What do you have to gain by going onto Hacker News and posting conspiracies theories about DEA disinformation? Are you working for some kind of anti-US gov agency perhaps?
>What do you have to gain by going onto Hacker News and posting conspiracies theories about DEA disinformation? Are you working for some kind of anti-US gov agency perhaps?
For one, why assume he cares at all about US gov agencies? HN is international. There are people here who could not care less about US agencies. Not to mention there are people who despise their abuses and privacy breaches, including lots of Americans.
Second, not everything is a "conspiracy theory". And not every "conspiracy theory" is laughable (e.g about aliens or illuminati). Real-life conspiracies (people, agencies etc, conspiring to do some stuff in secret to gain something) happen all the time. Actually conspiracy (covertly trying to spread misinformation or to gain state information or to steal trade secrets etc) is the very thing secret agencies do.
Sure. But that's not an argument against it being possible (or actually true).
I mean, in your example there are 3 cases:
1) Obviously that can't, and they want you to shy away from using iMessage!
2) Obviously they can, and they want you to keep/start using it!
3) They can't and they are frank about it.
It could be either of the three.
We cannot say that it can only be (3) because "(1) and (2) are conspiracies".
We cannot even say that (3) is more possible because it doesn't involve a conspiracy.
It depends on more information and context to decide. Some situations we know quite well that are unlikely to involve conspiracies ("Jack said he went to Spain for holidays").
Other situations, we know quite well that are more likely to involve conspiracies ("The other 2 co-founders of my startup had a private meeting with a VC without informing me").
Now, something involving state agencies, I'd say is quite likely to involve some kind of conspiracy.
Technically, if not done in a public forum, its a conspiracy (two or more parties working together not in the open). In a republic, we tend to look down on those kinds of things when at least one of the parties is a government agency, or an agent of an agency. Conspiracies don't have to result in falsehoods being spread.
I don't care whether you think I was being too specific in my choice of location. If you have read it, the article was about a US government agency.
Sure, there are real life conspiracies, but understand this, just because we can define a conspiracy as 'the very thing secret agencies do' does not prove that the DAE is conspiring to release PR articles to spread disinformation.
There's no evidence of what the OP suggested but there is a whole lot of paranoia and emotions running wild and it doesn't befit this place.
Oh, you were serious about your initial comment. I wasn't asserting that the this was a DEA plant, or assuming any conspiracy. If I had to guess I'd say the DEA is indeed flustered by iMessage.
My point, made jokingly, is that it's hard to tell between "real reporting of the DEA being flustered" from "planted reporting to get criminals to use iMessage and get busted". Hopefully encouraging critical inquiry of news sources befits this place.
* regular SMS/MMS messages sent from the Messaging app on Android, in which case: No, of course not. Those go directly to the cellular modem in the device. Or
* messages sent/received using Google Voice, in which case: Probably. These are scraps of data that live on Google's servers, just like data within Gmail/GTalk/et al. They have mp3 audio and text transcriptions of all your incoming voicemail that comes in through GV.
Not really. The DEA is perfectly aware that such an article would be trivially identified as an inept ruse by anyone wearing cheap and easy-to-construct tinfoil headgear.
People said that about BlackBerry BBM messages, and Nextel DirectConnect too.
But shortly thereafter, you started hearing about countries collaborating with BlackBerry to decrypt messages... first in palces like Saudi Arabia and Dubai, then in places like the UK. That tends to support the assertion that BBM was difficult/impossible to intercept.
There's no advantage to them in people using iMessage. They can easily get your text messages already.
You could go high-tinfoil and claim they would rather people iMessaged than using whatsapp or some other free message service? But anyone thinking about avoiding federal intercepts would use neither of these things rendering this piece worthless.
So what do they actually have to gain?
It seems more likely to me that this is a real problem than a PR piece.
If I were the feds and I had an intimate relationship with AT&T (hi, warrantless wiretaps!) and VWZ and other wireless providers stretching back decades, and all of these other wireless providers sent SMS content in the clear, I'd very much want everyone in the world to continue to use SMS.
Encrypting text messages with iMessage or a similar service simply makes my life more difficult. And remember Apple has been lobbying against a law that would extend CALEA to iMessage.
This could encourage people to use an encrypted messaging program that is closed-source, has a large attack surface, and that might not be patched if a flaw is found. So they do have some incentive to get people to use iMessage over something like Cryptocat.
