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California Joins New York in Effort to Weaken Smartphone Encryption

Thursday January 21, 2016 3:15 pm PST by Juli Clover
passcodeAs the argument over smartphone encryption continues on between device manufacturers like Apple, devoted to strong encryption, and U.S. federal government officials pushing for backdoors to access data, several states have gotten involved in the fray.

New York State Assemblymember Matthew Titone introduced a bill last summer that would require smartphone manufacturers to create devices that can be decrypted or unlocked or face fines, and now California State Assemblymember Jim Cooper is following in his footsteps.

Cooper on Wednesday introduced a bill that would require any smartphone manufactured after January 1, 2017 and sold in California to "be capable of being decrypted and unlocked by its manufacturer or its operating system provider." Violations carry a $2,500 fee per phone.

Should such a bill pass, it would, like the New York bill, affect both Apple and Google. iOS and Android have default encryption settings that do not allow the companies to access locked customer phones. Starting with iOS 8, Apple ceased storing encryption keys for iOS devices, making it impossible for the company to unlock content on passcode-protected devices under police request.

In a conversation with Ars Technica, Cooper argued that giving local law enforcement officials the tools to access unencrypted smartphones using warrants to fight crimes like human trafficking was not the same as giving the NSA or CIA unfettered access.
"If you're a bad guy [we] can get a search record for your bank, for your house, you can get a search warrant for just about anything," Cooper told Ars in a brief phone call on Wednesday afternoon. "For the industry to say it's privacy, it really doesn't hold any water. We're going after human traffickers and people who are doing bad and evil things. Human trafficking trumps privacy, no ifs, ands, or buts about it."
In a meeting with White House officials last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook urged the Obama administration to issue a strong public statement defending unbreakable encryption and to adopt a "no backdoors" policy.

In all of his recent interviews, Cook has spoken passionately about Apple's commitment to user privacy and its strong stance on encryption. "There have been people that suggest that we should have a backdoor," Cook told Charlie Rose in December. "But the reality is if you put a back door in, that back door's for everybody, for good guys and bad guys."

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tag: Encryption
[ 243 comments ]


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rdlink
40 months ago

There are pros and cons for both side. Good debate


There is no justification whatsoever for this. It's overreaching lazy law enforcement.
Rating: 76 Votes
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zioxide
40 months ago
Another idiot politician trying to make laws about things they do not understand.


Tim Cook should suspend the entire new Apple Campus construction project until this bill is tossed. Watch how fast the government would cave if it looks like they would lose all that economic benefit of Apple building their new campus there.
Rating: 64 Votes
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sesnir
40 months ago


Human trafficking trumps privacy


No, it doesn't, and that's clearly dangerous. For example, it would seem unreasonable to declare that you need to start spying on all Americans to make sure that nobody is participating in human trafficking.

"Yes, we're reading your emails, listening to all of your conversations online and offline and tracking your movements. But we're just trying to make sure you aren't a human trafficker!"
Rating: 55 Votes
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rdlink
40 months ago
EFF YOU TOO, CALIFORNIA.
Rating: 52 Votes
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SHirsch999
40 months ago
Ok California and NY residents - keep these representatives in your memory when their next election cycle comes around. They're obviously not intelligent enough to understand that these back doors can and will also be used by hackers.
Rating: 42 Votes
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Crosscreek
40 months ago
Any time you leave a backdoor open someone will find a way in.
Rating: 39 Votes
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T-Will
40 months ago
I'm so sick of these ******s. Have these politicians ever heard of the 4th amendment?
Rating: 32 Votes
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ThunderSkunk
40 months ago
Terrorism is bad, therefore we will destroy everyone's civil liberties, rights, and freedom until we've destroyed the very fabric of the untied states.

Human trafficking is bad, therefore we will destroy everyone's civil liberties, rights, and freedom until we've destroyed the very fabric of the untied states.

Idiotic country.
Rating: 25 Votes
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nightcap965
40 months ago
No, human trafficking does NOT trump privacy. Nor does terrorism, or insulting Assemblymember Jim Cooper by calling him a pusillanimous pissant, or any number of other things.
Rating: 23 Votes
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ThunderSkunk
40 months ago

If a warrant is required, then I'm actually okay with this.


You know what it takes to get a warrant? About a 12 second phone call.

'Hey judge, I'm at 1234 Thomas Paine road and I need a warrant.
Ok.
Thanks."

Thanks to the Rico drug laws intended for the worst offenders now being applied to anyone and everyone 100% of the time, warrants are meaningless. Give authoritarians an inch, they take a mile and never give it back. Every time. In every country, all throughout human history. People never learn.
Rating: 21 Votes

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