Arguing Against CALEA

At a Congressional hearing earlier this week, Matt Blaze made the point that CALEA, the 1994 law that forces telecoms to make phone calls wiretappable, is outdated in today's threat environment and should be rethought: In other words, while the legally-mandated CALEA capability requirements have...

China Possibly Hacking US “Lawful Access” Backdoor

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Chinese hackers Salt Typhoon penetrated the networks of US broadband providers, and might have accessed the backdoors that the federal government uses to execute court-authorized wiretap requests. Those backdoors have been mandated by law--CALEA--since...

New York Judge Rules FBI Can't Force Apple to Unlock iPhone

Apple - 1; The FBI - 0 Apple Won a major court victory against the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI in an ongoing legal battle similar to San Bernardino. In a New York case, a federal magistrate judge has ruled in favor of Apple, rejecting the U.S. government’s request to force Apple to help...

Mobile Device Encryption Could Lead to a 'Very, Very Dark Place', FBI Director Says

FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that the recent movement toward default encryption of smartphones and other devices could “lead us to a very, very dark place.” Echoing comments made by law enforcement officials for the last several decades, Comey said that the advanced cryptosystems...

Lavabit Case May Be One of Many in Coming Years

SAN FRANCISCO–The Lavabit case, which saw the secure email provider’s owner shut the company down after being forced to hand over to the government the encryption key that protected his users’ data, may seem like an extreme reaction to a unique situation. But, experts say it’s likely that there...