The FBI and NSA Hate Apples Plan to Keep Your iPhone Data Secret

TIME Tech privacy The FBI and NSA Hate Apples Plan to Keep Your iPhone Data Secret A man shows his new iPhone outside Puerta del Sol Apple Store as Apple launches iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on September 26, 2014 in Madrid, Spain. Pablo Blazquez DominguezGetty Images Apple made the iPhone 6 pretty difficult to crack. Law enforcement isn't happy about that

Apple released the iPhone 6 with a new, powerful encryption setting that should make it much harder for law enforcement and surveillance groups like the FBI and the NSA from accessing users emails, photos and contacts. After the Edward Snowden revelations last year, privacy-minded users may be happy about the new feature, but the law enforcement community is decidedly not.

Speaking at a news conference Thursday, FBI Director James Comey criticized Apples encryption, which scrambles information on the new iPhone 6 using a code that could take more than five-and-a-half years to try all combinations of a six-character alphanumeric passcode with lowercase letters and numbers, as Comey said.

Comey accused Apple of creating a means for criminals to evade the law, the New York Times reports. What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to hold themselves beyond the law, he said.

In kidnapping cases, when seizing content on a phone could lead to finding a victim, Comey said there would be times when victims parents would come to him with tears in their eyes, look at me and say, What do you mean you cant' decode the contents of a phone, the Times reports.

A senior official told the Times that terrorists could use the iPhone 6 to store their data and evade law enforcement. Terrorists will figure this out, along with savvy criminals and paranoid dictators, one senior official predicted. Another said, Its like taking out an ad that says, Heres how to avoid surveillance even legal surveillance.'

However, major U.S. tech companies like Apple and Google argue that they cant do business if customers believe their data isnt secure, particularly in foreign markets like China and Europe, where consumers fear American tech products might come pre-loaded with ways for American surveillance agencies to access their data. On top of that, a security expert told the Times that law enforcement complaints about Apples encrypted were likely exaggerated, as access to call logs, email logs, iCloud, Gmail logs, as well as geolocation information from phone carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless and other data is relatively unfettered, particularly if police get a warrant.

[NYT]

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The FBI and NSA Hate Apples Plan to Keep Your iPhone Data Secret