The Zuckerberg plan could put Facebook on a collision course with law enforcement
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By David Ingram
Every six minutes, on average, Facebook receives a request from a US government office for information on gangs, drug trafficking or other suspected crimes, and the social network generally cooperates , and converts at least some data 86 percent of the time, according to the company's latest report on the subject. [19659007] But the close relationship could be transformed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg's move this week to embrace a technology that police forces say can steal their investigations: End-to-End encryption, an unmistakable way to hide the contents of messages.
Included By Privacy and Consumer Inquiries, end-to-end encryption by default is built into some messaging apps, such as Facebook-owned WhatsApp or less competing signal, and Zuckerberg said he plans to adopt it wider for Facebook. The change would put the contents of multiple communications outside the reach of the police, the FBI and other government agencies that can now get them by performing a search order on Facebook.
The FBI marks the trend "goes dark." To get encrypted messages, the authorities generally need access to people's phones or other devices. The FBI on Thursday refused to comment on Facebook's encryption plans, but on Tuesday one day before Zuckerberg announced the change, FBI director Christopher Wray told a San Francisco security conference that he was dissatisfied with the situation.
"It cannot be a sustainable endpoint for it to be a completely unnoticed space – it is beyond full legal access – for criminals, terrorists and spies to hide their communication," Wray said at the RSA Security Conference. He said he wants technology companies and law enforcement to come to a compromise.
The extension of end-to-end encryption is part of a major reassessment of social media after two years of hard criticism directed at Facebook by privacy guardians, lawmakers, journalists and users. Zuckerberg, in a post on Facebook, said the company would place greater emphasis on privacy and instant messaging, moving away from the "square" that encourages public updates to join a news feed.
The move puts Facebook completely in opposition to many law enforcement agencies and foreign governments that have claimed end-to-end encryption make it easier "for criminals and terrorists to find a safe haven to hide their illegal activities", such as Deirdre Walsh, chief Operations Manager for the Director's Office of National Intelligence, wrote in 2016.
Zuckerberg mitigated the potential battle and managed to make the changes one year away from entering into force and that he would consult law enforcement before they made them.
Encryption nation
Zuckerbergs announcement adds increasing adoption of end-to-end encryption by tech companies eager to attract consumers at a time when digital privacy becomes a common problem. Apple's iMessage, another popular smartphone messaging app, includes encryption that makes a number of privacy-focused programs released in recent years.
WhatsApp enacted end-to-end encryption in 2016, and Facebook's Messenger contains it as an optional feature.
Katherine Pfaff, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, also refused to comment on Facebook's plans. However, she said that DEA now meets the use of encrypted applications in the majority of its investigations.
"Like other law enforcement agencies, these surreptitious measures pose major challenges to the DEA; however, scientists around the world continue to work with care, precision, and sophistication to counteract these efforts," she said in a statement to NBC News.
In a sign of the federal government's frustration with encrypted calls, the Justice Department last year stopped asking a federal judge in California to force Facebook to cast encrypted voice calls over its Messenger services, Reuters reported. Facebook protested, and the judge ruled in Facebook's favor, according to the news agency.
The debate is likely to cross international borders. British lawmakers have discussed possible limits for encrypted messages. Last year, Iran and Russia tried to block Telegram, another messaging service that uses end-to-end encryption.
Alex Stamos, former security manager on Facebook, said that during the hours of the company's announcement on Wednesday, there were probably anxious phone calls between US officials and their close allies abroad.
"Australia, in particular, has been very aggressive on encryption, and they will be very upset about this," said Stamos, who is also an NBC news contributor, referring to an objective adopted by the Australian Parliament in December and requires companies to create backdoor access for encrypted messaging services. A technical trading group that includes Facebook is in violation of the law.
Privacy please
Privacyists such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation often praise end-to-end encryption as a way to reduce the risk of unwanted monitoring, either by government, business advertisers, criminal hackers or others. Zuckerberg, in his post, said he wanted to protect dissidents from repressive regimes.
"Encryption of any kind of communication – it is going to help people who are not extorted, other people capture their photos or their sensitive information," said Ryan Calo, a professor of the University of Washington.
The move has other benefits for Facebook. Critics have hampered the social network so as not to stop the spread of hate spreading, harassment and other material that goes against Facebook's rules, but if the content is hidden by encryption, Facebook may have less responsibility for moderating.
Because Zuckerberg's 3,200-word statement was brief on details, some individuals who specialize in privacy and cryptography have tried to analyze their language for clues about what he wants to do. For example, they focused on Zuckerberg's expression of "work towards" the implementation of end-to-end encryption, as they said, seemed to be battling to guarantee complete privacy protection for users.
"There is a big difference between end-to-end encryption and moving" towards "it," said Fred Cate, an Indiana University Law professor. "It may be that the magician is trying to make you see the left hand while the right hand is where the action is."
Time and Money
Zuckerberg wrote in his post that Facebook was in the early stages of transforming itself mainly into a messaging platform, and that he would consult law enforcement along the way as he and the company decide what their services will look like. "We have a responsibility to work with law enforcement and to prevent them, wherever we can," he said.
Meanwhile, Facebook critics of academia and technology said they were skeptical about whether Facebook would really do much to scale back its broad data acquisition operation. Zuckerberg added that the company was working to identify "bad actors" by "discovering activity patterns or otherwise, even when we can't see the contents of the messages."
Facebook on Friday refused to deepen its plans or discuss the relationship with law enforcement beyond Zuckerberg's post.
One possibility is that law enforcement loses access to the content of messages, but ends up accessing another trove of information: Information about people's messages, as they are contact, when they do, and their places – known as metadata.
While end-to-end encryption protects what's inside a message, it doesn't protect messaging services from gathering broader information, patterns, and message behavior trends.
"By merging Instagram and Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, Facebook now multiplies its ability to diminish metadata, so they get more information abou t that people are talking to," said Joel Reidenberg, a professor of Professor University Professor. can often be more valuable information than the content of the messages. "
Reidenberg pointed to a 2016 study of telephone call metadata provided by volunteers who found, for example, that it was possible to conduct behavioral issues about potentially sensitive issues such as health issues and firearms Ownership
Zuckerberg and Facebook have not provided detailed plans for their use of message metadata, a trove of information that experts said would also be valuable to advertisers.
US authorities have denied the importance of metadata and say nothing can replace the actual content of messages when scientists attempt to gather evidence.
Zuckerberg said the company would also consult external e experts and lawyers, some of whom have concerns similar to law enforcement. Facebook's ability to scan images and other content in the Messenger service has allowed the company to view photographs of abused children, for example.
"We hope that child safety does not come at the expense of privacy concerns," Rebecca Kovar, senior program director at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, said in a statement on Thursday. Based on conversations with Facebook, the center Facebook still believes that child safety is a priority, she said.
