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Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

arstechnica.com

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Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#31

Post by externalreality »

Not sure what the man's crime is here. Does he even remember his keys after sixteen months in the slammer? I don't even remember my Gmail password after 16 days of vacation. Basically, like the article says, it like not opening a safe for an inquisitor: you are damned if you do, you are damned if you don't. Encryption is nothing new people, you are just putting your data in a safe.

We have a tendency to misconstrue, willfully misinterpret, or altogether ignore the law when it comes to prosecuting individuals who we believe to be standing on much lower moral ground. We do so because we want so badly to punish the accused that we are willing to reduce or eliminate greater good that some privacy laws are aiming to provide (i.e. Trumps silly travel ban which is based on his hatred of Muslims built upon imaginary news stories and personal exaggerations of particular recent events -- all laws out the window)

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#32

Post by iamdave »

jordache wrote: post #28
iamdave wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all the "bad guys" who distribute illegal material do so encrypted volumes and refuse to give up the decryption key then what do we do ? "Bad guys" still have fifth amendment protection. You prosecute, satisfy the burden of proof and hope a jury convicts. That's what you do. Outside of that, if you really want this changed, petition your representative to repeal the fifth amendment, I suppose?

need to stop thinking from an american centric perspective.

This is in response to a news story that happened in the United States, I thought we were remaining in that context. And if I'm to think outside of an American-centric viewpoint, what governing body do you point to that would protect someone's rights from being forced to provide evidence against themselves when being charged with a crime?

or

Is this something that ought not be considered either?

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#33

Post by [deleted] »

danbruc wrote: post #13

This is probably a lot less black and white then it might seem at first. If there is sufficient evidence, one can obtain a search warrant and this forces you to possibly act against your own best interest by allowing the police to search your home. On the other hand you can usually not be forced to testify against yourself. So this becomes the question where decrypting a hard drive lies on this spectrum. Is it more l…

[deleted]

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#34

Post by coldtea »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #4
guard-of-terra wrote: post #2

The people who do this now will become old and helpless to, and it is our purpose to forget nothing and make sure their final years are thoroughly ruined.

You see, 35 years ago you signed this order on d'tention over hard drive 'ncryption? That's unconst'tutional, you know. Here we've got the relevant law. So now we have to w'draw a 35 years worth of pay that you received aft'wards. That's the law that say that, too. We'll start by taking your house 'way. Also we our records show you gave $100k to your daughter 15 years ago. I'm 'fraid we have to put a debt on her for…

How's that different than "revenge fantasy" fiction?

Slim chances of anything like that happening. Besides, there are such people in every generation. They just change what they target (after all it's about the control and the profit, not about particular victims. E.g. now they can afford to play it non-racist, since why should they care much about suppressing blacks in particular, when they can now fuck the whole population?).

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#35

Post by michaelmrose »

BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #22
AckSyn wrote: post #17

He shouldn't have to decrypt his hard drives, and I support his decisions. The problems with this are numerous. First of all no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection. It's not a "right" for the police at all to have. Imprisoning someone for failure to disregard their constitutional rights is absurd. They have no evidence to hold him period.

But I bet something led police to the hard drive in question in the first place. I wonder what "that" something was. In the U.S. you can be arrested and held for Reasonable Suspicion (or Probable Cause)

Not indefinitely

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#36

Post by skrause »

danbruc wrote: post #13

This is probably a lot less black and white then it might seem at first. If there is sufficient evidence, one can obtain a search warrant and this forces you to possibly act against your own best interest by allowing the police to search your home. On the other hand you can usually not be forced to testify against yourself. So this becomes the question where decrypting a hard drive lies on this spectrum. Is it more l…

> one can obtain a search warrant and this forces you to possibly act against your own best interest by allowing the police to search your home.

In Germany you never have to actively help the police even if they come with a warrant. They can't even compel you to open the door of the house or a physical safe. They will of course come in anyway and send you the bill for the locksmith, but it's your perfect right to just sit there and do nothing.

So with the hard disk encryption it's actually exactly the same: You don't have to help in any way, but of course the police can still take the drive and try to decrypt it. If they can't decrypt, well, bad luck. Not your problem, you don't have to help.

