{"id":952,"date":"2016-06-12T07:05:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T07:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/?p=952"},"modified":"2024-12-23T07:57:05","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T07:57:05","slug":"amazon-is-going-to-remove-encryption-capabilities-of-its-kindle-fire-rumours-says-apple-fbi-case-is-reason-lansing-technology-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/amazon-is-going-to-remove-encryption-capabilities-of-its-kindle-fire-rumours-says-apple-fbi-case-is-reason-lansing-technology-time-952\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon is going to remove encryption capabilities of its Kindle Fire, Rumours says Apple & FBI Case is reason \u2013 Lansing Technology Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Amazon<\/a><\/h3>\n

According to Amazon, Removing Kindle Fire,Fire OS 5\u2019s onboard encryption is not a new development, and it\u2019s not related to the iPhone fight<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Amazon said that the Fire OS 5 update removed local device encryption support for the Kindle Fire, Fire Phone, Amazon Fire HD, or Amazon Fire TV Stick was because the feature simply wasn\u2019t being used.<\/p>\n

Privacy advocates and some users criticized the move, which came to light on Thursday even as Apple Inc was waging an unprecedented legal battle over U.S. government demands that the iPhone maker help unlock an encrypted phone used by San Bernardino shooter Rizwan Farook.<\/p>\n

On-device encryption scrambles data so that the device can only be accessed if the user enters the correct password. Cryptologist Bruce Schneier said Amazon\u2019s move to remove the feature was \u201cstupid\u201d and called on the company to restore it.<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s move is a bad one. But it\u2019s not a retreat in the face of Apple-FBI pressures<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One of the features removed includes one that allowed owners to encrypt their device with a pin which, if entered incorrectly 30 times in a row, deletes all the data stored on it. The feature is similar to the safety feature found on the iPhone at the center of the San Berardino shooter trial, which erases all the device data if the passcode is entered incorrectly ten times.<\/p>\n

Amazon joined other major technology companies in filing an amicus brief supporting Apple on Thursday, asking a federal judge to overturn a court order requiring Apple to create software tools to unlock Farook\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n

Amazon spokeswoman Robin Handaly said in an email that the company had removed the encryption feature for Kindle Fire tablets in the fall when it launched Fire OS 5, a new version of its tablet operating system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a feature few customers were actually using,\u201d she said, adding that Kindle Fire tablets\u2019 communication with the company\u2019s cloud meets its \u201chigh standards for privacy and security including appropriate use of encryption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Encryption expert Dan Guido said that Amazon may have eliminated the feature to cut component costs for tablets that sell for as low as $50.<\/p>\n

But digital privacy advocates and customers said those arguments were not good enough reasons for discontinuing the feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemoving device encryption due to lack of customer use is an incredibly poor excuse for weakening the security of those customers that did use the feature,\u201d said Jeremy Gillula, staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that the information stored on a tablet can be just as sensitive as that stored on a phone or on a computer, Amazon should instead be pushing to make device encryption the default \u2013 not removing it,\u201d Gillula said.<\/p>\n

David Scovetta, a security analyst who owns two Kindle e-readers as well as Amazon\u2019s TV set-top box, said he is now wary of buying new gadgets from the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon could just as easily be encouraging its users to adopt it rather than remove it as a feature. That\u2019s a massive step backwards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fire OS 5 is the first release to use the Android 5.0 \u201cLollipop\u201d codebase, and as such it is possible that this removal is down to a technical issue (such as battery life or performance). Last year Google reported that it would allow hardware makers to decide whether or not to enable encryption-by-default because of performance issues on older devices.<\/p>\n

People are talking about the lack of encryption today because the OS update is only now hitting older devices, like the fourth-generation Fire HD and Fire HDX 8.9. Despite how neatly the sudden forfeiture of encryption by a tech giant fits the Apple-FBI narrative, this encryption deprecation isn\u2019t related to that battle. Instead, Amazon appears to have given up onboard encryption without any public fight at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Amazon, Removing Kindle Fire,Fire OS 5\u2019s onboard encryption is not a new development, and it\u2019s not related to the iPhone fight Amazon said that the Fire OS 5 update removed local device encryption support for the Kindle Fire, Fire Phone, Amazon Fire HD, or Amazon Fire TV Stick was because the feature simply … Continue reading Amazon is going to remove encryption capabilities of its Kindle Fire, Rumours says Apple & FBI Case is reason \u2013 Lansing Technology Time<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[331,60,52],"class_list":["post-952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amazon","tag-apple","tag-encryption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dogoodsoft.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}