assistance of third parties to ensure that the search is actually conducted, judges all over the country and on the Supreme Court have said that those parties must assist if it is reasonably within their power to do so,” she said, without mentioning Apple by name. “And that is what we have been asking, and we owe it to the victims and to the public whose safety we must protect to ensure that we have done everything under the law to fully investigate terrorist attacks on American soil.”

Apple also is expected to argue that the Obama administration’s request to help it hack into an iPhone in the federal investigation of the San Bernardino attack is improper under an 18th century law, the 1789 All Writs Act, which has been used to compel companies to provide assistance to law enforcement.

Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in California ordered Apple last week to create specialized software to help the FBI hack into a locked, county-issued iPhone used by Farook.

Mark Zuckerberg Defends Apple’s Stance On Encryption

The real battle for data encryption on our mobile devices has heated up considerably over the past few weeks and is looking to come to a boil relatively soon as tech companies and industry moguls alike join Apple in its defense of encryption. This all began way back in 2013 when Edward Snowden became the whistleblower on the US government’s PRISM domestic spying program, revealing that our mobile devices might be feeding the government more information than anyone had thought of before. Ever since then, tech companies have been slowly locking down our personal information, whether it be adding two-step authorization on logins or actually encrypting the data stored on a mobile device. Google and Apple, among nearly 150 other big-name tech companies, petitioned President Obama to support data encryption nearly a year ago, and now it looks like that letter couldn’t have been more timely.

If you’ve been keeping up with the news lately you’ll know that the San Bernardino shooter used an encrypted iPhone, something Apple has been known for since enacting the standard some time ago. Joining Apple in its quest to secure our data was Google, who has begun requiring phones that ship with Android 6.0 Marshmallow to be fully encrypted, keeping your data secured from apparently even the FBI if they so desire to access it. While the FBI and Apple are currently in a legal battle for the future of encryption, company after company has begun piling on the FBI to get them to deal with the problem another way and save encryption and user’s privacy as a whole.

Facebook owner, CEO and multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has joined this fight, alongside his company, and is fighting to keep encrypted phone sales from being banned in the US. This in addition to the alternative that the FBI has suggested in creating a backdoor in encryption methods for law enforcement, a move that completely removes the purpose of encryption in the first place. Such a move would eliminate the greatest security measure users have to secure their devices, and ultimately defeat the point of encryption in the first place. Zuckerberg’s support of encryption is a huge win for the tech community, and further helps back the opinions of people like John McAfee in stating that the FBI has fallen way behind the times and needs to resort to other methods of dealing with encryption than trying to remove it.

San Bernardino victims to oppose Apple on iPhone encryption

Some victims of the San Bernardino attack will file a legal brief in support of the U.S. government’s attempt to force Apple Inc to unlock the encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters, a lawyer representing the victims said on Sunday.

Stephen Larson, a former federal judge who is now in private practice, told Reuters that the victims he represents have an interest in the information which goes beyond the Justice Department’s criminal investigation.

“They were targeted by terrorists, and they need to know why, how this could happen,” Larson said.

Larson said he was contacted a week ago by the Justice Department and local prosecutors about representing the victims, prior to the dispute becoming public. He said he will file an amicus brief in court by early March.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the matter on Sunday.

Larson declined to say how many victims he represents. Fourteen people died and 22 others were wounded in the shooting attack by a married couple who were inspired by Islamic State militants and died in a gun battle with police.

Entry into the fray by victims gives the federal government a powerful ally in its fight against Apple, which has cast itself as trying to protect public privacy from overreach by the federal government.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment. In a letter to customers last week, Tim Cook, the company’s chief executive, said: “We mourn the loss of life and want justice for all those whose lives were affected,” saying that the company has “worked hard to support the government’s efforts to solve this horrible crime.”

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said in a letter released on Sunday night that the agency’s request wasn’t about setting legal precedent, but rather seeking justice for the victims and investigating other possible threats.

“Fourteen people were slaughtered and many more had their lives and bodies ruined. We owe them a thorough and professional investigation under law. That’s what this is,” Comey wrote.

The FBI is seeking the tech company’s help to access shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s phone by disabling some of its passcode protections. The company so far has pushed back, arguing that such a move would set a dangerous precedent and threaten customer security.

The clash between Apple and the Justice Department has driven straight to the heart of a long-running debate over how much law enforcement and intelligence officials should be able to monitor digital communications.

