Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by EGreg » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

ryan-c wrote: post #61

EGreg wrote: post #44

This is a good reason to have TrueCrypt hidden volumes and other forms of steganography. You can decrypt and still have more stuff that looks like random junk. No one can be sure you decrypted everything. The best idea however is to have sensitive stuff stored encrypted on freenet, and log in using incognito browser sessions.

> No one can be sure you decrypted everything. What exactly do you think they're going to do if they don't believe you've decrypted everything?

No idea.

They don't know anymore if ANYONE decrypted everything.

They would do whatever they do right now when they don't know things - about anyone.

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

#82

Post by kybernetikos » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:03 PM UTC

spaceboy wrote: post #19

I thought the U.S had better key disclosure law[1] than other countries? Personally I would rather not self-incriminate myself by revealing a key, no matter how draconian and lengthy the sentencing was. Why, you ask? Well I consider all my own personal data likened to an extension of my own mind, and revealing a key is like slicing a thin part of my brain and attempting to pick its contents. Never a gentlemanly thing…

If you need to cross a border, you will find that the border agents think they have the right to compel you to boot your laptop, including entering any secret or attaching any device required to do so. I doubt that they could ultimately stop you returning to your own country if you held out, but they could stop you leaving, and they could certainly make your life pretty miserable.

In my opinion you'd be much better with a laptop that booted to windows and looked like it had some simple things installed under a password you don't mind giving them. Then they'll probably never get around to asking you about the usb stick your tailsOS is installed on.

You can now get extremely large usb sticks in very small form factors. I have been toying with the idea of creating something that looks exactly (and nonsuspiciously) like a usb 'charging cable' but with built in memory. Ideally if it's plugged into power or a laptop, it just appears as a normal usb cable, but if the microusb end is not plugged in, it shows as a large memory stick you could also boot from.

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

#83

Post by spacemanmatt » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:16 PM UTC

janwillemb wrote: post #68

pmoriarty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

"Onward, Christian soldiers" is not about physical war, but about spiritual warfare. Killing isn't usually performed by singing hymns, for example: Hell’s foundations quiver At the shout of praise; Brothers, lift your voices, Loud your anthems raise.

Yet, that doesn't stop Christians from misinterpreting the Muslim concept of jihad

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

#84

Post by cookiecaper » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:20 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #69

droithomme wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 resid…

The difference is, one doesn't have to cooperate with a search warrant. The idea of encryption being a lock like on a locked door is ludicrous and downright dangerous. Using a fantasy metaphor in place of actual reality is incredibly misleading and outright manipulative. The difference between a lock and encryption is that all locks in the physical world can be broken by outside parties. If someone doesn't want to op…

It's not fantasy. Fantasy is a world where you can tell the police "I know how to open that thing that you have a lawful order to investigate, and you don't, so any crime of which I'm suspected is now uninvestigatable, nanny nanny boo boo". The analog with other difficult locks is just fine; the fact that these locks are so good that they are unbreakable doesn't really change anything about the accused's obligation to cooperate with lawful orders.

The protection in the Fifth is to prevent a perverse system of coerced confessions, where innocent people can be placed on the stand and forced to falsely confess before the court. This has been expanded to preclude other types of unreliable confessions. Impeding the execution of a legitimate warrant, even when that warrant is issued in order to obtain evidence to prosecute oneself, is not protected by the Fifth Amendment.

The Fifth is not there to allow criminals to get away with things, antagonize the police, or make it hard for society to maintain order. It's not there because keeping "one innocent person out of jail is worth 50 guilty going free" or similar sentiments that are frequently expressed. It's there to prevent a common corruption in the justice process.

>Why should the innocent defendant be made to languish in jail indefinitely because the police/prosecutor are inept and incapable of doing their job without reverting to unconstitutional tactics?

Because he's violating a lawful order. If the accused wants to challenge the legality of that order, he can file a lawsuit to do so (and from the article, it sounds like he has). But unless the judge supervising that lawsuit issues a stay on the order in question, the accused is still obliged to comply and can be detained based on his/her refusal to do so.

