UK cops beat phone encryption by "mugging" suspect after he unlocked his phone

[stinkinbadgers]

@ejeffrey

But honestly, I am not really worried about this sort of attack. This only happens when the police have already decided to arrest you. Either they have already done investigation and have some sort of evidence against you, or they have given up pretending to care about due process and all that – either way, them getting your phone is not the biggest concern. I definitely think there should still be protections – the police should be able to image the phone to prevent encryption, but should require a warrant to search the image if they want to use it as evidence, but on the whole, this is a targeted attack that is much less worrisome than mandated backdoors or mass surveillance. I don’t object to the cops being able to search suspects encrypted phones – I just don’t want to do so in a way that makes everyone insecure, or searching all phones to identify suspects.

That’s the thing- fiddling over the details of how to attack or defend a phone is just rearranging the deck chairs while rome burns- the only real defense solution is a culture in which specific warrants are respected and required and over-stepping bounds on the part of the police and prosecutors is actually punished. Less than that means being caught in this arms race that we seem to be perpetually losing.