Bill Requiring Phone Crypto Backdoors Dies in California Assembly
A California bill that would require backdoors in phone encryption has died in the state assembly after failing to gain enough support to move out of committee. The bill, proposed in January, would have required that device manufacturers have the capability of decrypting and unlocking any phone sold in California after Jan. 1, 2017. A […]
WordPress Turns on Encryption for 1 Million Sites
The movement to encrypt as much of the public Web as possible has gotten a major boost, as WordPress has turned on HTTPS connections for all of the more than one million custom domains hosted on WordPress.com. The change happened on Friday and significantly, it doesn’t require any work on the part of the site owners. […]
Draft Bill Would Force Vendors to Give Plaintext Data to Law Enforcement
The tension between the FBI and Apple may have subsided, but that doesn’t mean Washington is no longer focusing on encrypted communications. A pair of senators is circulating a draft bill that would require communications providers to maintain a method of giving law enforcement agencies cleartext communications, a requirement that could effectively prevent the use of […]
Apple Fixes Passcode Bypass Flaw in iOS 9.3.1
Apple has fixed a serious vulnerability in iOS that allowed any user to access the contacts and some other information on some iPhone models when they were locked. The bug was the result of a problem in the way that iOS 9.3.1 handled some commands through Siri. In some specific cases, an attacker with access […]
Former Exploit Broker: ‘Market is Misrepresented’
ORLANDO–The buying and selling of exploits for zero-day vulnerabilities in software is perhaps the most controversial topic in the security community over the last few years, but the CEO of a company that used to be one of the main players in that world said the market is misunderstood and not the hive of evil […]
Crypto Debate is About Power and Authority, Experts Say
Building devices and communications infrastructure that are resistant to compromise and surveillance has become an imperative in today’s environment, but it’s work that can run into roadblocks from government. The most pertinent current example is the encryption debate, and security experts say the security and privacy of users depends on the outcome of the conflict. The […]
Wyden: ‘Plans to Weaken Strong Encryption Are a Double Loser’
Sen. Ron Wyden, who has been perhaps the most outspoken legislator on the topic of encryption, privacy, and government intervention in technology, said he will “use every power I have as senator” to prevent lawmakers from passing laws that weaken encryption. Wyden (D-Ore.) spoke Tuesday at RightsCon, a conference on digital rights and privacy, and […]
On the Wire Podcast: Mike Mimoso on the Apple-FBI Case
Dennis Fisher talks with Mike Mimoso of Threatpost about the details of Apple’s legal and PR battle with the FBI and federal government. The case involves a lot of oddities, including the FBI’s choice to play it out in public, why the FBI didn’t seek help from forensics experts, and why the government decided that […]
New Florida Law Exempts Agencies From Reporting Some Breach Details
Florida’s governor has signed a bill that allows state agencies not to release details of data breaches and security audits if that information would “facilitate the unauthorized access, modification, disclosure or destruction of data”. The new law, which went into effect on Friday, requires that agencies still release details of breaches to a group of state law […]