The choice for 99.99% of Apple users is not iMessage vs. Cryptocat. It's iMessage vs. unencrypted SMS transmitted and in some cases retained by carriers with close relationships with FedGov.
Yeah but everyone and their mom knows or should know that regular txt messages are easily taken. Maybe the street corner kids use the plain messages but the big fish might slip and use a crackable method. DEA could be waiting
I think that may why the memo was marked law-enforcement-sensitive and wasn't supposed to get out.
Or the whole thing is a CIA/FBI ruse to encourage people to use a service they have a secret door into, i.e., see Nrsolis's comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5492994.
If they actualy can or can not read the messages is left as an excercize to the reader.
What I can say with certainty is that the communications are not as secure as the article make them look like. Apple can still get you, and they can still get Apple...
About a year ago, a SA from a certain three-letter agency who was pretty fluent in technology (our conversation largely centered around Bitcoin) mentioned that iMessage is not end-to-end encryption. That, to his understanding, it was client<-->apple<-->client TLS encryption.
I think I might actually side with the tin-foils on this one. In any case, iMessage isn't a (well-)documented protocols implementation, so I wouldn't rely on it for security.
Edit: Public scrutiny seems to back up the SA's claim [1].
Yeah I was looking for actual message content in there and couldn't spot it. Not saying that Apple isn't misrepresenting, but I couldn't spot proof that your messages are getting sent without encryption.
Maybe for warrantless wiretaps, yes. But for any legal surveillance, they'll just get a warrant and compel Apple/Microsoft/Twitter/Whoever to hand over any data they have.
If the end user isn't managing the keys, and the service provider is then the law states that they MUST provide decrypted traffic or provide the keys to decrypt the traffic to law enforcement.
Do you have a cite to the section of the U.S. Code that says that? That applies to companies such as Apple, Google, FB, etc.? (Hint: it doesn't exist.)
"(3) Encryption
A telecommunications carrier shall not be responsible for decrypting, or ensuring the government’s 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."
Also, declan, I was in the room during meetings with the FBI when I worked for a large telecommunications carrier. I integrated the CALEA mediation platform with the IP network and I'm well aware of what is required and not required to be present in the network regarding CALEA.
IANAL, but you would be wise to consider that the FBI considers the former "information service providers" to be "telecommunications providers" to the extent that they can convince a judge that they are acting as one. I wouldn't think I was safe because I was using any kind of messaging where I couldn't control the keys, the software that uses them, and the distribution and verification of said keys.
Thanks for your response! I don't disagree with your representation of the law (or the practice of the FBI) as it applies to traditional telecommunications carriers. They're clearly covered by CALEA.
But Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are simply not telecommunications carriers. That's the whole point. CALEA as enacted in 1994 doesn't apply to them, and even the FCC didn't try to apply CALEA to them when subsequently expanding the law. This is why both the FBI director and the FBI general counsel said in the last two weeks they want Congress to rewrite the law to cover those companies.
CALEA applies to "facilities-based broadband Internet
access providers and providers of interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)." Pure TCP/IP services are not "interconnected." See page #2 of the FCC's order: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-56A...
If you're saying that the FBI sometimes gets judges and companies to go beyond what the law allows, you may be right. On the other hand, companies are under no obligation to comply, as we see in this new lawsuit: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57577958-38/google-fights-...
It's worth noting that I got dragged into this project when the District Court ruled that "information service providers" were subject to regulation under CALEA. This kicked off a huge project to bring the IP network into compliance.
It's not a stretch to imagine an situation where a company decides to fight and loses, thus looping in a huge number of companies that might imagine that they aren't telecom providers, but a court decides they are.
There is a very fine line between SMS and iMessage. Apple provides servers that store and forward messages, and it'd be hard to argue with a straight face that a court should "think different" when comparing AT&T and Apple. Judges aren't dumb and they will pay close attention to the "substance test" when deciding if a company is providing a "telecommunications service" in a ruling.
So then, how long before there is an open-source, distributed key management system, that lets you store public keys of all your friends' phones, and end encrypted texts/etc with them, and which acts basically as only a key exchange service?
... I guess CALEA could be made to force them to MITM anyone doing key exchanges. Damn.
Apple can get access to the keys because they control the platform. I have no doubt in my mind that Apple can produce end-user keys and traffic if they were served a warrant from any US court.
