[Cryptography] "WhatsApp Encryption Said to Stymie Wiretap Order"

[Tom Mitchell]

On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:06 PM, Jerry Leichter <leichter at lrw.com> wrote:

> From
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/us/politics/whatsapp-encryption-said-to-stymie-wiretap-order.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all
>
> WASHINGTON — While the Justice Department wages a public fight with Apple
> over access to a locked iPhone, government officials are privately debating
> how to resolve a prolonged standoff with another technology company,
> WhatsApp, over access to its popular instant messaging application,
> officials and others involved in the case said.

.....

>
> The Justice Department and WhatsApp declined to comment. The government
> officials and others who discussed the dispute did so on condition of
> anonymity because the wiretap order and all the information associated with
> it were under seal. The nature of the case was not clear, except that
> officials said it was not a terrorism investigation. The location of the
> investigation was also unclear.
>
Hmmm.... secrets.


> To understand the battle lines,

....

> Some investigators view the WhatsApp issue as even more significant than
> the one over locked phones because it goes to the heart of the future of
> wiretapping.

....

> Whether the WhatsApp dispute ends in a court fight that sets precedents,
> many law enforcement officials and security experts say that such a case
> may be inevitable because the nation’s wiretapping laws were last updated a
> generation ago, when people communicated by landline telephones that were
> easy to tap.
>
> “The F.B.I. and the Justice Department are just choosing the exact
> circumstance to pick the fight that looks the best for them,” said Peter
> Eckersley, the chief computer scientist at the Electronic Frontier
> Foundation, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital rights. “They’re
> waiting for the case that makes the demand look reasonable.”
>


Two important issues.
 *) how wide can the net be cast.
 *) a reasonable circumstance can result in unreasonable law (second or
third level consequences.)

As fisherman are demonstrating on the open sea some fishing methods kill an
astounding
numbers of non food wildlife.   http://www.fao.org/fishery/geartype/249/en
 Dolphins, turtles
endangered species.   Other nets cause damage to coral and the sea bed.
Overfishing is another global risk.   International laws and agreements
attempt to maintain
the shared commons but loss of breeding habitat in mangrove swamps, streams
and rivers
for fish like salmon and steelhead trout also risk collapse of the
fisheries.

An unreasonable law can place undue burden on businesses and innovators.
Regulations that
would control the Facebook and Apple may delay or eliminate startup
innovation that would solve
the honest concerns of law enforcement or move innovation outside the rule
of US law.
Regulations could inhibit the repair of flaws.

The current strategy seems to dig deep into the connection tree of
interesting criminals.
It is unclear how the tree is pruned.   On the surface of a big data
perspective there does
not seem to be a need to prune the list at all.   Without honest and
effective pruning of search
it seems ripe for abuse and problematic in the context of parallel
reconstruction.

In the current San Bernadino case there the iPhone question does not seem
to be more than a case where the demand seems to be reasonable because of
the visceral
response to the crime.

The lack of reasonable expectation for useful content  seems one reason for
the court to
reject the order.   Sadly this court may infact be wallowing in their self
importance bolstered
by the apparent importance of the case to the detriment of the law.
The case is important but it an honest man might ask if it is being held up
as important as a lever to pry open all iPhones rather than an honest
pursuit
of justice associated with this criminal act.
i.e. not clearly "agreeable to the usages and principles of law."








-- 
  T o m    M i t c h e l l
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