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  2. April 2016

April 2016

Apple’s Next Encryption Battle Is Likely Playing Out in Secret in a Boston Court

Apple's next big encryption battle with the federal government appears to be unfolding in a largely secret court case in Massachusetts involving an FBI bust of a gang called the Columbia Point Dawgz. March 31, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion to unseal a list of documents in the case, in which the government appears to be trying to use the controversial All Writs Act of 1789 to force Apple to help it decrypt what is believed to be an iPhone 6 Plus running iOS 9.1. We now know there are at least 63 occasions where the US government has used the All Writs Act, thanks to unsealed court documents compiled by the ACLU.

The most interesting of those cases is this one in Boston, which seems likely to become another skirmish of the recent battle which sought to force Apple to help hack an iPhone belonging to Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino (CA) shooters. Unlike in other All Writs Act cases, it might not be possible to crack the device using the mysterious new technique the government obtained from a still-unidentified “outside party,” which allowed the FBI to access the San Bernardino iPhone 5C without Apple's help. The phone in question was recovered last November from Desmond Crawford, an alleged member of a Boston and Dorchester (MA)-based street gang called the Columbia Point Dawgz. Upon arresting Crawford the FBI seized both an iPhone and an AT&T flip phone, and has requested a court order “requiring Apple, Inc. to assist in the execution of the search warrant by bypassing the lock screen of the iOS device,” according to an affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Matthew C. Knight.

Reddit hints that US now spying on its customers

It seems that the federal government has made a demand -- in a controversial secret court -- to spy on Reddit users. Normally, the discussion website Reddit would never be allowed to even acknowledge that it received such a request. But thanks to a legal hack, the company has tipped off its customers. Federal agencies have a tool of mass surveillance called a "National Security Letter."

It's a formal request that's usually issued by the FBI to an American company seeking information about customers. The legal demand is approved by a federal judge sitting on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court -- whose proceedings are kept secret -- and the subject company must stay absolutely silent about it. Sometimes, even a company's CEO doesn't know. If this request is anything like previous ones, the government is likely seeking the true identities of some Reddit customers by obtaining computer logs of all their activity on the website. The government is also likely looking at the Internet Protocol address of customers' computers to figure out their physical location. Ever since ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed the extent of US government surveillance, some technology companies have adopted a legal hack to alert the public when they receive these secret demands for information. It's called a "warrant canary." Here's the logic: Although a company can't say when it has received a National Security Letter, it can say when it has not received one. So, some companies have included special language in public statements saying things like, "We haven't received an NSL yet." The idea is, when an NSL comes around, the language disappears. It's like a canary in a coal mine that dies when exposed to toxic gas.

What President Obama gets wrong about the media echo chamber

[Commentary] President Barack Obama has had strong words for the press over the past few weeks, most recently at a dinner with journalists. He's blamed the news media for political polarization, arguing that journalists don't enough to challenge Americans' preconceptions. When people tune into the news, the President says, they can choose media outlets that report the facts with a bias that favors their point of view. He's also argued that journalists don't do enough to question the often outrageous claims that politicians make on the record, suggesting obliquely that the press should subject GOP front-runner Donald Trump to more scrutiny. "Some people are just watching Fox News; some people are just reading the New York Times," President Obama said in January. "They almost occupy two different realities in terms of how they see the world." Yet recent research on how Americans watch, read and listen to the news contradicts this conventional wisdom that people on each side are trapped in virtual echo chambers in which they never hear different political views. Yes, people spend more time with outlets that convey a point of view that conforms to their own. There is no evidence, however, that people avoid information that contradicts their worldview. In their daily lives, Americans hear plenty from the other side.

Internet Association warns against 'radical changes' in copyright review

A group representing Internet companies like Google and Facebook told a federal office that protecting companies from litigation as long as they police copyright violations works to ensure adequate copyright protection online. The comments concern a legal provision — known as section 512 — that shields service providers from liability for hosting or transmitting content that infringes on copyright, as long as they adequately deal with such violations. The law created a system of notices that users can file to ask a website to take down content that they believe violates copyright.

The Internet Association filed comments with the US Copyright Office on April 1 saying that its “member companies depend on the certainty and clarity in Section 512 to provide users and creators access to a broad diversity of content available on a variety of platforms.” “Radical changes to the existing safe harbors would chill incentives to invest and innovate at a time when both are sorely needed globally,” said association president Michael Beckerman. “Changes that increase the burden on intermediaries would also likely create the unintended consequence of building a regulatory moat around existing Internet platforms. On the other side of this regulatory moat would be smaller startups that do not have access to the capital needed to hire sophisticated compliance teams.”

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