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

Post by tremon » Tue, May 17, 2016, 4:00 PM UTC

cpncrunch wrote: post #119

tptacek wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what happened here. Read the DOJ's filing. * The accused admitted to knowing the password and refused to provide it, on the auspices of not wanting investigators snooping through his files. Only later did they claim to have "forgotten" it. * Prosecutors entered into evidence multiple factual claims establishing that the accused knew the password; for instance: years of eyewitness testimony demonstrating th…

Also, he showed his own family child porn, and they have actually found searches for child porn in a VM on the computer. >Whenever you get to an alarming conclusion like "this means forgetting the password to your laptop means life in prison", chances are, you've missed relevant details. Unfortunately responses like the parent comment are predictable on HN. There is the constant narrative that the government is out t…

Post by scld » Tue, May 17, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

silveira wrote: post #126

Apart from the obvious assault on the presumption of innocence here, is there a cryptographic file-system that stores a secret X and Y that given a key k_x would decrypt the content X and given k_y would decrypt the content Y without revealing to an attacker that there are multiple contents? If yes, than one could store a real secret X and store a false secret Y, something that looks like a secret enough to be percei…

Post by wildmusings » Tue, May 17, 2016, 4:04 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #132

cpncrunch wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, he showed his own family child porn, and they have actually found searches for child porn in a VM on the computer. >Whenever you get to an alarming conclusion like "this means forgetting the password to your laptop means life in prison", chances are, you've missed relevant details. Unfortunately responses like the parent comment are predictable on HN. There is the constant narrative that the government is out t…

Then he should be sentenced on the other evidence anyway. The failure to provide additional incriminating evidence could be used as an aggravating circumstance in the ruling, not as a separate crime with infinite detainment. (edit: replaced punishment with detainment, it's probably more neutral)

Post by mrwizrd » Tue, May 17, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

silveira wrote: post #126

Apart from the obvious assault on the presumption of innocence here, is there a cryptographic file-system that stores a secret X and Y that given a key k_x would decrypt the content X and given k_y would decrypt the content Y without revealing to an attacker that there are multiple contents? If yes, than one could store a real secret X and store a false secret Y, something that looks like a secret enough to be percei…

Post by themartorana » Tue, May 17, 2016, 4:11 PM UTC

s_q_b wrote: post #41

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…

It's also totally insignificant. He could have broadcast it all over Times Square. That in no way waives his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. Also, every prosecutor in history has thought their entire case in chief was a "foregone conclusion." That's totally irrelevant.