Riana Pfefferkorn on End-to-End Encryption for iPhone Backups to iCloud
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2022
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, Apple made an announcement about some new security features it would be offering to users. One of those features involves users' ability to opt in to encryption for iPhone backups to iCloud. While this new feature will enhance data privacy and security for those users who choose to opt in, it may create additional challenges for law enforcement to obtain evidence in criminal investigations.
To discuss the implications and potential impact of this new security feature, Lawfare senior editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Riana Pfefferkorn, research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. They discussed the costs and benefits to users who may choose to opt in to this feature, how Apple's choice to offer this feature plays into a broader conflict known as the Crypto Wars, and how this feature relates to another part of Apple's announcement where it indicated that it would not be scanning all iPhones for child sexual abuse material before images were backed up to iCloud.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | Defaults matter a lot. |
| 0:35.0 | They're very important in terms of designing any technology service for |
| 0:39.0 | distributed human beings. |
| 0:40.0 | Most people never change the default settings on any given app or service that they use. |
| 0:45.0 | So if you default to not having end-end encryption turned on for these additional data categories, |
| 0:51.0 | then we can expect that most users are probably not going to change that setting. |
| 0:55.0 | It means that if most users don't opt in, then that reduces the amount of visibility that Apple and |
| 1:01.0 | therefore law enforcement will lose when it comes to iCloud data in terms of digital evidence collection. |
| 1:07.0 | I'm Stephanie Pell and this is the LawFair podcast December 14th, 2022. |
| 1:13.0 | Last week, Apple made an announcement about some new security features it would be offering to users. |
| 1:19.0 | One of those features involves users' ability to opt in to end to end encryption for iPhone backups to iCloud. |
| 1:27.0 | While this new feature will enhance data privacy and security for those users who choose to opt in, |
| 1:35.0 | it may create additional challenges for law enforcement to obtain evidence in criminal investigations. |
| 1:41.0 | To discuss the implications and potential impact of this new security feature, I sat down with Rihanna Feffercorn, |
| 1:49.0 | Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. |
| 1:53.0 | We discussed the costs and benefits to users who may choose to opt into this feature, |
... |
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