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

arstechnica.com

281–290 of 504 posts

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

#281
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's just semantics. He's jailed without a conviction at this point.

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

#282
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard for US criminal law is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". I think "100% proof" is a close enough summary of that phrase... If the proof doesn't 100% convince the jury, then reasonable doubt still exists and prosecution should fail.

Beyond reasonable doubt can admit that doubt does exist, it's just not reasonable to entertain it. 100% proof strongly implies that there is no doubt at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_doubt

I don't think there's a difference. For instance, let's say we have a video of little Timmy shoplifting a candy bar. Clear face shot, maybe the video even has sound and there's a vocal-print match. Pretty slam-dunk case, right? Not much room for reasonable doubt there.

Oh, but you see, little Timmy was actually being telepathically controlled by a diabetic alien about to pass out from hypoglycemia, who had him steal the candy bar. Can you prove this was not the case?

This is what reasonable doubt protects against. There will always be the ability to create a (probably fanciful) scenario in which the defendant is not guilty. An unreasonable scenario, one might even say. Being able to convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt is as close to 100% proof as you are reasonably going to ever get.

> Beyond "the shadow of a doubt" is sometimes used interchangeably with beyond reasonable doubt, but this extends beyond the latter, to the extent that it may be considered an impossible standard. The term "reasonable doubt" is therefore used. [Emphasis mine]

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

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you make the mistake of thinking that people oppose all state violence. Many people approve of some state violence in the name of maintaining societal order, but oppose torture. And I would posit that coercive incarceration is a form of torture. It is a mistake to believe that people are ideologically consistent. And I would be hard pressed to believe that torture is not more extreme or less legitimate than o…

Thank you. That pretty much sums up what I was getting at. I understand the need for violence when one man attacks me or my family. And I understand the need for violence when one man attacks any human around me. These people break the Golden Rule and remove themselves from its binding contract of being treated equally. BUT, they still deserve to be treated fairly. Sometimes, even you can get them to see the error of…

The thing is, the person that attacks your family already broke the rule, so you can use violence against him.

You can be 100% peaceful and the state will still use violence against you based on its own criteria.

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

#284
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm sorry sir, as personal encryption is classified as a munition there is a legal requirement that you must take proper care to ensure that you are able to respond to all lawful requests for decryption. This carries a penalty of 2-5 years in prison and a fine of $10,000."

This is a terrible precedent people don't always throw away old computers and are bad at remembering passwords

I'm not saying that this would actually become a reality but its just to point out that technology alone can't solve what is really a human problem.

Assuming that the courts maintain the 'safe' metaphor over the 'speech' metaphor for encryption I would expect a court to have some criterion like the the following.

The prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that:

(0. That the search of the encrypted data is lawful)

1. There is actually encrypted data on the drive.

2. The data has not been modified or corrupted.

3. That the defendant actually knows the password.

Because you're completely right that people do forget their passwords all the time. You could being thousands of IT people on the stand who will rant all day about how their users cant remember a stupid eight character password without a post-it note. So the prosecution would have to give evidence that shows that the defendant is lying and knows the password. For example, if they're trying to access the defendant's computer the could show a video of them logging into it right before it was seized.

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

#285
Just yesterday [0] someone (multiple people, actually) was claiming fingerprint locking on phones is unsafe based on fact the 5th amendment doesn't protect your fingerprints, but does protect your right to not reveal your password.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13622684

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

#286
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond reasonable doubt can admit that doubt does exist, it's just not reasonable to entertain it. 100% proof strongly implies that there is no doubt at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_doubt

I don't think there's a difference. For instance, let's say we have a video of little Timmy shoplifting a candy bar. Clear face shot, maybe the video even has sound and there's a vocal-print match. Pretty slam-dunk case, right? Not much room for reasonable doubt there. Oh, but you see, little Timmy was actually being telepathically controlled by a diabetic alien about to pass out from hypoglycemia, who had him steal…

I understood that reference to "Impossible standard" to mean from a jurisprudence perspective.

If you want to insist that "100% proof" and reasonable doubt are the same, that's of course your choice. I think you'll find that people will tend to disagree with you.

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

#287

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,…

> Encryption is nothing new people, you are just putting your data in a safe. I know this is an old argument, but what if I put the contents in a paper shredder, in the safe? It's still the data, it's just that it went through the shredder. Why is ok for the government to compel you to change the state of the data from encrypted to unencrypted? They couldn't compel Apple write software to decrypt a phone. Why can the…

Or, what if you had a paper in a safe that was written in an invented language? They may be able to compel you to open the safe (i.e., provide a BIOS password), but can they compel you to teach them how to read that invented language?

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

#288
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 resid…

Now consider, what if the police find nothing after executing the search warrant? "Hey, we know you have a counterfeit press somewhere -- give us the address where it is located".

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

#289
post #211
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a private activity, it directly supports an industry of violence against children

You can make the same argument for the adult porn industry, and that leads to one of two conclusions: - That the viewer of adult porn shouldn't be prosecuted for viewing porn. or - That there is a societal / governmental acceptance of the exploitation of men and women, as long as they are adults. The easy argument out of this hypocrisy is to claim that while children can never consent, adults can, but then that opens…

Or you can make the same argument for the diamond industry. Buying a diamond you are committing a crime against humanity, as you are supporting war, slavery and a whole lot of violent stuff somewhere in Africa.

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then his lawyer can argue that, but instead they are arguing the Fifth Amendment. The question is rather, does the Constitution render the court order illegal?

They have no obligation to believe him or release him in that case even if he did forget it.

Which is problematic, as now the penalty for forgetting a passphrase can become life in prison.
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