<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<blockquote><br>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan ordered the FBI to
produce the full code of its malware. <br>
<br>
The government refused.<br>
<br>
I’m not making that up. <br>
<br>
A federal judge told the government to do something and the
FBI essentially said, “How you gonna make me?”<br>
<br>
This is not good. <br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
I thought Apple had a really solid argument for refusing to help
the government hack into one of their phones that was used by the
San Bernardino shooter. The government eventually figured out how
to do it without Apple’s help, but I don’t think a company should
be forced to break its own system.<br>
<br>
Same goes for the government. I don’t think the government should
be compelled to reveal its code for catching criminals. Don’t get
me wrong, I do think the government should be compelled to reveal
that it has a code or a hack or some malware that allows it to spy
on us. I think they should have to explain in plain English how it
works, and I think we should be able to have a national, public
conversation about whether or not we want to the government to
have this kind of power. But I see limited upside in forcing the
government to reveal the actual code for its software, if it
doesn’t want to and reasonably believes that revealing the code
would do real harm.<br>
<br>
However, there are consequences to that position. If the
government obtains evidence against you, you have the right to
know how they did it. If the government doesn’t want to reveal
that to you, well, then you get to take a walk. That might sound
“unfair” to the vast majority of Americans who would trade
seemingly all their liberties for a little enhanced security, but
the Fourth Amendment is there to protect you from the government
even when you don’t know you need protecting.<br>
<br>
All of these competing interests are coming to a head in a
Washington case involving an alleged child pornographer. The FBI
obtained evidence against Jay Michaud, a local teacher, by placing
malware on a Tor site frequented by “dark web” users.<br>
<br>
Michaud’s attorneys would like to see the code used by the
government to gather evidence against their client. Normally,
that’s a pretty standard and reasonable request. Unfortunately,
other dark web users would also really like to know how the FBI is
catching them. Getting their hands on the code would be huge. Even
if the code is produced in “sealed” documents, we can’t pretend
that we live in a leak-free world.<br>
<br>
U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan ordered the FBI to produce the
full code of its malware. <br>
<br>
The government refused.<br>
<br>
I’m not making that up. <br>
<br>
A federal judge told the government to do something and the FBI
essentially said, “How you gonna make me?”<br>
<br>
This is not good. This is a borderline constitutional crisis. In
response, Judge Bryan tossed the evidence against Michaud obtained
by the malware, but allowed the case to continue. On Simple
Justice, Scott Greenfield has written passionately about how Judge
Bryan caved to pressure from the executive branch.<br>
<br>
(Judge Kneels And Welcomes His Governmental Overlords link)<br>
<br>
<br>
I don’t think the FBI should be compelled to release its code. I’m
reminded of when the Allies broke the Enigma code, a story
recently popularized in the movie The Imitation Game. Once we
broke the German code, we didn’t stop every attack we knew was
coming. Preserving the hack was more important than preventing
individual losses. People died because we didn’t want to reveal
what we had. There were consequences to our decision.<br>
<br>
Here, Judge Bryan should have tossed the whole case against
Michaud. That should be the consequence of the FBI’s decision.
Yes, that means one alleged child pornographer and teacher goes
free. Yes, that is unfortunate. But if the FBI really wants to
protect its code, then they should be willing to give up this one
guy for all of the information they are getting through using this
hack.<br>
<br>
It’s a difficult decision, but if the FBI and Judge Bryan don’t
want to make it, they should get into the cupcake business and
leave the balancing of liberty and security to sterner men and
women.<br>
<br>
Prosecute the alleged criminal under the agreed upon rules that
are there to protect all of us, or do not. There is no try. <br>
<blockquote><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
With links onsite:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.atlredline.com/the-fbi-can-keep-its-code-or-its-criminal-not-both-1779910675">http://www.atlredline.com/the-fbi-can-keep-its-code-or-its-criminal-not-both-1779910675</a><br>
</body>
</html>