Police in Arkansas are looking for answers in the murder of a young man in Bentonville and are now turning to defendant James Bates' Amazon Echo for information. The Amazon Echo is an AI software…
December 27, 2016 | 06:07 EST
Update: If you want to learn more about this situation, we had a talk with Atari1337 who did some of the decryption, using a tool created by Infogram who made the tool to decrypt Halo 5: Forge. There…
October 1, 2016 | 11:50 EDT
Earlier in the year, we finally got a look at a draft of Feinstein and Burr's anti-encryption bill. The bill would require any company which provides encryption to be able to unencrypt it if served…
September 13, 2016 | 06:39 EDT
Law enforcement and politicians around the world have been pushing for legislation to fight back against encryption. Police consider it a road block that prevents them from obtaining evidence against…
August 26, 2016 | 03:30 EDT
Earlier in the month, we reported that the French Minister of Interior Bernard Cazeneuve wanted an initiative against encrypted messaging apps. At the time Cazeneuve did not reveal the details of…
August 24, 2016 | 09:38 EDT
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is pushing for a global initiative to combat encrypted messaging apps. He argues that terrorists evade detection by discussing their plans using encrypted…
August 11, 2016 | 09:49 EDT
The British House of Commons has passed the Investigatory Powers Bill, with support from the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. MPs from the Scottish National Party and other smaller parties…
June 7, 2016 | 10:14 EDT
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks last year, legislators in the US Senate began work on a bill that would require backdoors to allow police to circumvent encryption. The anti-encryption effort…
May 28, 2016 | 10:32 EDT
The encrypted messaging service WhatsApp is once again facing trouble in Brazil. A judge in the Brazilian state of Sergipe has ordered phone companies in the country to block the app for 72 hours.…
May 2, 2016 | 09:35 EDT
Governments around the world are growing more uncomfortable with encrypted communications, and the popular encrypted messaging service WhatsApp is becoming a big target. Earlier in the year, we…
April 23, 2016 | 09:06 EDT
BlackBerry, a Canadian smartphone developer, has come under fire after an article published by Motherboard revealed that Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) agents had decrypted over a million…
April 19, 2016 | 10:33 EDT
For several months, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein have been cooking up a bill to undermine strong encryption. Last week, journalists leaked a draft of the bill, which gave the public a…
April 13, 2016 | 09:28 EDT
Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein have been working on an anti-encryption bill for several months, and now we finally get to see the fruit of their labor. A draft of the bill has now been…
April 8, 2016 | 11:05 EDT
Speaking at RightsCon in San Francisco, Senator Ron Wyden gave a speech about the importance of strong encryption. He also laid out his plans to strengthen privacy protections. Early on in the speech…
March 31, 2016 | 09:59 EDT
The FBI has dropped its attempt to force Apple's assistance in the San Bernardino case, after the agency managed to break into the phone on its own. Apple is now requesting that the government…
March 31, 2016 | 02:46 EDT
The legal battle between the FBI and Apple over a phone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters is now over. As previously reported, the FBI had requested the delay of a hearing so it could have a…
March 28, 2016 | 09:47 EDT
A couple of days ago, we reported that a hearing which would deal with the legal dispute between Apple and the FBI had been postponed at the request of the FBI. The agency had learned of a new…
March 23, 2016 | 11:22 EDT
The first hearing in the legal battle between Apple and the FBI was scheduled for tomorrow, but the government has unexpectedly asked the judge to postpone the hearing. The reason? The government…
March 21, 2016 | 10:13 EDT
Although the legal between Apple and the FBI has yet to be resolved, Apple engineers are considering what they might do if the courts side against Apple. The New York Times reports that many would…
March 18, 2016 | 09:51 EDT
Apple has filed its latest brief in its ongoing legal battle against the FBI. This one is in direct response to a brief recently field by the Department of Justice. Apple heavily criticizes the broad…
March 16, 2016 | 11:00 EDT
In a move considered by some to be an escalation of the fight between the Department of Justice and Apple, the DOJ has stated that it may ask Apple to turn over its source code as well as the…
March 15, 2016 | 12:00 EDT
While the legal battle over encryption between Apple and the FBI is still in progress, the Department of Justice may already have its next target in mind. The New York Times reports that an…
March 14, 2016 | 10:44 EDT
Since the Paris attacks last year, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein have been working on legislation that would mandate backdoors in encryption. Reports from insiders suggest that the pair…
March 10, 2016 | 10:05 EST
As Apple faces off against the FBI in court to avoid undermining the security of its own products, one congressman has a plan to make Apple cooperate. Republican congressman David Jolly has…
March 4, 2016 | 10:25 EST
