<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 11:21 AM, Perry E. Metzger <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:perry@piermont.com" target="_blank">perry@piermont.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> NEW YORK -- The US government has made numerous attempts to obtain<br>
source code from tech companies in an effort to find security flaws<br>
that could be used for surveillance or investigations.<br>
<br>
The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under<br>
seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the<br>
secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with<br>
direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. We're not naming the<br>
person as they relayed information that is likely classified.<br>
<br>
With these hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the<br>
person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing<br>
"most of the time."<br>
<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/us-government-pushed-tech-firms-to-hand-over-source-code/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.zdnet.com/article/us-government-pushed-tech-firms-to-hand-over-source-code/</a><br><br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>This is a real issue but if we ignore the constitutional issues</div><div>a secret disclosure to the government for their comfort that</div><div>the system they run is what they think it is. Or to discover flaws</div><div>that can be used offensively is different than the Apple issue.</div><div><br></div><div>The public nature of the Apple demand places apple in the </div><div>law enforcement service business. It would do so in such </div><div>a way that the service could be demanded by anyone.</div><div>There is a line that says additional legal warrants but there is</div><div>no prohibition for this service outside of a US legal warrant.</div><div> </div></div>The constitutional issue is that the net we are seeing cast</div><div class="gmail_extra">is large, global and indiscriminate. </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Technology makes wide sweeping tools economical and</div><div class="gmail_extra">near easy. It is too easy for a loop "for i=1 to 10" to be</div><div class="gmail_extra">transformed into a loop "for i =1 to 2^100". The bounds </div><div class="gmail_extra">are effectively limited only by money and bandwidth. </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">These are differences. I can worry about what the secrets </div><div class="gmail_extra">hide. I do worry what I see in public and that makes me</div><div class="gmail_extra">believe the domain of secrets is very much larger than </div><div class="gmail_extra">I would like.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">I am reminded of a child hood event when a local cop</div><div class="gmail_extra">was moonlighting as a bank guard. Nice guy, beautiful</div><div class="gmail_extra">wife and newborn. One day he just filled a bag full of </div><div class="gmail_extra">cash. Temptation is real. Trust but verify....</div><div class="gmail_extra">but how do the courts verify that the limits of their warrant</div><div class="gmail_extra">are maintained?</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div><div dir="ltr"> T o m M i t c h e l l</div></div>
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