I think it's more complicated than that IMO, by controlling the platform i.e. by signing keys and authenticating users they certainly can impersonate clients to others clients, but I doubt they can collect users private keys generated on users devices (of course they could if their app was explicitly sending private key to their servers but I doubt they do and I don't see a reason why they'd do it, in any case they don't need to do it).
When IOS 6.1.4 gets pushed to your iPhone in the future, consider how difficult it would be for Apple to add code that copies your privately generated keys back to Apple for "key-escrow purposes".
That's a claim that hasn't been independently verified. Absent such proof, I'd expect there to be a ready mechanism to get key material off the chip.
Even if the claim is correct, there is no guarantee that the implementation that does use the key material can use it in a way that doesn't reveal the key in another way.
Other supposedly secure key storage mechanisms have had disappointingly little luck against determined attackers. Ask any cryptographer about attacks that reveal key info in deployed and implemented crypto-systems.
I'm doing my best to track this conversation, but it's a bit over my head. So say the key cannot be read. What is to prevent Apple from delivering an iMessage software update which just POSTs each message to api.nsa.gov/warrants?
If I can copy-paste an iMessage, it's getting turned into plain text at some point...
This article and the DEA doc is confusing. It seems to mainly be saying that having a warrant to intercept cell communications won't get iMessages because it doesn't go through the cell carrier.
It's implied a bit that it is encrypted end-to-end and that Apple can't get the contents... but it doesn't seem to actually say that anywhere. This comment on StackExchange says the encryption is only from sender to Apple and Apple to recipient, so Apple has the plaintext: http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/18908/the-inner-...
Also, wouldn't the same issues have come up with BBM?
Secure end to end encryption doesn't mean government agencies can't snoop on the coms. First of all, the CIA owns own one of the largest, if not the largest supercomputer. Also, the encryption could be using CIA's own root key. Example: http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/hacks/lotus-nsa-key.html
If you can't audit it, you can't be sure it is sound. But you seem to claim that it isn't sound, which also isn't possible without an audit.
I think there are at least a few engineers at Apple capable of implementing this correctly. Not that I assume it's unbreakable, I'm just not as pessimistic.
> But you seem to claim that it isn't sound, which also isn't possible without an audit.
That's not quite true, right? If encryption was successfully broken, then you wouldn't need an audit. Even if it wasn't broken, there's still things like this: http://pthree.org/2012/02/17/ecb-vs-cbc-encryption/
Whether or not the software is secure from Apple is a moot point if Apple can, at any point in time, deploy an arbitrary software update that only affects a single device.
I presume Apple has the ability to send a backdoored update to iMessage to any user they want, and probably to obfuscate it well enough to not tip anyone off. Therefore, if DEA can get a warrant requiring Apple to provide technical assistance, Apple has at least one route to get message plaintext.
Smart Jabber users (those who want privacy) exchange public keys, encrypt each message with the recipient's public key and sign each message with their private key. Unless a private key is compromised, the recipient is guaranteed the message came from the sender and that the body is only readable by the recipient.
I've been using keys with both Jabber and e-mail for a long time ... what we really need is the clients to use encryption as their default mode.
As the end of the article hints,this is highly unlikely to be actually true and more so the result of incompetence on the part of Apple and the DEA. It is most likely more of the we need better law enforcement access to stuff FUD that is used to insert backdoors into systems that actually weaken security even if you trust the government, then an actual problem
Apple appears to act as a certificate authority for IMessage [0]. At the very least Apple could man-in-the-middle any (and scarily) all their traffic. The article implies that they'd have to do this before the first message is ever sent between to parties. Presumably, we'd hope Apple has the ability to re-key the service since phones get stolen and lost, so they can forge that process to insert the bogus key. We'd probably also hope that your key is not shared across all of your devices, so it might(though its not as likely as the rekey protocol) also be possible to add a device as that is "the feds"
Yes, both of these would require active work on Apple/ law enforcement's part to forward the messages to their intended recipient. However, this isn't that much work and 2) for actual wiretaps you typically need someone to monitor the tap so you don't record information not covered by the tap(we see this in The Wire).
Lastly, there is precedent (all be it Canadian) for companies being forced to exploit vulnerabilities in their system. [1]
Also, this ignores the fact that apple has device backups of most people's devices and can probably extract keys from them ( even for the encrypted ones, its likely with a poor password)
Several years ago I worked with a senior tech that had previously worked for the NSA. For his personal private data he secured it using nothing less than 4096 bit encryption.
