[Cryptography] FBI Gripes About Crypto on Facebook/WhatsApp/Everywhere, People Rebuffing and Accepting "Costs"?

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Sun May 22 13:03:07 EDT 2016


https://it.slashdot.org/story/16/04/06/1929201/top-fbi-attorney-worried-about-whatsapp-encryption
WhatsApp on Tuesday announced that all types of messages on the latest
version of its app are now automatically protected by end-to-end
encryption, and the FBI's top attorney is worried some of the
platform's more than 1 billion global users will take advantage of the
move to hide their crime- or terrorism-related communications. FBI
General Counsel James Baker said in Washington on Tuesday that the
decision by the Facebook-owned messaging platform to encrypt its
global offerings "presents us with a significant problem" because
criminals and terrorists could "get ideas." "If the public does
nothing, encryption like that will continue to roll out," he said. "It
has public safety costs. Folks have to understand that, and figure out
how they are going to deal with that. Do they want the public to bear
those costs? Do they want the victims of terrorism to bear those
costs?"Maybe the government shouldn't have imposed so many
surveillance programs on its citizens -- and kept quiet about it for
years -- that they now feel the need to use sophisticated security
technologies.


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