FBI Director Christopher Wray. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The FBI seems to be at war with technology experts, privacy, and security. They’ve lashed out at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and all others implementing encryption to improve security and privacy for their users. Encryption is the technology that protects your banking information. It makes your devices less valuable to thieves. It keeps you safe.
But it also keeps criminals safe. It’s like burning messages after you’ve read them, making the FBI’s attempts to access the data difficult. Like messages burned upon arrival, the best way to get at encrypted the information is to intercept it prior to encryption or after decryption. There are many ways to do this without creating backdoors through privacy security, opening citizens all over the world to threats of thieves, hackers, and oppressive governments.
Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, again spoke out against universal encryption and personal security during, of all things, the RSA cybersecurity conference.
Christopher Wray’s View
Wray believes encryption should be more limited than it is currently. However, he doesn’t specify how. He merely stated that he doesn’t like what the FBI calls “going dark,” that is, information that could help their cases is encrypted and unreachable. It’s as though criminals are using secure channels to pass notes, and destroying those notes.
It seems that the FBI isn’t so much disappointed in encryption, but criminals getting smart enough to hide against the FBI’s newest tools of tracking them. Of course, criminals will always find ways around any barriers.
“It can’t be a sustainable end state for there to be an entirely unfettered space that’s utterly beyond law enforcement for criminals to hide.”
– Christopher Wray
For Wray, any security that protects tech users against them is wrong. The problem is, that tech can’t tell the difference between criminals and civilians, and we all use the same security. If the FBI can get to criminals, criminals can get to us.
Backdoors Spread, We Can’t Trust Anyone
Wray and the rest of the FBI continue to ignore the flaws in their plans. Backdoor hacks spread. Hacking material eventually ends up in criminal hands. And we can’t even trust police officers or NSA agents with this technology because we cannot trust all of them. The power is too great, and the opposition to policing that power is even greater.
There are solutions here, but they require more traditional police work. They need to focus on infiltration and interception. The FBI can use fake cellphone towers and WiFi networks to bypass—rather than crack—encryption. They can continue to use real-world investigative techniques to solve crimes. The FBI isn’t as powerless as they want you to believe. That’s why the NSA has historically countered the FBI, arguing in favor of consumer level encryption, security, and privacy.
The NSA and technology experts agree: if consumers aren’t secure, none of us are. What the FBI is suggesting would put us all in danger. Somehow, despite nearly unanimous opposition to their stance, the FBI still hasn’t listened to the experts.
However, there’s hope. It seems Cray may have finally loosened up a little on his standpoint. He didn’t speak of backdoors or completely blocking consumer-level encryption. Perhaps we’re finally getting though to him and the FBI?
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