Due to his confidentiality agreements he couldn't provide specifics about the NSA's capabilities, he only would share his own personal security practices. After that discussion I concluded that if the US Government wanted to know something about you they could find out. Not only by technical means, but by any channel you could likely imagine. These guys are smart, the idiots you hear about in the media are field agents, not the back office folks conducting the real security work.
Since that time I've also assumed that the US has encryption technology that is at least 5 years ahead of public research. Today, I assume that means the US has access to a functional quantum computer and anything using today's encryption standards are left insecure if the right 3 letter agency wants to know.
RSA-based encryption may be insecure right now; I strongly doubt any agency has access to a quantum computer powerful enough to break it. But if it is insecure, it doesn't really matter. The US can't do anything with the information it gains, because the US can't let anyone know they can break RSA-based crypto. Once it becomes known that powerful enough quantum computers are around, the entire crypto community will switch to one of the several algorithms that are immune to quantum attacks, so their capability is really only useful for a one-time thing. If I was a major criminal organization I might have already invested time to switch algorithms.
It's interesting how easy Apple's iMessage model would lend itself to being a mass-deployed, heavily-used, CA-based asymmetric encryption network.
As I understand iMessage, when you attempt to text a number a background thread fires and checks with Apple's iMessage servers to see whether or not the number is associated with an iMessage account, then returns the end-user account details to your device so it may send a digital message addressed to that user to Apple's iMessage servers.
Replace that digital ID with a public key. Private keys are generated and kept only on your iDevice. iMessage servers are your CA. Each iDevice has a unique public key.
At this point you have a very secure, end-to-end encryption scheme. No warrantless snooping is possible, and even Apple is unaware of your message contents.
Now depending on whether you want your design to be CALEA-compatible or not, Apple can issue a new private key to the government and add it to "your" list of public keys on their CA to allow the government to intercept future messages after they have obtained a warrant. If you think you can go toe-to-toe with the FBI and exempt yourself from CALEA by claiming the design of your infrastructure does not permit for message interception, you can tweak the CA around a bit. Only one public key per user, pass private key symmetrically encrypted with a password only the user knows from one device to the other via a "secure" side channel when adding new iDevice to user's iMessage account or other workaround.
I'm absolutely not a security person, and none of what I say should be taken except as some ramblings that might have some hint of an idea beneath them. I already can think of a dozen weaknesses in this system, this kinda works only if you assume you can trust Apple to play within the rules of the framework they're making, i.e. not to try to intercept your private key, log your keystrokes, automatically add a second public key recipient to your messages, etc. Fact of the matter is, you are at their mercy. tptacek, please be gentle in gutting me.
Edit: Thanks for that link, daniel. It is comforting to know that there is indeed some base level of security. If CALEA-compliance is achieved by adding the fed's public key to a list of destination public keys for a message, that implies you should actually be able to find out whether or not you're being monitored by simply checking for new/unknown/unexpected additions to your list of public keys. Of course, there are other methods of doing this that wouldn't be as easy to detect, e.g. maybe there is an out-of-band request for additional public keys to send to, maybe the fed's public key is already embedded in the device and is being used invisibly every time, etc. etc. etc.
Edit2: For people wondering if syncing of old iMessages between devices means iMessage doesn't work like this, I don't think that's the case. I believe that's done via iCloud (i.e. backup of previously decrypted messages), as when you add a new Apple ID to iMessages on OS X, you don't get the old messages for that account, only new ones. So it's another attack vector, but not inherent weakness in the iMessage design.
This is actually how the protocol works, it uses the certificate burnt into the CPU; Apple claims that the private keys are known by no party including themselves, probably generated by the chip fab with some some of SCEP exchange. I've been meaning to update the IMWiki page with my research, but here's the bit where you see that exchange: http://imfreedom.org/wiki/IMessage#Unknown2 ["Apple iPhone Device CA" / "Mac OS Device Identity (Production)"]
Private keys, not public; the messages are decryptable by anyone who's been added to the keybag, you've probably seen the pop up notifying you that another device (private keys burnt onto the chipset) is joining the keybag. Once you hit OK Apple pings you with encrypted communications from the other devices (them being the pipe and presumably not in the trust chain, this explains why sometimes it's a little iffy showing cross device messages.)