As Apple and the FBI face off against each other over encryption, another national government is considering taking its own steps to deal with encrypted phones. A French member of parliament from the…
March 2, 2016 | 10:40 EST
Update: A Facebook executive, Diego Dzodan, was released after spending nearly a full day in prison. An appeals court overturned the arrest order issued by the lower court. Original story below.Diego…
March 1, 2016 | 09:21 EST
By now, many are aware of a showdown between Apple and the FBI. The FBI obtained a court order from a California judge requiring Apple to help the agency break into a phone belonging to one of the…
February 29, 2016 | 10:02 EST
As a result of the ongoing legal battle with the FBI, Apple has plans to develop new security measures for the iPhone. The major security flaw in this case is that Apple has the ability to update the…
February 27, 2016 | 10:43 EST
Last week, Apple revealed a court order by the FBI, which requires Apple to assist the agency in breaking into a locked phone belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attack.…
February 26, 2016 | 11:08 EST
Last week, Apple sent out a letter to its customers informing them of the FBI's request to circumvent the encryption on a specific phone. The letter also indicated that Apple was going to fight the…
February 25, 2016 | 09:52 EST
Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook published a post called "A Message to our Customers." The post warns of an FBI request, which if obeyed by Apple, would undermine the encryption on Apple phones.Before…
February 17, 2016 | 08:46 EST
In recent months, politicians have gone completely nuts on the topic of encryption. Presidential candidates have made the dangers of encryption a talking point on the campaign trail; two bills are…
February 10, 2016 | 05:54 EST
Previously we had reported on two separate proposals, one in the House and the other in the Senate, which aimed to deal with the imagined threat of encryption. The first, being pushed mainly by…
January 20, 2016 | 10:17 EST
The White House recently held a summit with top executives in Silicon Valley on the topic of combating terrorism online. Some of the biggest technology companies in America were represented at the…
January 11, 2016 | 09:36 EST
In response to an online petition asking Obama to publicly affirm support of strong encryption, White House officials issued a response that they would meet with the leaders of the petition to…
December 16, 2015 | 09:55 EST
Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI Director James Comey characterized the current debate surrounding encryption as a "business model question." Comey informed the committee that he…
December 9, 2015 | 09:50 EST
Now that the Senate is considering legislation to undermine encryption, it was only a matter of time before the House put together a proposal of its own. Republican Representative Michael McCaul…
December 8, 2015 | 10:00 EST
Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has already called for Silicon Valley to work together with law enforcement on an imaginary middle ground solution that undermines encryption while still…
December 7, 2015 | 09:21 EST
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, numerous media outlets, politicians, and officials working in intelligence agencies have been quick to point the finger at encryption as the culprit. Many…
November 23, 2015 | 11:33 EST
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has released a report on Smartphone Encryption and Public Safety. While much of the recent talk about encryption by politicians and law enforcement agencies…
November 19, 2015 | 12:00 EST
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, members of US law enforcement agencies as well as other government officials were quick to push the notion that more surveillance is needed to combat terrorism…
November 18, 2015 | 04:33 EST
In the wake of the recent Paris attacks, the FBI is going to increase wiretaps on suspected ISIS sympathizers within the US. Agents told CNN that there are no known terrorist plots active in the US,…
November 16, 2015 | 11:46 EST
The full text of a draft of the Investigatory Powers Act, an authoritarian surveillance bill being pushed by UK prime Minister David Cameron, has been released to the public. In the days leading up…
November 4, 2015 | 10:01 EST
The Obama administration has announced it will not be seeking a legal mandate for backdoors into encrypted services, FBI Director James Comey has announced. During a hearing in front of the Senate…
October 13, 2015 | 08:18 EDT
A federal judge in Brooklyn has temporarily denied a request by law enforcement, who were seeking an order to force Apple to unlock a locked phone. The government is invoking the All Writs Act, a law…
October 12, 2015 | 10:48 EDT
While attending a national security forum in South Carolina, presidential hopeful Jeb Bush made it clear that he believes the government should have broad surveillance powers in order to fight "…
August 19, 2015 | 09:12 EDT
Ransomware is a particularly notorious type of malware, used by hackers to encrypt your own files and demand a payment of Bitcoins in exchange for the key needed to decrypt them. Well there's a new…
March 13, 2015 | 06:06 EDT
On Monday, a vigil and march were held in Paris after a violent and deadly Islamic terrorist attack on the offices of the satirical news publication, Charlie Hebdo. The attacks and ensuing hostage…
January 13, 2015 | 09:30 EST