Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

arstechnica.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 224 posts

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#11

Post by oarsinsync »

INTPenis wrote: post #10
maremmano wrote: post #3

and what happens if I forgot my password?

>The defendant, who is referred to as "John Doe" in court papers, claims he forgot the passwords. The suspect's identity is Francis Rawls, according to trial court papers. > In fact, Doe had multiple layers of password protection on his devices, and he always entered his passcodes for all of his devices from memory. Doe never had any trouble remembering his passcodes (other than when compelled to do so by the federal…

Which in itself isn't really valid. Under immense stress, memory fails. I'd wager facing a long prison sentence for a crime that will make you a big target in an already hostile environment would be pretty stressful.

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#12

Post by mabbo »

officemonkey wrote: post #9
coreyp_1 wrote: post #2

This is an important constitutional issue! The subject may be deplorable, but the root issue is not. If it is a "foregone conclusion", then they should have no problem convicting the guy without forcing him to testify against himself. If it is not a "foregone conclusion", then they have been lying and are illegally (unconstitutionally) depriving him of his freedom for months, without even charging him with a crime!

Even if they have enough testimony to convict him, they may be more interested in forensic clues about where he obtained his files. Decrypting his hard drive may lead to other charges against other people. If he knows that he can incriminate others, he may be waiting for a deal. They're playing hardball with him right now. After six months in jail, watch them offer him a deal if he unlocks the hard drive. He gets a f…

First sentence of the article says he's already been there 7 months.

They won't get 'more bad guys', they just want to prove that they can do this to anyone who doesn't obey.

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#13

Post by DanBC »

oarsinsync wrote: post #7
BillinghamJ wrote: post #5

In the UK, this is actually legal sadly.

Sections 49 & 53 of the RIPA allows for up to two years imprisonment for failing to provide unencrypted copies of key material. Not quite the same as life. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to abuse it in this way.

This case involves "child indecency", and so would be 5 years. But yes, there appear to be better protections.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/part/III

    (5)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—
      (a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding [F15the appropriate maximum term] or to a fine, or to both;
      (b)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both.

    [F16(5A)In subsection (5) ‘the appropriate maximum term’ means—
      (a)in a national security case [F17or a child indecency case], five years; and
      (b)in any other case, two years.

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#14

Post by DanBC »

mabbo wrote: post #12
officemonkey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they have enough testimony to convict him, they may be more interested in forensic clues about where he obtained his files. Decrypting his hard drive may lead to other charges against other people. If he knows that he can incriminate others, he may be waiting for a deal. They're playing hardball with him right now. After six months in jail, watch them offer him a deal if he unlocks the hard drive. He gets a f…

First sentence of the article says he's already been there 7 months. They won't get 'more bad guys', they just want to prove that they can do this to anyone who doesn't obey.

Or they want to identify the child victims of sexual abuse, and want to make sure those children are safe, and that the people abusing them and taking photos of that abuse are prosecuted.

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#15

Post by [deleted] »

INTPenis wrote: post #8
coreyp_1 wrote: post #2

This is an important constitutional issue! The subject may be deplorable, but the root issue is not. If it is a "foregone conclusion", then they should have no problem convicting the guy without forcing him to testify against himself. If it is not a "foregone conclusion", then they have been lying and are illegally (unconstitutionally) depriving him of his freedom for months, without even charging him with a crime!

>Investigators say they know child porn is on the drives. His sister saw some of it and the suspect is said to have shown his family an illicit video, too. So that's their basis for this "foregone conclusion" apparently. That at one point in time it was witnessed. That is very dangerous logic. The sadest thing in this is that it took child pornography to make the headlines, not political activism or journalism but th…

[deleted]

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#16

Post by dkersten »

oarsinsync wrote: post #11
INTPenis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The defendant, who is referred to as "John Doe" in court papers, claims he forgot the passwords. The suspect's identity is Francis Rawls, according to trial court papers. > In fact, Doe had multiple layers of password protection on his devices, and he always entered his passcodes for all of his devices from memory. Doe never had any trouble remembering his passcodes (other than when compelled to do so by the federal…

Which in itself isn't really valid. Under immense stress, memory fails. I'd wager facing a long prison sentence for a crime that will make you a big target in an already hostile environment would be pretty stressful.

I was going to comment the same thing. If I'd been imprisoned for 7 months, there's a good chance I'd forget my password manager master password too... I remember it now because I enter it multiple times a day. After 7 months, under duress and stress? I'm not sure if I would...

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#18

Post by the-dude »

INTPenis wrote: post #8
coreyp_1 wrote: post #2

This is an important constitutional issue! The subject may be deplorable, but the root issue is not. If it is a "foregone conclusion", then they should have no problem convicting the guy without forcing him to testify against himself. If it is not a "foregone conclusion", then they have been lying and are illegally (unconstitutionally) depriving him of his freedom for months, without even charging him with a crime!

>Investigators say they know child porn is on the drives. His sister saw some of it and the suspect is said to have shown his family an illicit video, too. So that's their basis for this "foregone conclusion" apparently. That at one point in time it was witnessed. That is very dangerous logic. The sadest thing in this is that it took child pornography to make the headlines, not political activism or journalism but th…

Pedophilia is the new red scare

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#20

Post by tetrep »

I find this interesting, as I would almost certainly have forgotten my password by now, it only takes me 4-6 months of never using a password to forget it, so I wonder what happens if you can't decrypt your drives, due to honest forgetting from sitting in jail refusing to, or from some sort of deadman's switch or similar that drops keys after N days.
Post reply on HN