You Cannot Escape the Big Eye

From the UK:

Companies such as Apple, Google and others will no longer be able to offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot decipher it when asked to, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Measures in the Investigatory Powers Bill will place in law a requirement on tech firms and service providers to be able to provide unencrypted communications to the police or spy agencies if requested through a warrant.

[...]

On its website, Apple promotes the fact that it has, for example, “no way to decrypt iMessage and FaceTime data when it’s in transit between devices”.

It adds: “So unlike other companies’ messaging services, Apple doesn’t scan your communications, and we wouldn’t be able to comply with a wiretap order even if we wanted to.”

[...]

Ministers have no plans to ban encryption services because they have an important role in the protection of legitimate online activity such as banking and personal data.

  UK Telegraph

I call bullshit on that. If they are mandating encryption that can be broken, they are effectively banning encryption.

I don't know how this affects the rest of the world if implemented, but we're at the same point here where Ladar Levison shut down his US company (Lavabit: encrypted email services) rather than comply with a similar demand from the FBI. I'm sure Apple won't be folding.

British police already have the power to compel someone to disclose cryptographic keys under RIPA (i.e., to order decryption on provision of a warrant).

[...]

Where a corporat[ion] such as Apple, Google, or WhatsApp knows about or engineers a weakness in encryption, this will allow an attacker to utilise and take advantage of that same weakness, no matter who that attacker is. Whether it be the service of a warrant by the home secretary, a foreign state, a terrorist, or that most insidious of threats, a bored teen-ager, all are equal before the eyes of mathematics.

  Weia Industries

Indeed.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Your Meaningless Civil Liberties

If my experience serves any purpose, it is to illustrate what most already know: courts must not be allowed to consider matters of great importance under the shroud of secrecy, lest we find ourselves summarily deprived of meaningful due process. If we allow our government to continue operating in secret, it is only a matter of time before you or a loved one find yourself in a position like I did – standing in a secret courtroom, alone, and without any of the meaningful protections that were always supposed to be the people's defense against an abuse of the state's power.

  The Guardian

Read the entire (short) article for Ladar Levison’s explanation of why he had to shut down Lavabit, and how he was treated by the US government.  Perhaps one day the Snowden Leaks will lead to changes that allow Mr. Levison to sue the US government for the loss of his business.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tangling with the Feds? Get a Lawyer, Early

A federal appeals court has upheld a contempt citation against the founder of the defunct secure e-mail company Lavabit, finding that the weighty internet privacy issues he raised on appeal should have been brought up earlier in the legal process.

The decision disposes of a closely watched privacy case on a technicality, without ruling one way or the other on the substantial issue: whether an internet company can be compelled to turn over the master encryption keys for its entire system to facilitate court-approved surveillance on a single user.

[...]

Levison resisted the order on the grounds that he couldn’t comply without reprogramming the elaborate encryption system he’d built to protect his users’ privacy. He eventually relented and offered to gather up the email metadata and transmit it to the government after 60 days. Later he offered to engineer a faster solution. But by then, weeks had passed, and the FBI was determined to get what it wanted directly and in real time.

[...]

The government promised it wouldn’t use the key to spy on Lavabit’s other 400,000 users, which the key would technically enable them to do.

[...]

[C]ourt filings suggest strongly that the target was indicted NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Lavabit’s most famous user.

[...]

Levison turned over the keys as a nearly illegible computer printout in 4-point type. In early August, Hilton – who once served on the top-secret FISA court – ordered Levison to provide the keys instead in the industry-standard electronic format, and began fining him $5,000 a day for noncompliance.

After two days, Levison complied, but then immediately shuttered Lavabit altogether.

[...]


[T]he appeals court today said that the bulk of Levison’s arguments couldn’t be considered, because he hadn’t clearly raised them in the lower court, where he represented himself without a lawyer for much of the proceedings.
[...]

The 4th Circuit panel wasn’t terribly sympathetic to the privacy issues during oral arguments in the case. So today’s ruling on a procedural technicality is probably for the best. And the next time a secure e-mail provider tangles with the feds, you can bet it will get a lawyer earlier on in the process.

  Wired

"The privacy issue."  You don't need privacy.  You need authority.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And Good Luck to You, Sir

The owner of the now-shuttered encrypted email service used by Edward Snowden told RT that he plans to fight for a strong precedent via the court system so that US internet providers can refuse to hand over customers’ personal info and communications.

Ladar Levison abruptly shut down his company, Lavabit LLC, on August 8 to avoid being forced to hand over customers’ personal information and communications.

[...]

Levison said he hopes his case can help set such a legal precedent. In the meantime, he is entertaining the possibility of moving his service overseas, though he is not yet confident such an arrangement could achieve security for his customers free of US spying.

[...]

Levison said last week he believes he could face criminal charges for refusing to comply with the secret order.

[...]

“When you say no to the government, they have the ability to take everything,” he said of defying the government by continuing Lavabit and not complying with the order. “They have the ability to take your business, take your money and take your freedom. And there really isn’t all that much you can do about it. I was looking at the very real possibility of an impossible debt and possibly being put in jail and still not being able to tell people why I was even in jail.”

[...]

“I’m going to keep standing on my soapbox and shouting as loudly as I can for as long as people will listen. My biggest fear when I shut down the service was that nobody would notice, nobody would care and my biggest hope was that when I shut down the service it would lead to some positive change. I’m going to continue fighting for a strong precedent via the court system and I’m going to continue to lobby Congress for change in the laws,” he said.

  RT

If only we had a Congress.

Click image for video interview: