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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

#321

Post by justinjlynn »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #298
libertymcateer wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.""

Ah, yes... the legal equivalent of "I'm not touching youuuuu...."

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

#322

Post by Miner49er »

victor9000 wrote: post #297

It seems like the state is holding the accused captive for failure to produce unencrypted hard drives. But how can the state prove that the accused has the ability to fulfill this request?

They can't. He told them he doesn't know the keys for the drives, and the judge doesn't believe him.

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

#323

Post by hysan »

zhemao wrote: post #320
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,…

The difference is that the authorities can crack open a safe without the suspect cooperating. But it's virtually impossible to decrypt something without the receiving the key.

Unless it's something akin to a Da Vinci cryptex that destroys the contents when forced open. Just scaled up to modern day encryption levels.

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

#324

Post by obstinate »

Filligree wrote: post #234
externalreality wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He did claim he'd forgotten the keys. Maybe he changed his mind on that later, but I haven't seen any statement of the sort.

This is a gambit that is often tried by folks in this situation. There is a famous case where someone was held in contempt for decades that you can read about on Wikipedia. At first he refused to turn over ordered monies, but later he had "lost" the money.

So, I'd say, if you're going to try to go with the "I forgot" defense, you'd better be very sure not to give the court a reason to doubt your honesty (e.g. initially refusing then changing your story).

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

#325

Post by hysan »

What happens if the drives develop bit rot over those 16 months preventing them from ever being decrypted? Based on the wording of what he is in contempt of, it sounds like he would sit in jail until death. To me, it sounds like the prosecution is trying to play a word game to get around 5th amendment protections.

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

#326

Post by ArchD »

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…

There's no observable difference between inability to produce a result and refusing to produce a result. How do they know he didn't just forget the password? Or that the password was recorded somewhere that he no longer has access to? After sitting in jail for many months, it is very easy to forget a password that you no longer use regularly.

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

#327

Post by INTPenis »

Speaking from experience of 1 month vacation I'm not sure I'd be able to decrypt after 16 months of not touching a keyboard.

My most important passwords (passphrases for gpg used by password managers and luks) are in my head and muscle memory.

When I update passwords I tend to have them written down until I've typed them enough times.

So after a months vacation I often struggle to remember my work password for example. While using phrases makes all this easier these days, 16 months is a long time to presumably spend without your keyboard.

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

#328

Post by sgift »

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.

What should our standard be? Being accused equals being guilty?

Tread carefully. The protections you give others are the protections you'll enjoy yourself if needed. And hoping you'll never need them is a very shortsighted strategy.

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

#329

Post by ue_ »

__s wrote: post #198
mindslight wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an activity I want to engage in or even associate with people who do, but a nonviolent private activity is not a reason to violently persecute someone, especially to this degree.

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

> directly supports an industry of violence against children

Not necessarily, and even so, can it be proven?

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

#330

Post by sgift »

marksomnian wrote: post #312
tnzn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised you haven't been called a pedophile/pedophile supporter yet. Every time I tried to have that argument, it happened (tho not in HN).

And that is the reason you can never have a rational discussion about the subject. No matter how strong the arguments you present, the other side can always say "b... but... but think about the terrorists and the paedophiles!" and if you reply you get called a sympathiser - for having a rational discussion. Welcome to 2017.

Or 16, 15, 19xx, 18xx. Principled defense of something seen as morally wrong was always fraught with "so, you defend it, so, you must like it. Probably, you even do it, don't you?"

It's one of the first strategies in the book of shutting down your opposition and probably was one of the first things people tried the moment discussions started.

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