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

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

#121

Post by beezle »

tjalfi wrote: post #79
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…

This reminds me of Les Earnest's story ( http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/crypto.htm ) about being investigated for espionage as a teenager during WWII.

That was a quite good read, thanks!

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

#122

Post by kelnos »

cookiecaper wrote: post #84
mnm1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> 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.

So here's the thing about that. If he's filed an appeal on a lawful order, he should not have to sit in jail while the appeals process is working its way through. That alone is coercion. That corrupts the legal process. If he has a legitimate claim that the appeals court doesn't immediately throw out, then the lower court is putting pressure on him to not wait for the appeals court's decision by depriving him of my freedom while he waits.

Yes, the appeals court judge could issue a stay on the order. The fact that he/she hasn't indicates to me that the appeals court would prefer to use their own form of coercion and judicial corruption in the hopes that Rawls will just get tired of sitting in jail eventually and comply.

And that's the problem with contempt-of-court. If you can be held indefinitely without being charged with anything, that's a corruption of the legal process. Someone being held in that manner for long enough will likely do anything to get out of that situation, even confess to a crime that carries a sentence of a defined length, because knowing you'll be out in 10 years (or whatever) might be better than being held indefinitely.

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

#123

Post by jessaustin »

jliptzin wrote: post #104
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…

And what happens if he actually forgot the password? Then what?

Surely, indefinite detention is an appropriate punishment for forgetfulness?

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

#124

Post by toyg »

Paul-ish wrote: post #91
ethbro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

TrueCrypt let you encrypt your drive in a "plausibly deniable" way. One password would let you see the encrypted contents as would expect, but there was also a sort of duress password. If you mounted the drive with the second password, you would not see files added with the "true" password. You could even add files to this file system so it looked like a fully functioning file system. How would the authorities know y…

It's not that effective against clued-up forensics, I'm pretty sure I've read of cases where prosecution successfully detected TC volumes. It does however deal with garden-variety "gun to the head" scenarios.

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

#125

Post by jwatte »

jacquesm wrote: post #111
jakeogh wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compulsive surgery before a conviction? Even worse.

You're doing this to yourself, all you have to do is give us a key... and think about the risks of such an operation. /s

Just stop claiming innocence and sign this confession and everything will be so much easier!

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

#126

Post by Qantourisc »

planetjones wrote: post #15

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 ? It's a different world now; the police can't just take a drill out and open the safe.

Well if it's encrypted, how will you get a warrant for unknown data. And if you do have proof, then why do you need the data ? In these cases I think the only reliable and best way is to obtain the data by infiltration.

It's a bit like asking a burglar to break in. You either have enough proof, or you catch them in the act.

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

#127

Post by throwanem »

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #115
throwanem wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Omg people watching illegal porn is so bad that we should give up our privacy. One day, some one is going to pass a law or do something that you don't like because the government will have unprecedented access and control of information flow. They can stop you seeing or even sharing. And it may be happening already but nobody knows.

I should not like to think anyone mistook me to be arguing in favor of restrictions on cryptography in general, because someone might use it in the commission or furtherance of a crime.

But responding to a case where cryptography is (maybe) used to conceal evidence of possession and/or distribution of child pornography, with, and I paraphrase, "why do we care about this kind of nonsense?", does not advance the cause of encouraging moderate legislation and jurisprudence on this subject.

At the very best, it makes one who advances such an argument look like so completely detached a privacy absolutist as to defend even the vilest of crimes in cases where it might overlap with his pet issue in a potentially negative way.

At only slightly less than the very best, it opens anyone who advances such an argument to allegations of wanting the distribution of child pornography to proceed untrammeled by law, and to those allegations being supported by citation of arguments like 'coldtea's, made in threads like this one.

I get that many here are very theoretically minded sorts, and that, being "systems thinkers", are much happier designing the perfect system of laws and judgment on a clean sheet of paper, rather than dealing with anything so messy as the diversity of politics and opinions which has such a significant impact in reality. I used to be such a person myself. It didn't help me understand a damn thing about the world in which we all actually live, and it made me a pointless nuisance rather than an effective agent in convincing people that even such a hot-button issue as child pornography is not an excuse to abandon all nuance.

I don't demand that my interlocutors, here or elsewhere, develop the same understanding, although I think it'd be a brilliant idea if they did. But I do ask, at minimum, that when they say ill-thought-out and pointlessly absolutist things which tend to make it harder for me to actually convince actual people that at-rest encryption is not dangerous but compelling those accused of criminal activity to divulge encrypted data is, they not act so surprised when I push back on that.

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

#128

Post by throwanem »

coldtea wrote: post #89
throwanem wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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" p…

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

In general, you're not wrong. In this case, though, you are. Matthew 19:16-19 [1]:

> 16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. 18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, 19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Had Christ intended to modify the commandment to "thou shalt not kill", I expect He would have.

[1] http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/19.htm

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

#129

Post by e40 »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #74
godelski wrote: post #71

From what I understand our legal system was designed to fail "open". Or rather that we are willing to let a guilty person go free rather than an innocent person go to jail. I know everyone wants to have a perfect justice system but we have to ALSO decide which direction we would like it to fail until that time comes (never). In essence cases like this are more about this question. When the system fails, which directi…

That was before the for profit prison industry became a cancer that incentivized keeping non-violent people in prison.

I think that's most of it, but I also think there's been some weird shift in the way police and prosecutors behave over the last decade. Much has been written how we now effectively have debtor's prisons. People are fined and imprisoned because they can't pay the fines.

The crazy part for me is that this has all happened while the crime rate has been steadily going down, so there's not even a justification for it (from a crime standpoint).

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

#130

Post by DuskStar »

throwanem wrote: post #117
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actions such as crimes are traditionally illegal. Information about actions such as crime is traditionally legal. Should we ban all recordings of any crime under moralist or flimsy arguments such as that they encourage others to commit the crimes recorded? Not only would this expand the scope of "criminal" to include people who have not committed such crimes (and may never do so), but I think it's a futile and petula…

Images and videos of child sexual abuse aren't just "information about [...] crime"; their creation, possession, and distribution are all actions which themselves qualify as criminal under modern American jurisprudence. This is generally justified on the grounds of ongoing harm to the victims, which, while not unreasonable, I think might be a weaker argument than that distribution in particular may make and expand a…

I think his point is that for pretty much every other crime - from murder to jaywalking - possession of evidence relating to that crime is not itself illegal. I know that if I ended up recording a murder (FPV drone) I'd turn that over to the police no question, but for CP? Drone camera, meet thermite.
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