Why post when you haven't read the article?
I read the article, it mentions the amendments by number but I don't have awareness of them by number alone.
Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
161–170 of 504 posts
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#162Not 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,…
This was pretty much inevitable :( > Encryption is nothing new people, you are just putting your data in a safe. Well, you could also be held indefinitely for refusing to provide the combination for a safe. If there were safes that could keep them out indefinitely, anyway. I suspect that they nailed him using ICAC's Black Ice app. It's a hacked version of the Freenet client that logs peer IPs, and tracks hashes that…
Thanks for the background, but somebody has to say it: his failure was looking at child pornography.
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#163Earlier 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…
ooooh, I guess God was ok with killing people as long as it was mass killings so you could call it something besides murder. Because apparently the exact name somehow makes the act better (or worse?) in God's eyes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga_7j72CVlc&t=0m25s We should go tell Feynman he's nuts...
>Because apparently the exact name somehow makes the act better (or worse?) in God's eyes.
Not a christian per se, but theoretically speaking, the name is not some mere dressing: it gives the justification (or lack thereof) for the act.
So it makes sense that something described with a different name changes the act in "God's eyes" -- the same way that e.g. killing someone to take their money and killing someone to stop them from killing you are not both "murder".
Besides, what's allowed to humans and what's allowed to God doesn't need to be the same thing. No hypocrisy in that, we're talking about different entities, and nobody said they are equal (on the contrary).
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's clear from reading other writings by the Founding Fathers that the 2nd Amendment was written to allow an individual to own firearms. This is irrelevant, it matters what made it into the contract, i.e. Constitution. The second amendment in full is: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." A well regulated mi…
It's not irrelevant, because it allows you to understand what words like "militia" and "well regulated" meant at the time. They don't mean what a casual reader might think they do. The Supreme Court frequently goes back an looks at other historical records/writings of the time to dig into the real meaning of the words. It really doesn't matter, because as Heller held, the first part of that sentence is the prefatory…
The claim that the first clause is prefatory is some seriously contorted motivated reasoning on the part of the majority in the Heller case, and for those who would like to see what real historians think I would direct you to the amicus brief in that case from Rakove et al (http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/07-290_...)
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 w…
There's nothing about TailsOS that could arouse suspicion if there's nothing persistent on it that could arouse suspicion, or draw more attention to you. TailsOS is strictly a utility like a wrench or a screwdriver. Providing you exit TailsOS properly and watch the screen as it's wiping the memory to ensure it has infact wiped. TailsOS can prove to be an innocuous O.S after you unload it from memory. They might ask q…
That isn't an issue with Windows but with all file systems. When you delete a file it does not remove the data it marks the area it resides as "free" allowing anything to be saved there.
Even tails if not immune to this unless you use some secure wipe tool. Even they flash drives have wear level management that loves data around to make the wear on each chip equal so you can't be sure its even gone.
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gosh, compelled is such a nice euphemism for "psychologically and physically brutalized until complicit". I don't think it is right to "compel" you to produce anything, key nor combination.
I mean, yes, the thing that ultimately underpins all authority is the ability to exert physical force to see it honored. I'm not clear on what you're suggesting.
I think it's pretty clear that the parent is accusing the state of using torture to coerce compliance, which is a strong indication that the state itself is no longer legitimate.
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing about TailsOS that could arouse suspicion if there's nothing persistent on it that could arouse suspicion, or draw more attention to you. TailsOS is strictly a utility like a wrench or a screwdriver. Providing you exit TailsOS properly and watch the screen as it's wiping the memory to ensure it has infact wiped. TailsOS can prove to be an innocuous O.S after you unload it from memory. They might ask q…
That isn't an issue with Windows but with all file systems. When you delete a file it does not remove the data it marks the area it resides as "free" allowing anything to be saved there. Even tails if not immune to this unless you use some secure wipe tool. Even they flash drives have wear level management that loves data around to make the wear on each chip equal so you can't be sure its even gone.
Windows doesn't wipe the memory properly though, and the default browser (MS Edge for Win10, and plain old IE for older versions), are awful default browsers, forensically speaking.
I'll leave this link here for those who use Tails and need to wipe files and other data, either there and then, or after the fact of deletion (clearing files from free space):
https://tails.boum.org/doc/encryption_and_privacy/secure_del...
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a technical question about this comparison. In the locked door example, is the warrant an allowance for police to enter the area without the owner's permission, or is the warrant an order for the owner to give permission and assist?
If you're home, you have to let them in. If not, they are allowed to break in.
So if they come to John Doe's house with a warrant and he just sits passively on his couch while they legally enter, he has broken the law? This page[0] (ctrl+f "You do not have to assist law enforcement when they are conducting their search.") seems to suggest that a warrant does not require you to assist them, though I don't understand the scope of that; whether it's assisting them in executing the warrant or what.
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#169Earlier 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…
There are several ways to utilise TrueCrypt to truly hide data.
The issue is "operational security", not the tool you use. You need to think about how the data is stored, what it will look like whilst encrypted, how will you handle that under questioning. "yes my drive is fully encrypted, get stuffed" will not suffice. It'd be nice, but the reality is that you will be required to bow down in digital obeyance to the court/man/gov
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 jus…
You made me realize that I was probably wrong here, i.e. you do not have to allow the the police to enter your home acting against your own best interest, and as far as I can tell this also applies to the USA. This raises the question if there is any other situation where you have to act against your own best interest, otherwise my initial argument falls apart and it seems unreasonable to try to force someone to decr…
Pretty sure that you don't have to help them but you can't stop them. So it will all depend on which side of the fence you land.
Whether not giving up keys is jot helping or is it stopping them.