Apple is once again defending iPhone encryption to Senate
Apple is once again defending its use of strong encryption on 
During the hearing, the committee talked to New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance, experts from Apple and Facebook, and others about allowing legal access to encrypted devices. Sen. Graham warned the companies, "you're gonna find a way to do this, or we're going to do it for you."
Graham expressed appreciation for the fact that people "cannot hack into my phone," but wanted Apple to build a back door for law enforcement, all the same. He's seemingly unaware that such a tool could (and almost certainly would) be used to gain unauthorized access, too, both by law enforcement not following protocol and by hackers.
District Attorney Vance, a frequent opponent of strong encryption on devices, said that his office gets 1,600 devices per year as part of case evidence. Of those, users have locked 82%, with the percentage increasing year over year. Vance says his team ends up with 300 to 400 devices they can't access per year.
Apple works extensively with law enforcement
Apple's Manager of User Privacy Erik Neuenschwander said that Apple has responded to 127,000 requests from law enforcement over the last seven years, and added that this number doesn't include the thousands of emergency requests that Apple responds to within 20 minutes.
Neuenschwander's team, which includes former law-enforcement officials, publishes a "comprehensive law-enforcement guide" meant to help law enforcement. The guide offers information about what data is available, where to find it, and how to get at it. Neuenschwander says that a lack of clear information available to law enforcement is a bigger problem than that of encryption. In other words, the gap between available technology and knowledge of how to use this technology continues to grow, leaving law enforcement in the dust.
Neuenschwander says there is no safe way to remove encryption from phones. "Ultimately we believe strong encryption makes us all safer, and we haven't found a way to provide access to users' devices that wouldn't weaken security for everyone," he told Graham and the committee.
Facebook's product management director for privacy and integrity in the company's Messenger service, Jay Sullivan, noted that even if Facebook flipped a switch on Messenger, people would quickly turn to foreign-developed applications like Japan's Line service or the Israeli-developed Viber.
Graham and the committee didn't seem to fully understand the implications of what Sullivan and Neuenschwander had to say, and Graham reiterated his threat: "My recommendation to you is that you all get on with it" by this time next year, if you haven't come up with a solution that we can all live with, we will impose our will on you."
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