Reformation of the contempt of court power is probably reasonable, however. This guy should be charged with obstructing justice and tried instead of kept in prison indefinitely. It'd probably be good to set an upper limit of something like 12 months on contempt of court detainments.

I'm not a lawyer.

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

#85

Post by tajen » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:20 PM UTC

BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #7

Let him go then.

Most people don't realize that child pornography is "any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor". Under a bad cop, any sexually explicit pic of a person can be deemed "under 18 years of age", unless you have the actor's ID on file.

And there are many, many underage actors. Even if you buy legal porn which claimed actors were above 18, you are guilty. Especially if you've bought it. Here's how: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_fabrication

In other words, I've ceased to believe people convicted of child pornography were paedophiles. The condemnation is simply unrelated to the moral standards of the person.

Hence, if he has any picture on this hard drive, he's right to plead the 5th.

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

#86

Post by curun1r » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:22 PM UTC

Elijen wrote: post #53

"I forgot the password" Problem solved.

That was the answer the man in the case gave. The judge believes he's lying. His 16 months of imprisonment show that his problem is far from solved.

The better answer is to have a second encrypted volume on the disk. Perhaps put a few pirated movies on it or some personal documents as a justification for why it's encrypted. That way, when they ask you to enter your password, you enter that one and unlock the volume that's mostly not incriminating. The way that TrueCrypt and other encryption programs work, it's impossible to prove that there is a second encrypted volume.

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

#87

Post by gervase » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #77

beezle wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few points - Devils advocate, travel back to the 1950s. The government searches your home and takes a letter or other document that is clearly written in code. Can/would they jail you as in the current case until you decode it? And without even charging you with any other crime first? At what point is "I used a one time pad" or "I don'remember" sufficient? I'm sure all of us have at least once (probably many) times…

Following from this, if perfect encryption leaves a ciphertext indistinguishable from random noise, then what proof does the court expect that a given decryption is the correct decryption? If he were to hand them an elaborately constructed fake file system, who would they be to say those weren't the encrypted contents? (For purposes of thought exercise, mooting arguments about headers / magic fingerprints / leaky met…

A possibly-related topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption

How can they even be sure that the decrypted message is the real one? I assume currently they're just using human heuristics (i.e. I know it when I see it) to tell if the decrypted data is actually valid?

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

#88

Post by coldtea » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #54

coldtea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As expected on HN I am not surprised to see people defending one's right to privacy and encryption. However, what's the solution then ? 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 ? Why do we care for people distributing "illegal material" in the first place? And how come this "illegal material" doesn't ever get decrypted?…

> Why do we care for people distributing "illegal material" in the first place? Is "distributing child pornography should not be a crime" really the hill you want to die on?

No, it's the "abolish BS laws" hill.

How about creating child pornography being a crime? That's what's actually hurtful.

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

#89

Post by coldtea » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:28 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #51

pmoriarty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

> It's much like the "thou shalt not kill" commandment in the Bible. That's an erroneous translation, although I concede it is very common - but rarely if ever found within a Bible as you claim; both the KJV, which I prefer for the music of its language, and the NIV, which is much more common these days, instead correctly render it as "Thou shalt/you shall not murder ". I can't speak for Torah, but I doubt it differs…

>The laws of men distinguish mere murder from killing in general, whether it be manslaughter, justifiable homicide, the conduct of warfare, or any of sundry other nuances. Why, then, should the law of God overlook the same distinction?

Because that's old testament morals that have been deprecated by Christ.

That's the whole point of getting a NEW testament.

And Christ is quite clear about the "not kill in general" part.

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

#90

Post by coldtea » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 9:29 PM UTC

spacemanmatt wrote: post #83

janwillemb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Onward, Christian soldiers" is not about physical war, but about spiritual warfare. Killing isn't usually performed by singing hymns, for example: Hell’s foundations quiver At the shout of praise; Brothers, lift your voices, Loud your anthems raise.

Yet, that doesn't stop Christians from misinterpreting the Muslim concept of jihad

That's because militant muslims have been using it for millennia for actual attacks and war, not just spiritual ones.