We seriously need self destructing time based keys.
Once a device does not have a password in a time defined by the user - all of it is wiped.
It goes without saying that this should be off by default but definitely a good feature.
Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
391–400 of 504 posts
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how this argument holds up if the government were to make deniable encryption illegal. If it is possible to determine that you have encrypted data, and it is possible to verify the accuracy of your testimony, there should be no concern about compelling false testimony. Which is different from compelling testimony that cannot be verified, at least in the sense that you know that only the people being held in…
Proper encryption is indistinguishable from random noise
So make random noise illegal? You laugh, but this is precisely how these people think. Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number.
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
If he was using Freenet, there's no doubt that his node handled chunks of CP files, and that at least some of those chunks remain on the drive. Let's say that he never viewed any CP. Even then, can he be sure that investigators won't discover evidence that could be spun to demonstrate that he did view CP? It is quite a quandary :(
If you didn't request it, your node won't hold decryption keys to the files. Might not help him if they believe that the encrypted keyless fragments is enough (which would be a horrible legal argument).
That's true, of course.
But LEA are selecting nodes based on the hashes of those fragments. Many of them won't have cached CP fragments, but merely relayed them. But if his node did, prosecutors could argue that they've identified CP on his computer based on hashes, and have experts testify about reliability, etc. How many jurors would understand Freenet design?
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#394I 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…
Alice has created a file containing random data. Authorities think it is an encrypted volume and wants Alice to give up the key. Alice has no way to prove it is just a file with random data and is imprisoned indefinitely for essentially having a file with random data =]
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#395We seriously need self destructing time based keys. Once a device does not have a password in a time defined by the user - all of it is wiped. It goes without saying that this should be off by default but definitely a good feature.
Police could just make a backup of a snapshot.
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also no directly observable difference between killing with or without intent, which is why we have murder trials. The ability to decrypt data can be inferred from the surrounding circumstances, which is what happened here[1]: > The defendant did not testify at the hearing and did not offer any other evidence or testimony in support of his contention that memory failure prevented him from complying with the c…
Yes, the court system exists precisely to determine fuzzy things like this. I'm still curious, what kind of evidence or testimony might be considered believable in this case. Whether someone remembers a particular sequence of words and symbols seems like a thing that's very hard to determine, and by its nature it's unlikely there is any evidence either way. From the quote you give (and I'll admit I have not read up o…
By giving credible oral testimony. The defendant chose not to do that, perhaps because it would have exposed him to cross-examination, and perjury charges if his implausible story was rejected (he remembered other passwords and had been caught with child pornography on other encrypted volumes, and the government may have had evidence about how recently and frequently he had decrypted the external drive, because they were able to decrypt his OS drive). Hopefully, if you really did forget a password you'd be able to give a believable explanation that holds up under cross-examination.
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#397I 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…
Alice has created a file containing random data. Authorities think it is an encrypted volume and wants Alice to give up the key. Alice has no way to prove it is just a file with random data and is imprisoned indefinitely for essentially having a file with random data =]
Alice is able to switch the tracks on a trolley hurtling towards the encrypted only copy of the rest of her key towards a track where Clive, the only person who knows the key to that secondary encryption, is tied...
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#398I 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…
What if the fellow made a sworn statement he doesn't remember his credentials? It happens to me on a regular basis.
IIRC, the I don't recall defense has worked wonders for others in the past.
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#399I 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…
Alice has created a file containing random data. Authorities think it is an encrypted volume and wants Alice to give up the key. Alice has no way to prove it is just a file with random data and is imprisoned indefinitely for essentially having a file with random data =]
So typing the simple command
cat /dev/random > filename
Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do we get to choose to live in a world where that isn't the case? No? Hey that sounds like a good reason to have fewer laws we can be parallel-constructed into violating.
>Do we get to choose to live in a world where that isn't the case? No? Why not? Or, maybe a better question is, why do you think you could legalize child porn easier than we could outlaw or end programs like PRISM?
Few powerful forces oppose legal child porn. Very little money is on the line with CP and very few powerful people would be diminished if CP was legal.
To outlaw or end programs like PRISM you'd have to take on the entire political establishment, the military industrial complex and all branches of the judiciary and law enforcement.
It'd be far easier to legalize CP than do away with PRISM and the like.