Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has indicated he would support a collaborative process to find solutions to the “going dark” problem that has led to the Federal Bureau of Investigation demanding that Apple, Inc., disable security features on a locked iPhone. Responding to questions on the issue yesterday at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco, Mr. Carter declined to comment specifically on the Apple case that is playing out in a California federal court.

 But the issue in general – the inability of authorities to gather data from encrypted devices used by suspects in criminal or terrorism investigations – is “complex and complicated,” Mr. Carter said.  “There isn’t going to be one answer,” he said.  “I don’t think we ought to let one case drive a general conclusion or solution.”

 “The only way we’re going to get to a good solution is by working together,” he added.  “It’s much better if we do it together.  That’s the path I think we need to be on.  Let’s be collaborative.  Let’s be technical.  Let’s recognize that this is not one case and one problem.”

 “I’m not a believer in back doors or a single technical approach to what is a complex and complicated problem.  I’m just not,” he said.  “We have to innovate our way to a sensible result for data security.”  The alternative, he told the RSA audience, “would be a law written by people who won’t have the technical knowledge of the people in this room, maybe written in an atmosphere of anger or grief, and that’s not likely to be the right answer.”

 “Another alternative, which I don’t like, is that the solution is written by another country, like Russia or China.  And you know what their attitudes towards data freedom and data access are, as well as data security,” Mr. Carter said.

 He also spoke about recent DoD initiatives to harness the innovative energy of Silicon Valley and the use of offensive cyber operations against the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).  “We’re going to defeat ISIL,” he said.  “And I’m looking for all the ways we can accelerate that defeat.”

“One of the things that we are doing is using our cyber to interrupt their ability to command and control their forces, to make them doubt the reliability of their communications, [and] take away their ability to control the local population,” he said. 

 “We’re not going to talk about exactly how we’re doing it, when we’re doing it, and the manner,” he added.  “But that’s the basic idea.” – Tom Leithauser, tom.leithauser@wolterskluwer.com