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#37

Post by droithomme »

AckSyn wrote: post #17

He shouldn't have to decrypt his hard drives, and I support his decisions. The problems with this are numerous. First of all no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection. It's not a "right" for the police at all to have. Imprisoning someone for failure to disregard their constitutional rights is absurd. They have no evidence to hold him period.

"no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection"

I like that idea. However, the 5th amendment's protection is something different: "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."

Consider the case of someone running a drug lab or counterfeiting press in their residence. Police show up with a warrant based on probable cause to search the residence. The person is required to unlock the door and let the police in because the police have a warrant. The person is not testifying against themselves, they are unlocking the lock to allow a warranted search. If they do not unlock the door after being presented with a warrant then that is a new crime they can be charged with, and the police will come in anyway.

In these cases with encryption the courts have consistently been finding that the password is comparable to unlocking the door to a house to which the police have a search warrant.

It has also been counterargued that speaking or writing down a password is a form of testimony, one that can be self-incriminatory, and therefore is protected by the Fifth. Most courts have not been sympathetic to this argument, though there has been one exception.

In this case the man is in possession of a lawful order from a judge to facilitate a search and he is refusing to cooperate. Thus the judge jails him until he decides to cooperate with the lawful order from the judge. This is how it is done.

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#38

Post by pmoriarty »

coldtea wrote: post #25
AckSyn wrote: post #17

He shouldn't have to decrypt his hard drives, and I support his decisions. The problems with this are numerous. First of all no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection. It's not a "right" for the police at all to have. Imprisoning someone for failure to disregard their constitutional rights is absurd. They have no evidence to hold him period.

> First of all no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection. Apparently all these amendments are open to all kinds of BS interpretation by courts, with loopholes like "you don't really expect privacy when you send snail mail", "some random gun freak is the same as a well armed militia", "corporations are people" and other such shenanigans.

Yes. That's the problem with the whole "this is a government of laws, not men" idea. The laws are always, always interpreted by men. They are enforced (or not) by men, at their discretion.

It's much like the "thou shalt not kill" commandment in the Bible. It's there in black and white, and about as clear and simple as you can get. Yet plenty of Jews and Christians kill, and often do so eagerly and joyfully, even thinking they are doing God's work. As the old saying goes, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." Or "Onward, Christian soldiers!"

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#39

Post by guard-of-terra »

coldtea wrote: post #34
guard-of-terra wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see, 35 years ago you signed this order on d'tention over hard drive 'ncryption? That's unconst'tutional, you know. Here we've got the relevant law. So now we have to w'draw a 35 years worth of pay that you received aft'wards. That's the law that say that, too. We'll start by taking your house 'way. Also we our records show you gave $100k to your daughter 15 years ago. I'm 'fraid we have to put a debt on her for…

How's that different than "revenge fantasy" fiction? Slim chances of anything like that happening. Besides, there are such people in every generation. They just change what they target (after all it's about the control and the profit, not about particular victims. E.g. now they can afford to play it non-racist, since why should they care much about suppressing blacks in particular, when they can now fuck the whole po…

I don't know about such a fiction but I guess that would be it.

If we are persistent and unforgetting, this might become a reality one day. We should find "such people" in every generation and make sure they don't have a chance to do such mistakes to pay for them later, but on the question of payment we should be adamant.

The trick here is to not be conflict-averse and not be a slave of own wallet but to care about justice even after the years.

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#40

Post by hrehhf »

danbruc wrote: post #13

This is probably a lot less black and white then it might seem at first. If there is sufficient evidence, one can obtain a search warrant and this forces you to possibly act against your own best interest by allowing the police to search your home. On the other hand you can usually not be forced to testify against yourself. So this becomes the question where decrypting a hard drive lies on this spectrum. Is it more l…

A search warrant does not really require the target to 'allow' the police to search; the target could choose not to cooperate and police would break into the home, for example. As far as I can see, it is lawful to the target to do this. Similarly, in Rawls's case, the government is free to attempt to bruteforce the passphrase without Rawls's cooperation.
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