Government Can't Let Smartphones Be `Black Boxes,' Obama Says.

[lockedout]

Obama advises tech industry to compromise before Congress acts
President appears at South by Southwest as FBI sues Apple Inc.

President Barack Obama said Friday that smartphones -- like the iPhone the FBI is trying to force Apple Inc. to help it hack -- can’t be allowed to be "black boxes," inaccessible to the government. The technology industry, he said, should work with the government instead of leaving the issue to Congress.

"You cannot take an absolutist view on this," Obama said at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. "If your argument is strong encryption no matter what, and we can and should create black boxes, that I think does not strike the kind of balance we have lived with for 200, 300 years, and it’s fetishizing our phones above every other value."

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...h-by-southwest

[Wyrt]

How have we had balance on cell phones for 200-300 years?

[Jonnusthegreat]

I guess government wants to be the big bad boy, and so does the tech industry.

[Cthulhu 2020]

If Obama wasn't pursuing the issue of unlocking a terrorist's phone, the GOP would be all over him for going soft on terrorism.

[Jonnusthegreat]

How have we had balance on cell phones for 200-300 years?

He is saying that we have not had precedent for an incidence like this.

[ComputerNerd]

If the government had not been so underhanded with their previous behaviour then there wouldn't have been this move to encryption by default.
Their own actions are coming back to bite them, and yet it is always the fault of someone else.

[Deleted]

Yeah, go fuck yourself Obama

[the game]

Yeah this is another reason why marijuana should be illegal. Obama is clearly high in this article.

[Chiquihuite]

What happens when we develop tech that enables mind reading? Would the government's argument then be that our minds can't be "black boxes"? Their argument against encryption is ridiculous. They have more than adequate means of gathering communication data without the need to compromise data security, especially considering that adding backdoors "that we'll only use for the bad guys" still requires adding backdoors for everyone, and leaves ALL of our devices vulnerable.

[hrugner]

Tech security and lack of whistle blower protections are my two biggest problems with this guy.

People's phones are, despite cautions against this, connected to literally everything a person deals with on a regular basis. Their friends, banks, work, future plans, compromising images, everything. People's increasing awareness that it may be a bad idea to have all that shit on them all the time is starting to manifest as obsessive protection over the security of their phones. And rightfully so. This isn't a place for compromise, the FBI has plenty of access to people's private lives through other routes, they don't need this one as well.

[Zenotetsuken]

Yeah, go fuck yourself Obama

Honestly, going to have to agree with you on this. For as shitty a company as Apple is, I respect them a little more for this, and really hope they continue to refuse to give in to this BS.

[xChurch]

Before congress acts? That one was good for a laugh.

[techgeek]

Play silly games, win silly prizes...

When they stop pulling stupid shit, (won't happen) I'll be willing to stop switching to more secure platforms/systems.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Yeah, go fuck yourself Obama

So mature @_@ At least try to be constructive.


OT:Precedence or not I think opening the terrorist cell phone is fine. Deciding to put a back door in the software for all phones is a No No.

[lockedout]

Before congress acts? That one was good for a laugh.

Yeah it made my day as well.

[the game]

So mature @_@ At least try to be constructive.


OT:Precedence or not I think opening the terrorist cell phone is fine. Deciding to put a back door in the software for all phones is a No No.

if they do it for one then it sets a precedence to do it to more. The government won't stop at just one phone.

[techgeek]

So mature @_@ At least try to be constructive.


OT:Precedence or not I think opening the terrorist cell phone is fine. Deciding to put a back door in the software for all phones is a No No.

Allowing nearly every server, router, and computer that ever touches America to be bugged in one way or another is an absolute fucking joke and it surprises me that nobody ever got mad enough to do something stupid about it.

Did you know that there's an amazingly high chance the NSA already has some level of access to your BIOS?

[Mistame]

If they're trying to access a phone of someone who committed a crime (or act of terror) then it should follow any other "search and seizure" scenario. However, companies should not be required to put "back doors" into electronic devices and give the government access "just in case".

If Obama wasn't pursuing the issue of unlocking a terrorist's phone, the GOP would be all over him for going soft on terrorism.

Quick to the bash there, son.

[SodiumChloride]

Funny thing is, they aren't black boxes. The FBI can at anytime force Apple to hand over the design docs of the iPhone, PCB layout, chip design, iOS source code ... etc. The problem is, it won't help them break it.

Encryption system are design such that even if you know the system inside out, without the decryption key, you aren't decoding the ciphered text. Period.

I like Obama but he is barking up the wrong tree here.

[eschatological]

I agree that the government should have a right to serve a warrant on a phone on reasonable evidence of a crime....


...I don't agree that this puts responsibility on the manufacturer of the phone to ensure that warrant gets what it wants. In an ideal world, the FBI/CIA/NSA's ability to crack encryption outpaces commercially available encryption. That is no longer true.

It's an unsolvable problem. I can't see anything but huge issues with allowing back doors into encryption.