> “Four years after he co-wrote a bill meant to make companies like Apple provide confidential data about customers under investigation, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) has become the subject of an investigation.”
“(G) if the target of the electronic surveillance is an elected Federal official or a candidate in a Federal election, that the Attorney General has approved in writing of the investigation;“
This serves as an important reminder: Apple's terrible decisions about security and encryption in iCloud (for backups (which contain your messages) and photos and notes) means that Apple can always access your messages via iCloud backup, and thus can always decrypt them for the government (whether the government has probable cause and a warrant, like with a court order, or when they don't and are just fishing, like FISA/702's illegal spying). They use 702 often enough that there's the PRISM program that permits them direct download access to Apple's (and others') servers.
You should not be trusting iMessage or iCloud encryption to keep your data safe or private.
Always use Signal! (And also tell your friends, associates, and relatives; Apple's marketing hype around privacy is a lot louder than these reminders can ever be.)
Yes, but other important parts of iCloud are not, like all your Photos (which almost always includes EXIF GPS data, which can approximate a track log), Notes, Safari history and bookmarks, Contacts, Find My (locations for both devices and people), iCloud Drive files, reminders, voice memos, and wallet passes (which can include flight or ticket information, and loyalty cards, et c). If you don't have 2FA turned on (most people), your Health data (such as timestamped heart rate history) is available to Apple (and by extension the FBI/military/et c) as well.
iCloud data is "encrypted" but Apple has the keys and can decrypt it. Apple has been wishy-washy and has actually backed away from announced plans to implement E2E encryption for iCloud with the DOJ whining about wanting backdoors every couple of years.
With an unencrypted backup would investigators still need to compel the subject to reveal a credential in order to gain access to all the data, or is having the file enough?
If so, would this also include information that Apple specifically calls out as end-to-end encrypted, such as iMessages?
That's pretty accurate. Some stuff is encrypted with the device passcode like Health data and Keychain data. Around iOS 9 [1], Apple implemented some functionality to encrypt backups through a similar mechanism. This never panned out.
The link you posted supports the point you're claiming is not accurate. Only a few categories of iCloud data are end-to-end encrypted so that Apple cannot access them.
Senator Burr had a hand in forcing apple to not encrypt icloud backups!
I'm sorry for my open Schadenfreude here, but I can't help feeling a little glee. I never realized how petty I am. But this is better than a tall, cold, delicious parfait on a hot summer day.
There are a lot of mixed up discussions going on here. Some people are generally anti-law enforcement, some are against warrantless wiretapping, others are concerned about backdoors from a technical perspective. I'm with you though I'm not sure being against warrants is a sensible position.
most folks are ok with warrants if used judiciously and sparingly when the evidence is compelling and the potential (societal) good overwhelmingly outweighs the (individual) harms. but we've been sliding down that slippery slope for decades now, and it's unclear that many (most?) warrants meet any sensible criteria, instead treading into paranoid, corrupt, and vindictive territories.
Is this technically considered insider trading? It's not like he found out a specific company was about to be acquired or something. He's probably going to argue it was publicly available information.
There's a specific law on insider trading that applies just to members of Congress. He may still argue that, but just pointing out that there may be legal differences.
She isn't the chair of the Intelligence Committee who was about to release a fourth report affirming the findings of the Mueller report but can now be replaced by Mitch McConnell with a Trump loyalist.
Oh, the delicious irony!