The protocol hasn't been completely reverse engineered but enough to know it's likely decentralized like this, just MITM it (quite a bit is documented on the wiki I linked), Apple is the CA and the piping but it appears to be rather strong and decentralized in terms of chain-of-trust. Apple has put itself, probably without coincidence, in a position where they may not even be able to execute a court order to spy on a user.
The Apple security white-papers detail their hardware level certificates, I've dealt with this a lot as a Apple MDM developer.
The messages don't always arrive in the same order between the devices, so it's definitely not passed from one to the other. I imagine the senders encrypt the message with every public key in your keybag.
Someone who actually knows should weigh in, though. GP's understanding seems a bit murky to me.
If that's the case though, where would this popup be appearing from? (I haven't seen it, not quite sure where it would be) I would guess they wouldn't be asking the sender to approve adding my multiple computers whenever I add one, since that would be a fairly crummy user experience. Seems like it should be something that I, the owner of the receiving devices, would approve or deny.
>When someone sends me an iMessage, their client sends as many copies as I have devices?
Generally how this works is that the sender encrypts the message with a symmetric encryption algorithm (like AES) and then encrypts the randomly-generated AES key with RSA with each of the receivers' private keys. So you only send out a single message, but it can be decrypted by any of the intended recipients.
If I understand this correctly, you're saying that they actually encrypt the message with a single key. Then they encrypt the messages key with the public key of all recipients and send it with the message, so each user can decrypt the message key with the private physically attached to the device and use it to decrypt the message?
That makes a lot of sense. In that case, it seems the easiest way to wiretap an iMessage account would be to compromise one of the devices. Not surprising that the DEA doesn't have that kind of expertise/authority, though.
Nope - all they have to do is get Apple to add another surveillance key to the list of device keys associated with your Apple ID. Then all future iMessages get encrypted to that one, too.
Whenever any iDevice downloads a new keybag with an extra key, it gives the user like 15 notifications that a new device has been added to the iMessage account. I don't think there's a way to suppress this (without releasing a new OS).
I didn't mean to imply, that they could not, written it missed my ironic voice-modulation ;-)
I really had thought, that this would have happened long ago, for everybody, and so on. Would not have thought, that this was a problem for law enforcement, as it was with i.e. skype.
You are confusing the iMessage device activation UI with the underlying crypto operations.
Nobody iMessaging me gets any indication when I get a new iPad and add it to my account, despite all their messages to me now encrypting (on their device) to n+1 of my devices now.
I'm trying to find more info about the certificate burnt into the CPU. Thus far, all I can find is the UID, which is an AES key burnt into the CPU and protected from cryptanalysis. However, I can't find anything about an asymmetric crypto key burnt into the CPU. Do you have any more info on that?
That begs the question: how does my private key securely get shared between my mac, iPhone, and iPad so that all of my devices can securely read messages delivered to me.
The protocol appears to toss around the keybag, which causes the devices to re-sign payloads and toss them back up to Apple to pipe around—I've responded in more detail on a sibling.
The Justice Department successfully convinced the FCC to expand CALEA to ISPs by having the FCC treat ISPs as common carriers. (CALEA is a long story, but basically the internet freedom fighters agreed to not oppose CALEA so long as the internet was left alone. That backfired and the EFF hightailed it out of DC to SF.)
The choice is odd because the FCC deregulated the internet to make ISPs "information services" not "common carriers". So there is precedent for expansion that makes no logical sense.
Which is exactly the same issue we have everywhere else where laws that were made before the age of the internet use very narrow language that exclude computer systems in general and the internet in particular. It's just that this time, it's convenient for us.
You'd have to remove iMessage features for that. Currently iMessage syncs between devices which is extremely useful. If each device generated it's own key that syncing wouldn't be possible.
Each device does have it's own key. When you add a new device that key is shipped to all the other devices that can receive the messages. Basically you have a ring of keys, and each time you add a new key every single device on that ring gets an updated copy of the key ring.
> They [the DEA] can also send a suspect malware, purchase a so-called zero day vulnerability to gain control of a target device and extract the contents
Made me chuckle. Given that zero day are mostly available in black markets how can they justify to give money to criminals ?
