[Cryptography] Photojournalists & filmmakers want cameras, to be encrypted

[Joshua Marpet]

Grarpamp,

I respect that you think I need to have my head examined.

Perhaps we should say that to the use cases I formulated, strong crypto
isn't necessary. If you wish to extend a use case, to include on-device
secure storage of photos and video, then yeah, I would agree that strong
crypto is required. Your inclusion of archiving personal materials is NOT
in the use cases I postulated. It is also not in the use cases postulated
in the original article, I believe. We are talking about protecting photos
and video from authorities, either secular, religious, or by the "might is
right" rule.

 But hey, let's extend and embrace before we extinguish. . Photos or video
stored on the device are a wonderful way to archive my tax returns or your
sex tape, and should be encrypted strongly. Agreed.

However, I would say that anyone who stores
controversial/newsworthy/going-to-cause-you-trouble photos or video on a
device, and carries that device around, is asking for trouble, and should
have their head examined. The phone can get snatched, it is a specifically
targeted asset, it can be used to track you. etc. "But when there's no
internet, what do you do!!?!?!?!?!!!11Eleventy-one1111!!" You use a wifi
enabled device to take the stills and video off your original device, and
get it in the mail, or the hands of a courier. All they have to do is get
the damn thing to an internet cafe. or Dead drop it. or Cache it.
Something!  It's elemental tradecraft.

I didn't write this email for a couple of days so I could calmly read this
thread again. I read a lot more than I post, because I am here to learn. I
try to be polite, courteous, and respectful. That's a hint.

Thank you.



On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 9:16 PM, Natanael <natanael.l at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Den 24 dec. 2016 00:22 skrev "Jerry Leichter" <leichter at lrw.com>:
>
> > ...I would have wanted to put the camera into a mode where it would take
> pictures but never show them (without some key that was not resident in the
> camera
> > or its media)...
> I never thought of it this way before, but curiously ... iOS has almost
> exactly such a mode:  You can take photos from the lock screen, without
> first unlocking the phone.  This begins a "photo session" that continues
> until you return to the lock screen (quick press on the top button does
> it).  You can scroll back and examine or even delete any photos taken
> within a session; but older ones are inaccessible.
>
> Once a session ends, none of its photos are accessible unless you unlock
> the phone.
>
> Oh, and the phone can also be configured to upload automatically to the
> Apple cloud if it has a connection.  Whether that's a plus or a minus
> depends on the situation.
>
> Uploading is something Android phones do, too, of course; I don't know if
> they have similar "take pictures from lock screen" functionality.
>
>
> At least some Motorola phones and Samsung phones has it, probably Sony
> too. I'm not sure if it is natively supported in Android.
>
> On at least Motorola and Samsung you can set a third party camera app as
> your default, which will be available in this mode.
>
> This opens up for the option to use a camera app with support for public
> key encryption in combination with online backup, to fulfill both of these
> main requirements (loss prevention and secrecy) discussed here.
>
>
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