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Today's Topics:
1. Microsoft gave FBI a set of BitLocker encryption keys to
unlock suspects? laptops: Reports (Kim Holburn)
2. AI: The Last Invention (Kim Holburn)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2026 12:51:06 +1100
From: Kim Holburn <[email protected]>
To: Link mailing list <[email protected]>, EFA Privacy List
<[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Microsoft gave FBI a set of BitLocker encryption keys
to unlock suspects? laptops: Reports
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/23/microsoft-gave-fbi-a-set-of-bitlocker-encryption-keys-to-unlock-suspects-laptops-reports/
Microsoft provided the FBI with the recovery keys to unlock encrypted data on
the hard drives of three laptops as part of a federal
investigation, Forbes reported on Friday.
Many modern Windows computers rely on full-disk encryption, called BitLocker,
which is enabled by default. This type of technology
should prevent anyone except the device owner from accessing the data if the
computer is locked and powered off.
But, by default, BitLocker recovery keys are uploaded to Microsoft?s cloud,
allowing the tech giant ? and by extension law
enforcement ? to access them and use them to decrypt drives encrypted with
BitLocker, as with the case reported by Forbes.
The case involved several people suspected of fraud related to the Pandemic
Unemployment Assistance program in Guam, a U.S. island
in the Pacific. Local news outlet Pacific Daily News covered the case last
year, reporting that a warrant had been served to
Microsoft in relation to the suspects? hard drives. Kandit News, another local
Guam news outlet, also reported in October that the
FBI requested the warrant six months after seizing the three laptops encrypted
with BitLocker.
A spokesperson for Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for
comment by TechCrunch. Microsoft told Forbes that the
company sometimes provides BitLocker recovery keys to authorities, having
received an average of 20 such requests per year.
Apart from the privacy risks of handing recovery keys to a company, Johns
Hopkins professor and cryptography expert Matthew Green
raised the potential scenario where malicious hackers compromise Microsoft?s
cloud infrastructure ? something that has happened
several times in recent years ? and get access to these recovery keys. The
hackers would still need physical access to the hard
drives to use the stolen recovery keys.
?It?s 2026 and these concerns have been known for years,? Green wrote in a post
on Bluesky. ?Microsoft?s inability to secure
critical customer keys is starting to make it an outlier from the rest of the
industry.?
--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
+61 404072753
mailto:[email protected] aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2026 14:48:27 +1100
From: Kim Holburn <[email protected]>
To: Link mailing list <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] AI: The Last Invention
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-last-invention/id1839942885
The AI revolution has begun ? the product of a seventy-year quest by
scientists, mathematicians, and visionaries who set out to
build machines that could think. But what began as a fringe idea has now become
one of the most powerful forces of the 21st century.
This is the story of that journey: its rivalries, its competing visions of
utopia and apocalypse, and the race to build what may be
humanity?s last invention.
A long listen for the holidays.
--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
+61 404072753
mailto:[email protected] aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request
------------------------------
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End of Link Digest, Vol 398, Issue 20
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