AppleInsider Staff
More than a year after the last high-profile showdown between the FBI and Silicon Valley over widespread encryption, recently-installed FBI Director Christopher Wray again signaled that his agency will continue to fight for access.
"This is an urgent public safety issue," Wray said at the International Conference on Cyber Security, according to Reuters. Encryption prevented the bureau from accessing data on nearly 4,000 devices in fiscal 2017, he told the assembled audience.
"I just do not buy the claim that it is impossible" to find a solution, Wray added.
This is the second time since his ascension to the top of the FBI that Wray has chosen to join the encryption debate.
"To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem," Wray said last October. "It impacts investigations across the board narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation."
That Wray has now repeatedly voiced these concerns may signal that the bureau, and by extension the federal government, could be planning a more aggressive push for access to encrypted data.
The issue has been on the back burner since the infamous 2016 showdown between Apple and the FBI, which was sparked by an iPhone belonging to the perpetrators of the San Bernardino shooting. The government attempted to prod Apple and other tech companies to create encryption "backdoors" in their products, resulting in an enormous backlash from both the technology and security communities.
Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
Christine McKee
Chip Loder
Marko Zivkovic
26 Comments
Oh brother. One idiot leaves, the next idiot comes in. Federal Bureau of Incomprehension.
"I just do not buy the claim that it is impossible", wow, another government servant skipped math class in college. Let me get it straight, you just do not buy the claim that it is impossible to make 1 + 1 = 3? Maybe we can copy what the Chinese government did: require every company submit a copy of their digital keys to the government.
These dipshits just don’t get it. Even the CIA itself was hacked and lost its tools to the wild...how do they expect to keep magic keys safe?
It's a bizarre request. That a citizen or any human, should NEVER be allowed to have ANY secrets from those in charge. And we ALL know whatever 'doors' they insisted on being built into devices would be in everyones hands within a month. Of course they would be hacked first off. Or maybe he wants two sets of secrecy allowed. One if you work for the FBI and one for a regular old 'citizen'. They will chose who gets to have secrets. If they had better hackers on their payroll everything would be gettable anyway. But to build devices WITH security flaws is stupid beyond belief.
Doesn’t he realize he’s doing it all wrong? He needs to wait for some tragic, terrorist event to happen so he can use that is his vehicle to easily convince the public that reasonable, personal security is bad for the people.