{"id":18514,"date":"2017-10-12T17:59:08","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T21:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=18514"},"modified":"2017-10-16T17:05:52","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T21:05:52","slug":"deputy-attorney-general-rosensteins-responsible-encryption-demand-is-bad-and-he-should-feel-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2017\/10\/12\/deputy-attorney-general-rosensteins-responsible-encryption-demand-is-bad-and-he-should-feel-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein\u2019s \u201cResponsible Encryption\u201d Demand is Bad and He Should Feel Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein\u00a0delivered a speech<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday about what he calls \u201cresponsible encryption\u201d today. It misses the mark, by far.<\/p>\n

Rosenstein starts with a fallacy, attempting to convince you that encryption is unprecedented:<\/p>\n

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Our society has never had a system where evidence of criminal wrongdoing was totally impervious to detection, especially when officers obtain a court-authorized warrant. But that is the world that technology companies are creating.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In fact, we\u2019ve always had (and will always have) a perfectly reliable system whereby criminals can hide their communications with strong security: in-person conversations. Moreover, Rosenstein\u2019s history lesson forgets that, for about 70 years, there was an unpickable lock. In the 1770s, engineer Joseph Bramah created a lock that remained unpickable\u00a0until 1851<\/a>. Installed in a safe, the owner could ensure that no one could get inside, or at least not without destroying the contents in the process.<\/p>\n

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Billions of instant messages are sent and received each day using mainstream apps employing default end-to-end encryption. The app creators do something that the law does not allow telephone carriers to do: they exempt themselves from complying with court orders.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here, Rosenstein ignores the fact that Congress exempted those app creators-\u201celectronic messaging services\u201d- from the Computer Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). Moreover, CALEA\u00a0does not require telephone carriers to decrypt<\/a>\u00a0encryption where users hold the keys. Instead, Section 1002(b)(3) of CALEA provides:<\/p>\n

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(3) Encryption. A telecommunications carrier shall not be responsible for decrypting, or ensuring the government\u2019s ability to decrypt, any communication encrypted by a subscriber or customer, unless the encryption was provided by the carrier and the carrier possesses the information necessary to decrypt the communication.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By definition, when the customer sends end-to-end encrypted messages\u2014in any kind of reasonably secure implementation\u2014the carrier does not (and should not) possess the information necessary to decrypt them.<\/p>\n

With his faulty premises in place, Rosenstein makes his pitch, coining yet another glib phrase to describe a backdoor.<\/p>\n

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Responsible encryption is achievable. Responsible encryption can involve effective, secure encryption that allows access only with judicial authorization. Such encryption already exists. Examples include the central management of security keys and operating system updates; the scanning of content, like your e-mails, for advertising purposes; the simulcast of messages to multiple destinations at once; and key recovery when a user forgets the password to decrypt a laptop.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As an initial matter, \u201cthe scanning of content, like your e-mails, for advertising purposes\u201d is not an example of encryption, \u201cresponsible\u201d or otherwise. Rosenstein\u2019s other examples are just describing systems where the government or another third party holds the keys. This is known as \u201ckey escrow,\u201d and, as well explained in the\u00a0Keys Under Doormats<\/a>\u00a0paper, the security and policy problems with key escrow are not only unsolved, but unsolvable.<\/p>\n

Perhaps sensitive to the criticisms of the government\u2019s relentless attempts to rename backdoors, Rosenstein claims \u201cNo one calls any of those functions a \u201cback door.\u201d In fact, those capabilities are marketed and sought out by many users.\u201d In fact, critics of backdoors have fairly consistently called\u00a0key escrow solutions \u201cbackdoors.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0And any reasonable reader would call Google\u2019s ability to access your email a backdoor, especially when\u00a0that backdoor is used by unauthorized parties such as Chinese hackers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Such a proposal would not require every company to implement the same type of solution. The government need not require the use of a particular chip or algorithm, or require any particular key management technique or escrow. The law need not mandate any particular means in order to achieve the crucial end: when a court issues a search warrant or wiretap order to collect evidence of crime, the provider should be able to help.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is the new DOJ dodge. In the past, whenever the government tried to specify \u2018secure\u2019 backdoored encryption solutions, researchers found security holes \u2013 for example, rather famously the\u00a0Clipper Chip<\/a>\u00a0was broken quickly and thoroughly.<\/p>\n

So now, the government refuses to propose any specific technical solution, choosing to skate around the issue by simply asking technologists to \u201cnerd harder\u201d until the magical dream of\u00a0secure golden keys<\/a>\u00a0is achieved.<\/p>\n

Rosenstein attempts to soften his demand with an example of a company holding private keys.<\/p>\n

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A major hardware provider, for example, reportedly maintains private keys that it can use to sign software updates for each of its devices. That would present a huge potential security problem, if those keys were to leak. But they do not leak, because the company knows how to protect what is important.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a fallacy for several reasons. First, perfect security is an unsolved problem. No one,\u00a0not even the NSA<\/a>, knows how to protect information with zero chance of leaks. Second, the security challenge of protecting a signing key, used only to sign software updates, is much less than the challenge of protecting a system which needs access to the keys for communications at the push of a button, for millions of users around the globe.<\/p>\n

Rosenstein then attempts to raise the stakes to near apocalyptic levels:<\/p>\n

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If companies are permitted to create law-free zones for their customers, citizens should understand the consequences. When police cannot access evidence, crime cannot be solved. Criminals cannot be stopped and punished.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a bit much. For a long time, people have had communications that were not constantly available for later government access. For example, when pay phones were ubiquitous, criminals used them anonymously, without a recording of every call. Yet, crime solving did not stop. In any case, law enforcement has been\u00a0entirely unable to provide solid examples<\/a>\u00a0of encryption foiling even a handful of actual criminal prosecutions.<\/p>\n

Finally, in his conclusion, Rosenstein misstates the law and misunderstands the Constitution.<\/p>\n

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Allow me to conclude with this thought: There is no constitutional right to sell warrant-proof encryption. If our society chooses to let businesses sell technologies that shield evidence even from court orders, it should be a fully-informed decision.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is simply incorrect. Code is speech, and\u00a0courts have recognized<\/a>\u00a0a Constitutional right to distribute encryption code. As the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals noted:<\/p>\n

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The availability and use of secure encryption may \u2026 reclaim some portion of the privacy we have lost. Gov\u2019t efforts to control encryption thus may well implicate not only the First Amendment rights \u2026 but also the constitutional rights of each of us as potential recipients of encryption\u2019s bounty.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here, Rosenstein focuses on a \u201cright to sell,\u201d so perhaps the DOJ means to distinguish \u201cselling\u201d under the commercial speech doctrine, and argue that First Amendment protections are therefore lower. That would be quite a stretch, as commercial speech is generally understood as speech proposing a commercial transaction. Newspapers, for example, do not face weaker First Amendment protections simply because they sell their newspapers.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice has said that they want to have an \u201cadult conversation<\/a>\u201d about encryption. This is not it. The DOJ needs to understand that secure end-to-end encryption is a responsible security measure that helps protect people.<\/p>\n

Source: Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein\u2019s \u201cResponsible Encryption\u201d Demand is Bad and He Should Feel Bad | Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n