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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

#261

Post by MaulingMonkey »

coldtea wrote: post #88
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?

No, it's the "abolish BS laws" hill. How about creating child pornography being a crime? That's what's actually hurtful.

One of the goals of anti-distribution laws is to quell e.g. a local market for foreign exploitation. It's similar to banning the trade of ivory - sure, it's illegal to hunt elephants in most jurisdictions, but it's sadly hard to enforce in some parts of the world. It's even harder to enforce when the promise of wealth inspires the desperate to violence - hence the goal of e.g. "conflict free diamonds" as well. It's taking the laws of supply and demand, and using them to apply an economic answer - reducing demand - to reduce supply.

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

#263

Post by zik »

realo wrote: post #206

I have a question... Suppose the suspect Alice only has a portion of the key. Someone else (Bob...) has the remaining key bits. Alice is busted, and 'compelled to give the key', and DOES provide her portion of the key. Bob is never found. Then Alice would be indefinitely imprisoned, even if she would have actually complied with the court order. It seems unethical, to me. Bonus question: Alice pretends that Bob exists…

Not just unethical. Illegal. Indefinite detention without charge is against the law.

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

#264

Post by rodgerd »

iopq wrote: post #187
slantaclaus wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the background, but somebody has to say it: his failure was looking at child pornography.

But without 100% proof he can't be jailed. The prosecutors don't have enough evidence to prove it, so how can he be jailed for it already? "Innocent until proven guilty" is the foundation of our legal system

> But without 100% proof he can't be jailed.

The standard is not "100% proof". Perhaps you should learn something about the legal system.

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

#265

Post by adventured »

zik wrote: post #263
realo wrote: post #206

I have a question... Suppose the suspect Alice only has a portion of the key. Someone else (Bob...) has the remaining key bits. Alice is busted, and 'compelled to give the key', and DOES provide her portion of the key. Bob is never found. Then Alice would be indefinitely imprisoned, even if she would have actually complied with the court order. It seems unethical, to me. Bonus question: Alice pretends that Bob exists…

Not just unethical. Illegal. Indefinite detention without charge is against the law.

What's the current status on §§ 1021-1022 from the 2012 NDAA bill? [1] Did that become law as it was written, and is it still active? It made provisions for the US military to indefinitely detain US citizens without due process. I've found these things difficult to keep track of frankly, with so many egregious laws from just the last ten years.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/news/president-obama-signs-indefinite-d...

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

#266

Post by rodgerd »

briHass wrote: post #66
coldtea wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The examples you chose are interesting, not only because they reveal an obvious bias. I think the correct interpretation of the various amendments is to view them in conjunction with the ninth. That is, the default should be to argue in good faith about what rights the amendment is attempting to preserve, not nit-picking them to find technicalities that the state can use to limit or restrict someone's rights. Your hi…

> it's clear from reading other writings by the Founding Fathers that the 2nd Amendment was written to allow an individual to own firearms

It's also clear it was to buttress the perpetuation of slavery in the minds of founders. So, you know.

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

#267

Post by dclowd9901 »

vivekd wrote: post #223
externalreality wrote: post #31

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,…

His crime is disobeying a court order, which is a crime that you can go to jail for. Just like if you had the key to a safe, and the court orders you to open the safe, you would go to jail if you refuse to do so. If he forgot the keys he could have told the court that and the court would evaluate his credibility. *edited changed from key to combination because combination locks are protected by the 5th amendment and…

What about the 5th amendment? I think we can agree without too much of a stretch that our storage data is just an extension of our mind (verily, suppose someone had illegal data stored on their drive and an idedic memory? Destroying the data on the hard drive wouldn't destroy the data in their mind), and thus just as protected by our right not to testify against ourself?

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

#268

Post by throwanem »

michaelmrose wrote: post #233
throwanem wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? There's a strong neurocognitive argument to be made that reinforcing the tendency, by repeatedly acting on it with pornography to the end of, among other things, rather strongly triggering the dopamine reward system, will tend to strengthen the interest by reinforcing the circuits which interact with it, and vice versa. I don't think anyone would argue this "cures" the tendency - certainly I will not! B…

This sounds like a strong argument is there peer reviewed support for it?

In pedophilia specifically? I doubt it. But it's not a far inference from dopamine's role in sexual arousal and satisfaction [1], and its role in drug addiction [2].

While it would be a stretch to postulate that the effect of child pornography on those disposed to it exactly matches that of drugs which provoke massive dopamine release on those who take them, the effects of dopamine on sexual behavior in the human male, and its role in the brain's reward system in general, lend I think considerable plausibility to the hypothesis that engaging in pedophilic behavior centered around child pornography, and obtaining sexual satisfaction thereby, tends to potentiate further engagement in the same behavior.

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01497634940...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696819/

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

#269

Post by branchless »

externalreality wrote: post #229
realo wrote: post #206

I have a question... Suppose the suspect Alice only has a portion of the key. Someone else (Bob...) has the remaining key bits. Alice is busted, and 'compelled to give the key', and DOES provide her portion of the key. Bob is never found. Then Alice would be indefinitely imprisoned, even if she would have actually complied with the court order. It seems unethical, to me. Bonus question: Alice pretends that Bob exists…

Doesn't this boil down to the "I am willing but unable" situation? The man in this case was the "unwilling but able" situation. My question is wouldn't the man be shifted into the former situation if he just claimed to be now willing but to have forgotten his keys.

The one bright spot is this leads me to hope they can't decrypt at will via some non-public method.

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

#270

Post by rodgerd »

donovanm wrote: post #150
curun1r wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Seems a bit harsh to be detained for 16 months because a judge thinks you're lying.

People say they didn't commit murders, too. Sometimes they claim that their wife ran off to Russia and that the whole murder case is an attempt by the Russian Mafia to frame the defendant.

Strangely enough, the courts are happy to decide something smells like bullshit and imprison people because of it.

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