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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

#291

Post by bluesign »

oconnor663 wrote: post #180
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…

You could perfectly encrypt a hard drive such that it could decrypt to anything, but the "key" (a one-time pad) would be as big as the drive itself. All real-world crypto software uses short keys, which are just big enough that it's impossible to brute-force guess them. In general for a given encrypted drive, there is probably no other key besides the real one that would produce meaningful looking output, because the…

It is like splitting drive to two (interleved sectors for example) and encrypt odd sectors with key1 and evens with key2. And software can try key in first 2 sectors to figure out odds or evens to use.

If software gives you an option to use 2 keys or 1 key in the beginning ( so half data will be garbage ) you can always deny you have 2 keys

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

#292

Post by [deleted] »

grzm wrote: post #286
jdmichal wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#293

Post by krick »

derekp7 wrote: post #287
headShrinker wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

That's actually a much better example. Seriously, can they? It seems ridiculous, but then compelling you to decrypt anything is obviously ridiculous as well. Maybe you are reading and writing this data as is, who is to say?

I guess, the real reason why this question stands is that nobody gives a fuck about logic and solid law, someone (obviously) just wants it to be a crime and it is easy to sway public opinion in a way that allows for it to account as one. Which, again, reminds us that the current state of the law is that it is rotten by default.

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

#294

Post by jdmichal »

grzm wrote: post #286
jdmichal wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough. I think anything beyond this point dives pretty fast into a philosophical debate on "knowability", which I don't think either of us are actually interested in. Cheers.

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

#295

Post by EdHominem »

hyperpape wrote: post #243
literallycancer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>his failure was allegedly looking at child pornography FTFY It doesn't matter what they accuse him of, until they prove it, he's innocent.

He's innocent in court (and my non-lawyerly (aka worthless) sense says the fifth amendment favors him). But we're not a court, and our standard for speech shouldn't be "beyond a reasonable doubt". The parent poster was right. His failing was looking at child pornography.

Says who? Neither of us saw it, so we can't know.

There's a procedure though that we use to determine the likelihood of someone's guilt, based on evidence and legal arguments. Would you like to hear about it?

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

#296

Post by grzm »

jdmichal wrote: post #294
grzm wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough. I think anything beyond this point dives pretty fast into a philosophical debate on "knowability", which I don't think either of us are actually interested in. Cheers.

Indeed! I'm sure there's a lot of great judicial literature on the topic if you're interested in diving further. My armchair is pretty comfy though, and I think I'm likely to doze off before getting too deep into it. :)

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

#298

Post by dangerlibrary »

libertymcateer wrote: post #272
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…

> A possible answer to the first question: Alice is not compelled to provide the key. She is compelled to decrypt the drive. Obviously she can't do that without Bob. Alice is screwed and will spend the rest of her life in prison. Yes, and in this scenario she would not be held in contempt, so your hypothetical does not apply. You can only be held in contempt for refusing to comply with court orders, not for the failu…

From the article: "Rawls, the government argues, (PDF) "repeatedly asserts that the All Writs Act order requires him to divulge his passcodes, but he is incorrect: the order requires no testimony from [Rawls], and he may keep his passcodes to himself. Instead, the order requires only that [Rawls] produce his computer and hard drives in an unencrypted state.""

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

#299

Post by dllthomas »

EdHominem wrote: post #295
hyperpape wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's innocent in court (and my non-lawyerly (aka worthless) sense says the fifth amendment favors him). But we're not a court, and our standard for speech shouldn't be "beyond a reasonable doubt". The parent poster was right. His failing was looking at child pornography.

Says who? Neither of us saw it, so we can't know. There's a procedure though that we use to determine the likelihood of someone's guilt, based on evidence and legal arguments. Would you like to hear about it?

I think it's legitimate to say, in a discussion like this one where we're not dealing with punishment, that we should hold to a weaker standard (preponderance of evidence?) than should a criminal court.

That said, as far as I'm aware the only evidence we've seen is that he's been accused of the crime. I don't what portion of accusations are false (or even a proxy like conviction rate in comparable situations).

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

#300

Post by downandout »

I'm curious why he doesn't just claim that he forgot the key. There's no way to prove conclusively that he's lying, and a judge cannot jail someone for disobeying a court order that they have no way of obeying. If he's told them he knows it and just won't give it to them, then this bridge is probably burned, but it's probably his only shot. Absent a ruling from the Supreme Court on this issue, they can and will hold him until he complies, dies, or has already served the maximum possible sentence for the crimes he is suspected of committing.
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