> VUPEN Exploits for Offensive Security
As the world leader in vulnerability research, VUPEN provides extremely sophisticated and government-grade exploits specifically designed for the Intelligence and LEA community to help them achieve their offensive missions using tailored and unique codes created in-house by VUPEN for exclusive and undisclosed vulnerabilities discovered by VUPEN researchers.
Access to this service is restricted to organizations from countries members or partners of NATO, ANZUS and ASEAN.
Zero days are sold to the government by perfectly legitimate businesses, and the crap they don't buy is what ends up either in places like ZDI or eventually the black market.
Realpolitik. Some descriptions of the zero-day "black market" imply that the government itself is one of the bigger consumers, and various arms of the government routinely bids against itself to get exploits.
You're quite misinformed. There is relatively little zero day of value on the black market, and zero day doesn't come from criminals. And it can't really, because finding a vulnerability in someone else's code, that you had nothing to do with putting there, can't be a crime.
All this worry about electronic messaging makes me wonder something. Can they get a warrant/order to intercept your physical mail and read it in transit? I'm wondering if they're actually less able to tap than in the past or if they're just whinging.
EFF say that physical mail is safer than anything else because the legal protections are so strong.
But then you have to trust that 'they' are law abiding. Extraordinary rendition is both reassuring and alarming. 'They' will jump through hoops to look like they're obeying laws, but the end result is still people being water-boarded.
The Hushmail thing shows that some companies will happily roll over when given valid law enforcement documentation. (Fair enough, I'm not sure what else they should do.)
"The Hushmail thing shows that some companies will happily roll over when given valid law enforcement documentation. (Fair enough, I'm not sure what else they should do.)"
Companies could design products that do not give them the ability to cooperate in that manner. Hushmail, for example, could have designed a system where customers were sold smartcards and not actually run the mail transport, so that Hushmail itself had no ability to access encrypted messages. While this would have made Hushmail a bit less convenient, it would also have made it many times more secure.
Unfortunately, in the current right-wing political climate, there are few incentives for companies to actually develop or deploy such systems.
Not assuming you downloaded it before you became a target. The point I'm trying to make here is that there was a way to use hushmail without trusting their servers, which anyone wanting to use the service should do because they're completely untrustworthy.
I am pretty sure that applets can be updated by the server, which is one of their big advantages (i.e. no need to try to compel everyone to update on schedule).
Really though, if you are only going to use PGP from a single computer and you are not going to download your encryption software every time you use it, what advantage is there to using Hushmail? Thunderbird with Enigmail, Evolution, Claws-mail/Sylpheed, and numerous other email programs can encrypt and sign messages. Hushmail's only draw is that it is webmail, which is only useful if you want to check your email from arbitrary other computers.
It is also generally bad practice to leave your secret keys on some server somewhere, even if you are sure your passphrase is strong. I would not be surprised if a lot of Hushmail users have very weak passphrases that can be easily guessed.
"Applet" is the correct word -- it is a Java applet. The only way to not load anything from their servers every use is to use PGP in a more traditional setup, where your keys are stored locally and never leave your control.
As far as I understand it you can one-time download and verify their java program, and it uses your password to retrieve and decrypt keys in a way that protects you from hushmail. So with that workflow it is very much like traditional PGP with no way to inject a vulnerability later. Am I mistaken?
Domestic, First class mail requires a search warrant to open. It also requires costly physical effort and is not done lightly. The metadata on the front of the envelope can be collected.
Other classes of mail (priority, parcel post) can be opened by postal inpectors at their discretion. Mail entering or leaving the country can be inspected by US Customs. My dad used to correspond with HAM operators all over the world, and letters from soviet bloc or certain third world countries were routinely opened.
The problem with using the mail to deprive another of property or "honest services" is that it is a serious crime, a criminal (which can be defined very loosely under the "honest services" umbrella) can be fined up to $1M or jailed for 30 years. Politicians filing ethics financial disclosure forms always file these in person, as inaccurate information can result in a slam dunk case for the US Attorney.
So for your normal correspondence, 1st class mail is as safe as you can get.
Why shouldn't I work for the NSA? That's a tough one. But I'll take a shot. Say I'm workin' at the NSA and somebody puts a code on my desk, somethin' no one else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it and I'm real happy with myself cause I did my job well, but maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East and once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels are hiding, fifteen hundred people I never met, never had no problem with get killed.
