EFA concerned by Nikolic appointment, lack of support for encryption
EFA is concerned about yesterday’s announcement that Tasmanian MP Andrew Nikolic is to be appointed as Chair of the critical Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Mr Nikolic’s hard-line views on national security issues and his apparent disdain for civil liberties suggest that he is unlikely to bring a balanced and objective perspective to […]
Apple v FBI is ALL about the precedent
Over and over again as people keep talking about the Apple / FBI encryption stuff, I keep seeing the same line pop up. It’s something along the lines of “but the FBI needs to know what’s on that phone, so if Apple can help, why shouldn’t it.” Let’s debunk that myth. The FBI absolutely does […]
Did the FBI deliberately force Apple into a corner?
There has already been much discussion about the many issues with the DOJ’s motion to compel Apple to create a backdoor to let them brute force the passcode on Syed Farook’s iPhone. However, eagle-eyed Chris Soghoian caught something especially interesting in a footnote. Footnote 7, on page 18 details four possible ways that Apple and the […]
Clipper Chip Redux
I read the news headlines and sometimes it is hard to tell what decade we are in. Just over 20 years ago, the National Security Agency developed and tried to make standard an encryption device with a built-in backdoor called the Clipper Chip. At that point it was intended for voice communications but inevitably would […]
Governments undermining encryption will do more harm than good
Western governments, notably the UK and the US, are pushing the software industry to open “backdoors” into our encrypted communications. The argument touted by government agencies for nearly 20 years is that terrorists use strong encryption to hide their communications, therefore we should ban strong encryption. British Prime Minister David Cameron has been outspoken in […]