Lawmakers seek access to Facebook encrypted messaging, Full details

U.S. Attorney General William Barr and or U.S., U.K. and Australian officials are pressing Facebook to give authorities a way to re encrypted messs sent by ordinary users, re-igniting tensions between tech companies and law enforcement. Facebook’s WhatsApp alrey uses so-called end-to-end encryption, which locks up messs so that even Facebook can’t re ir contents. Facebook plans to extend that protection to Messenger and Instagram Direct. But officials will ask Facebook to hold off in an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. A copy of letter, dated Friday, was obtained by Associated Press.

“Companies should t deliberately design ir systems to preclude any form of access to content, even for preventing or investigating most serious crimes,” officials wrote. letter repeatedly emphasizes dangers of child sexual exploitation to justify ir stance.

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'You cant make a backdoor that only good guys can go through'

Law enforcement has long sought a way to re encrypted messs that’s analogous to wiretaps for phone calls. Security experts, however, say giving police such access makes messaging insecure for everyone. Redesigning encryption to create “backdoors” for police also creates vulnerabilities that criminals or foreign spies can exploit, y say.

“Every couple of years, FBI rears its ugly he and tells us y need to have access to end-to-end encrypted messaging,” said Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights vocacy group. “You cant make a backdoor that only good guys can go through.”

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Facebook said Thursday that people have right to have private conversations online and that companies are alrey able to respond to government ncies when y receive valid legal requests. “We strongly oppose government attempts to build backdoors because y would undermine privacy and security of people everywhere,” Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne said in a statement. letter marks yet ar salvo in Justice Department’s continuing effort to persue techlogy companies to weaken or bypass encryption upon requests from law enforcement.

Former FBI Director James Comey championed need for law enforcement to find a workaround for encrypted devices and communications. He led a highly publicized push to gain access to an iPhone belonging to one perpetrator of a terrorist attack in San Bernardi, California, that killed 14 people in 2015. Apple resisted such efforts and went to court to block an FBI demand for Apple to disable security measures that complicated efforts to guess phone’s passcode. While FBI cast its request as a limited emergency measure, CEO Tim Cook argued that technique could easily be used again, making iPhone users more vulnerable to spies and thieves.

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FBI relented after it found ar way of getting into San Bernardi phone. Barr will make request to Facebook in a letter with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel and Australia Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. BuzzFeed News reported on letter earlier. Justice Department calls growing use of end-to-end encrypted communications “going dark” problem, referencing way encryption shields information that law enforcement could previously access easily.

Barr gave lengthy comments on what he described as a dangerous increase in device encryption at a cybersecurity conference this summer in New York. During his comments, Barr specifically detailed use of WhatsApp group chat by a drug cartel to coordinate murders of Mexico-based police officials. In anuncing plans in March to expand encryption, Zuckerberg ackwledged that privacy protection it affords extends to “ privacy of people doing b things.” He said Facebook was working on better ways to detect patterns of b behaviour, without seeing contents of messs.