Now the politicains are sayin' "Oh send in the marines to secure the area, cause they don't give a shit, won't be their kid over there gettin' shot just like it wasn't them when their number got called cause they were all pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southy over there takin' shrapnel in the ass. He comes back to find that the plant he used to work at, got exported to the country he just got back from, and the guy that put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job cause he'll work for 15 cents a day and no bathroom breaks.
Meanwhile, he realises the only reason he was over there in the first place was so that we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price, and ofcourse the oil companies use a little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices, a cute little ancilliary benefit for them, but it ain't helpin' my buddy at 2.50 a gallon. Their takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course maybe they even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martini's and fuckin' play slolum with the icebergs. It ain't to long til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic... so now my buddy's out of work, he can't afford to drive, so he's walkin' to the fuckin' job interviews which sucks cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him cronic hemroids and meanwhile, he's starvin' cause everytime he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special their serving is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State....
so what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while Im at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe, and join the National Guard. I could be elected President.
So, if they're caught in other ways than via the surveillance, does that open up criminals using iMessage to further prosecution based on the notion that they used encryption to conceal a crime?
My understanding is the messages app seamlessly transitions to using iMessage to send messages over a data connection where available.
Assuming this to be the case, you wouldn't normally choose to use iMessage. It just happens if it can.
If further penalty were to be considered, I expect the prosecutor would have to prove that the user intentionally took action to ensure iMessage was used for the delivery of messages instead of SMS. I suspect that would be hard to demonstrate.
Good. Isn't that the point of encryption? F%!# the DEA anyway. Now we need to get more people educated on the importance of using strong crypto to protect their private communications.
We don't want to have a system where you're needlessly imposing burdens on thriving industries or even budding industries
Messaging is superfluous on the internet. Everything has it from Words With Friends to World of Warcraft. I understand that not all messaging systems are encrypted but being required to put in a backdoor for a government agency to spy on messages is a fair amount of work. Would you have to log all messaging too and for how long?
The NSA is not a paramilitary force, they are a signals intelligence agency. The DEA is a paramilitary force with a large signals intelligence division, and they routinely send their soldiers to attack American homes. That is why we should be concerned about their ability to read our personal communications: they might use an intercepted message to justify a raid.
Additional questions: Given that the DEA is more likely to reveal its methods in court intentionally or unintentionally (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9741357-7.html), even if the NSA can decrypt iMessage communications, why in the world would they share this knowledge with law enforcement?
It's a modern version of the Ultra intercepts/Coventry blitz (now called into question). The NSA might risk revealing its methods if it would stop the next 9/11. To put a meth dealer in jail? Not a chance.
> The NSA might risk revealing its methods if it would stop the next 9/11.
I think the government would need to be in mortal peril otherwise before they reveal they broke RSA, assuming that they have. To stop a 9/11-type attack they would probably fake some information leak from the other side.
Depends on what you are doing. I doubt that the NSA would tip their hand that they could decrypt such things even in the case of child pornographers. Anything that would be taken into open court would shine light onto where evidence, etc came from.
The real danger from NSA decryption would be in their storage facilities. What you say now could come back to haunt you in the future depending on the political climate (e.g. the US falls into a police state where political prisoners are taken, etc).
So, this article is untrue? Apple has the messages in plaintext on their servers, thus the DEA could in fact subpoena them? I'm getting mixed messages. Consensus?
I bet it doesn't even use OTR. You can't just rely on Apple to keep it secure. I do hope Google's upcoming Babel service is at least as secure, but I also hope it uses OTR.
The one thing that stands out from that article is that iMessage is the most popular encrypted chat program in history. Is this true? Isn't gchat encrypted as well?
IF a court order (40+ page Title 3) were provided to surveil a criminal suspect, do you believe that Apple/iMessage and VoIP services should be required to respond to law enforcement intercept requests?
If yes, then legal and technical frameworks are needed where service providers outside the traditional telcos can respond. This is the gap that has been widening since the introduction of the smartphone.
It's not a huge problem right now since most criminal communication that police are interested in is still done over traditional voice, SMS, and email (where these providers are already interfaced with law enforcement).
That point of view implies making client-based encryption illegal, or it's a very short hop to the same outcome, except that message contents are secured separately from the messaging application and infrastructure behind it.
They'd rather not have to be so vulgar as to publicize it through legislation. Just giving them the power to read everything will be satisfactory enough.
