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Barr Asks Apple to Unlock Pensacola Killer’s Phones, Setting Up Clash - The New York Times [paywall]
The request set up a collision between law enforcement and big technology firms in the latest battle over privacy and security.
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr declared on Monday that a deadly shooting last month at a naval air station in Pensacola, Fla., was an act of terrorism, and he asked Apple in an unusually high-profile request to provide access to two phones used by the gunman.
Mr. Barr’s appeal was an escalation of a continuing fight between the Justice Department and Apple pitting personal privacy against public safety.
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This controversy has been going on for a number of years. Apple & other smart phone makers have software that allows them to unlock the cryptographic lock that protects the data in these phones. But allowing the government access to it violates a number of civil liberties rights protections as well as destroying much of the attractiveness of this security feature on their phone products.
The FBI & NSA should have equivalent unlocking software in their bag of tricks. If they don't, they have to develop it.
Supercomputers can generate every possible password for these phones, given enough time. It's equivalent to the classic argument that given enough monkeys at typewriters they will eventually turn out the works of Shakespeare.
The request set up a collision between law enforcement and big technology firms in the latest battle over privacy and security.
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr declared on Monday that a deadly shooting last month at a naval air station in Pensacola, Fla., was an act of terrorism, and he asked Apple in an unusually high-profile request to provide access to two phones used by the gunman.
Mr. Barr’s appeal was an escalation of a continuing fight between the Justice Department and Apple pitting personal privacy against public safety.
======================================================
This controversy has been going on for a number of years. Apple & other smart phone makers have software that allows them to unlock the cryptographic lock that protects the data in these phones. But allowing the government access to it violates a number of civil liberties rights protections as well as destroying much of the attractiveness of this security feature on their phone products.
The FBI & NSA should have equivalent unlocking software in their bag of tricks. If they don't, they have to develop it.
Supercomputers can generate every possible password for these phones, given enough time. It's equivalent to the classic argument that given enough monkeys at typewriters they will eventually turn out the works of Shakespeare.