The Justice Department won an order in a Riverside, California federal court on Tuesday against Apple, without the company present in court. Apple is scheduled to file its first legal arguments on Friday, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, who served as a federal prosecutor before being appointed to the bench, has set a hearing on the issue for next month.

Larson once presided over cases in Riverside, and Pym argued cases in Larson’s courtroom several times as a prosecutor while Larson was a judge, he said. Larson returned to private practice in 2009, saying at the time that a judge’s salary was not enough to provide for his seven children.

He said he is representing the San Bernardino victims for free.

Google CEO Pichai Lends Apple Support on Encryption

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai lent support to Apple Inc.’s pushback against a federal order to help law enforcement break into the locked iPhone of an alleged shooter in the San Bernardino, Calif., attacks.

Mr. Pichai wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that “forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users’ privacy.”

Google CEO Pichai Lends Apple Support on Encryption

A federal judge Tuesday ordered Apple to enable investigators to bypass the passcode of the iPhone once used by alleged shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote on Apple’s website that such a move would create “a backdoor” around security measures hackers could eventually use to steal iPhone users’ data.

On Twitter, Mr. Pichai called Mr. Cook’s letter an “important post.” He said that while Alphabet Inc.’s Google provides user data to law enforcement under court orders, “that’s wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices and data. Could be a troubling precedent.”

Google CEO Pichai Lends Apple Support on Encryption

Google, like Apple, has been locked in an intensifying battle with U.S. authorities over the companies’ smartphone encryption software. The firms say that the encryption is crucial to protecting users’ privacy, and keeping their trust. Law enforcement officials say such software hinders criminal investigations, including into the San Bernardino attacks.

Here’s why the FBI forcing Apple to break into an iPhone is a big deal

When U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym ruled that Apple must help the FBI break into an iPhone belonging to one of the killers in the San Bernardino, Calif., shootings, the tech world shuddered.

Why? The battle of encryption “backdoors” has been longstanding in Silicon Valley, where a company’s success could be made or broken based on its ability to protect customer data.

The issue came into the spotlight after Edward Snowden disclosed the extent to which technology and phone companies were letting the U.S. federal government spy on data being transmitted through their network.

Since Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing revelations, Facebook, Apple and Twitter have unilaterally said they are not going to create such backdoors anymore.

So here’s the “backdoor” the FBI wants: Right now, iPhone users have the option to set a security feature that only allows a certain number of tries to guess the correct passcode to unlock the phone before all the data on the iPhone is deleted. It’s a security measure Apple put in place to keep important data out of the wrong hands.

Federal prosecutors looking for more information behind the San Bernardino shootings don’t know the phone’s passcode. If they guess incorrectly too many times, the data they hope to find will be deleted.

That’s why the FBI wants Apple to disable the security feature. Once the security is crippled, agents would be able to guess as many combinations as possible.

Kurt Opsahl, general counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights non-profit, explained that this “backdoor” means Apple will have to to write brand new code that will compromise key features of the phone’s security. Apple has five business days to respond to the request.

What does Apple have to say about this? They haven’t commented yet today, but back in December, Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company’s use of encryption on its mobile devices, saying users should not have to trade privacy for national security, in a broad interview with 60 Minutes. In the interview, Cook stood by the company’s stance of refusing to offer encrypted texts and messages from users.

He said: “There’s likely health information, there’s financial information,” says Cook describing a user’s iPhone. “There are intimate conversations with your family, or your co-workers. There’s probably business secrets and you should have the ability to protect it. And the only way we know how to do that, is to encrypt it. Why is that? It’s because if there’s a way to get in, then somebody will find the way in.”

Cook says Apple cooperates with law enforcement requests, but can’t access encrypted information on users’ smartphones. According to a page on Apple’s website detailing government requests, Apple says encryption data is tied to the device’s passcode.

Cook also dismissed the idea that iPhone users should swap privacy for security. “We’re America. We should have both.”

What does this mean for the next time the government wants access? The order doesn’t create a precedent in the sense that other courts will be compelled to follow it, but it will give the government more ammunition.

What do digital rights experts have to say? There are two things that make this order very dangerous, Opsahl said. The first is the question is raises about who can make this type of demand. If the U.S. government can force Apple to do this, why can’t the Chinese or Russian governments?

The second is that while the government is requesting a program to allow it to break into this one, specific iPhone, once the program is created it will essentially be a master key. It would be possible for the government to take this key, modify it and use it on other phones. That risks a lot, that the government will have this power and it will not be misused, he said.

