Christopher Wray returns again and instead of calling strong encryption a “huge huge problem”, indicated it as an “urgent public safety issue”. The latter commentaries happened under very similar circumstances: during Wray’s speeches in specific events.
This time, the Director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) attended an “FBI International Conference on Cyber Security” event, taking place in Fordham University, New York. Soon enough, Wray’s entire speech was publicated on the Fbi.gov website and everyone was welcome to read it.
Director of FBI discusses cyber threats: strong encryption is one of them
Wray started on a good note by saying that it is impossible to punish every hacker and prevent every invasion. However, it is possible to determine better techniques for communication and file-transmission. Director explained that FBI has “strengthened their investigative capabilities” and started working closely with federal and foreign partners.
Christopher Wray went to state that “Transnational crime groups, sexual predators, fraudsters, and terrorists are transforming the way they do business as technology evolves”. Also, he used a vague phrase of “<…> new technical trends are making the investigative environment a lot more complex”.
From the looks of it, he might be referring to the stronger encryption methods and increased levels of users’ privacy. In addition to this, the director also mentioned the dangers of IoT devices and their unpredictability. He did not forget to indicated that the IoT devices were one of the reasons why Mirai botnet appeared.
Soon enough, Wray clearly indicated one of his main concerns:
“Encrypted communications are changing the way criminals and terrorists plan their crimes—I’ll have more to say on that in a moment. And the avalanche of data created by our use of technology presents a huge challenge for every organization”.
The position that Wray has taken is not surprising. Strong encryption methods and other protective measures make the FBI’s job more difficult. There have been many allegations about the authorities in United States and their intrusive behaviors towards the American people.
If the security of mobiles, computers and other devices goes on to reach even higher levels of privacy, FBI will not have much chance of monitoring suspects. On the other hand, preventing terrorist attacks or other severe crimes does not sound bad. But people are not ready to sacrifice their privacy for this.
However, stating that strong encryption is a public issue sounds too strong. While it end-to-end encryption and similar strategies could be exploited by criminals, they are also used by millions of innocent surfers.
Source: fbi.gov.
