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

51–60 of 224 posts

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

#51

Post by throwaway7767 »

tptacek wrote: post #37
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!

It is not in fact settled law that unlocking an encrypted drive is testimonial. It's also worth remembering that the primary motivation for 5A is to prevent false, coerced testimony and torture; when SCOTUS eventually deals with this, they could find that no protected substantive rights are threatened by demands to unlock encrypted media. We're unlikely to get it both ways: both a right to strong encryption without g…

Realistically, how can we differentiate between a suspect who's refusing to unlock something, and a suspect who has genuinely forgotten his password?

I know for myself, even with passwords I use multiple times a day from memory, it only takes a couple of months of not using them before I cannot recall them again. This guy has been locked up for 7 months.

See also the numerous people who stored bitcoin in brain wallets (bad idea), who now cannot reclaim their money despite considerable financial incentive to do so.

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

#52

Post by ctack »

the-dude wrote: post #18
INTPenis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

Don't forget terrorism.

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

#53

Post by tptacek »

throwaway7767 wrote: post #51
tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not in fact settled law that unlocking an encrypted drive is testimonial. It's also worth remembering that the primary motivation for 5A is to prevent false, coerced testimony and torture; when SCOTUS eventually deals with this, they could find that no protected substantive rights are threatened by demands to unlock encrypted media. We're unlikely to get it both ways: both a right to strong encryption without g…

Realistically, how can we differentiate between a suspect who's refusing to unlock something, and a suspect who has genuinely forgotten his password? I know for myself, even with passwords I use multiple times a day from memory, it only takes a couple of months of not using them before I cannot recall them again. This guy has been locked up for 7 months. See also the numerous people who stored bitcoin in brain wallet…

There is no foolproof way, but uncertainty is something the law has dealt with for centuries, and isn't unique to this situation. The short answer is: it gets argued in court like everything else.

If cryptography introduces too many new cases of contempt, we'll need to rework the contempt system, and, in particular, introduce juries to the process (perhaps for contempt sentences exceeding a certain number of weeks).

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

#54

Post by ommunist »

mattraibert wrote: post #27
davideous wrote: post #19

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/538/

In case you're curious, this is often called rubber-hose cryptanalysis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis

In Russia, if you are curious this is often called rectal high temperature cryptanalysis. There is manual.

http://lurkmore.to/%D0%A2%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B...

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

#55

Post by sspiff »

Kristine1975 wrote: post #49
virmundi wrote: post #45

The best part of this whole story is the unintended consequence of attack. Don't like someone, encrypt a zip drive with drivel, toss it in his car and call the cops. Say you saw him looking at what could be kiddie porn. The guy doesn't know the password. Life in prison. No excuse. This applies not merely to Bob in Accounting that's a dick, but to everyone: Congress! Start sniping political enemies. A jump drive here.…

A zip drive with no fingerprints of the person it supposedly belongs to? Not very convincing. Also in this case the prosecution apparently has a bit more information that just "he did it": A subsequent forensic exam of his Mac Pro computer revealed that Doe had installed a virtual machine ... the examiner found one image of what appeared to be a 14-year-old child wearing a bathing suit and posed in a sexually suggest…

Wouldn't stop the police from keeping him behind bars. "He went through the trouble of encrypting the drive and keeping it clean from prints, but we found it in his car. He's clearly a well organized, determined child porn consumer."

Perhaps you have too much faith in law enforcement, or I have grown too cynical by what I perceive as the dawn of a new era of police states.

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

#56

Post by virmundi »

Kristine1975 wrote: post #49
virmundi wrote: post #45

The best part of this whole story is the unintended consequence of attack. Don't like someone, encrypt a zip drive with drivel, toss it in his car and call the cops. Say you saw him looking at what could be kiddie porn. The guy doesn't know the password. Life in prison. No excuse. This applies not merely to Bob in Accounting that's a dick, but to everyone: Congress! Start sniping political enemies. A jump drive here.…

A zip drive with no fingerprints of the person it supposedly belongs to? Not very convincing. Also in this case the prosecution apparently has a bit more information that just "he did it": A subsequent forensic exam of his Mac Pro computer revealed that Doe had installed a virtual machine ... the examiner found one image of what appeared to be a 14-year-old child wearing a bathing suit and posed in a sexually suggest…

I agree that the case here is a bit more compelling. You're also correct in the lack of some evidence in the attach scheme.

You can overcome the fingerprints by handing things out for free. Here's a jump drive from some corp. You can also it in a cup holder. The person would touch the jump drive while being a bit perplexed. If you know the person, you can probably get them to hold it for you by simply handing it to them.

Yes, you have to be more involved, but at the same time it's doable.

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

#57

Post by DanBC »

toolz wrote: post #21
DanBC wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Somehow unethical law precedent always seems to come at the aid of women and children. I have a very hard time buying into that overused excuse. How likely do you think it is that the children fall into their jurisdiction? Much less even, do you think they'll be able to identify young undocumented children?

Police have international co-operation to identify, find, and protect the victims of child abuse.

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

#59

Post by vinceguidry »

Hondor wrote: post #50
unlinker wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedophilia is, sadly, far from being just a scare.

Pedophilia is a sexuality. Some people are just that way inclined. Don't confuse child abuse with sexuality the way people used to do about gays. That's extremely harmful to actual pedophiles who may have done nothing wrong. It's not even classified as a disease unless it causes problems for the person afflicted with it.

I wouldn't be so quick to claim they're doing nothing wrong.

Every year, rhinos in Africa are threatened by poachers in Africa who want their horns for the black market in China. Every person who buys rhino horn in Africa, every person who is in a position to fight the unnecessary consumption of endangered animals and doesn't, is complicit in the destruction of their species.

You don't get a pass because you aren't the one who actually killed the rhinos, or abused the children. Those rhinos wouldn't have gotten killed, those children wouldn't have gotten abused, if the demand weren't there. You don't get a pass because you "needed" rhino horn, or because you have a non-standard sexuality.

The only socially-acceptable response to your needs is to not contribute to the exploitation of others.

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

#60

Post by CPLX »

virmundi wrote: post #45

The best part of this whole story is the unintended consequence of attack. Don't like someone, encrypt a zip drive with drivel, toss it in his car and call the cops. Say you saw him looking at what could be kiddie porn. The guy doesn't know the password. Life in prison. No excuse. This applies not merely to Bob in Accounting that's a dick, but to everyone: Congress! Start sniping political enemies. A jump drive here.…

Or you could just put actual kiddie porn on the planted hard drives and save yourself this entire legal conundrum.
Post reply on HN