And the lawmakers? Well, they are torn. Key House Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., says Congress shouldn’t force tech companies to have encryption backdoors. Congress is struggling with how to handle the complex issue.

On the other side of things, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., say they want to require tech companies to provide a backdoor into encrypted communication when law enforcement officials obtain a court order to investigate a specific person.

What now? This could push the tech companies to give users access to unbreakable encryption. To some extent, it’s already happening. Companies like Apple and Google — responding to consumer demands for privacy — have developed smart phones and other devices with encryption that is so strong that even the companies can’t break it.

Tim Cook pushes for strong encryption at White House summit

As expected, Apple CEO Tim Cook urged White House and government officials to come to terms with strong encryption practices that protect consumer data, at one point saying such intentions should be stated publicly.

Cook’s plea came during a cybersecurity summit held in San Jose, Calif., last week, where government officials met with Silicon Valley tech executives to discuss how best to stymie threats posed by non-state actors like ISIS, reports The Guardian.

According to a follow-up report from The Intercept, Cook asked the White House to take a “no backdoors” stance on encryption. Law enforcement agencies, specifically the FBI, have clamored for so-called “weak encryption” policies that would allow access to protected data through supervised software backdoors.

In response, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said a balance must be struck between personal privacy and national security. The current administration is still grappling with the issue and has yet to reach a resolution that would not tip the scales.

FBI director James Comey was among those in attendance at last week’s summit. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, National Intelligence Director James Clapper and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers were also present.

Government officials say existing strong encryption techniques employed by Apple, Google and other tech firms make it easy for criminals and terrorists to communicate in relative safety. Cook maintains a hardline stance on the issue, saying that “any backdoor means a backdoor for bad guys as well as good guys.” Apple’s introduced a nearly impenetrable data encryption protocol with iOS 8, one that the company itself is unable to crack even with the proper warrants.

A document obtained by The Intercept notes summit talks included questions on whether tech companies would be willing to enact “high level principles” relating to terrorists’ use of encryption, or technologies that “could make it harder for terrorists to use the internet to mobilize, facilitate, and operationalize.” Also on the docket was the potential use of unencrypted data like metadata. Such far-reaching strategies would be difficult, if not impossible, to implement without actively policing customer data.

The summit was held less than three months after the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act cleared the U.S. Senate floor in October, legislation that would allow private companies to share customer data with government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the NSA. While not labeled a surveillance bill, Apple and other powerful tech companies dispute its merit, saying CISA disregards user privacy.

Apple’s Encryption Fight Turns To The UK

After a major victory in the United States, Apple is facing an another threat to its encryption efforts on a different front: the United Kingdom.

The Cupertino-based tech giant typically shies away from taking firm stances on specific legislation and works through lobbying groups representing technology companies’ interests. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook today told students in Dublin that the company is opposed to a new British proposal that would require it to provide law enforcement with access to encrypted data.

Cook said creating a so-called backdoor for law enforcement would expose personal data to hackers.

“If you leave a back door in the software, there is no such thing as a back door for good guys only,” Cook said, according to Reuters. “If there is a back door, anyone can come in the back door.”

Cook’s statements have been backed up by privacy and technology experts. This summer, a group at MIT reported government limits on encryption would present risks.

Cook also said the British bill in its current form is vague. He said at the same event that it is not clear how Apple has to comply.

The Brtish bill, known as the Investigatory Powers Bill, would make explicit in law for the first time that law enforcement can hack and bug computers and phones, and it obliges companies to help officials bypass encryption.

Apple began encrypting its smartphones by default in 2014 with the introduction of iOS 8. Law enforcement in the United States has rallied against the update, claiming it would prevent them from obtaining information key to solving investigations.

However the White House has said it will not take a firm stance against encryption. Though the debate has continued heavily in the Capitol Hill hearing rooms, the U.S. Congress has not proposed any legislative solutions to the encryption debate.

The danger of the U.K.’s current proposal does not lie just in the privacy and security risks it presents to British citizens, but in the global precedent such a law would set. If the U.K. passes a law that requires that law enforcement be able to access encrypted data with a warrant, what’s to stop China or Russia from passing a similar law?

Apple hasn’t backed down on encryption since this issue first bubbled up last year. Though it’s been able to hold its own in the debate over encryption, this is the first time it will have to fight a bill targeting this practice.