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Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

arstechnica.com

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Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#161

Post by kbart »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #151

Thought experiment: What if there were an encryption system whereby if a user inputs one decryption key, the encrypted data decrypts to one set of values and if the user uses a second key, it decrypts to a second set of values. Sure, in order to encode both sets of data into a single encrypted result would require more storage space, but that is a small price to pay for protection against self incrimination from our…

You can't get two different sets of cleartext from the same ciphertext (except collisions, which is impractical and can be excluded for practical purposes). Of course, you can store few sets of ciphertext and decrypt depending on provided key/password, but watching disk IO may reveal that parts of disk are getting skipped. Basically, it all boils down to the competency level of the examiner.

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#162

Post by kbart »

tedunangst wrote: post #158
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #151

Thought experiment: What if there were an encryption system whereby if a user inputs one decryption key, the encrypted data decrypts to one set of values and if the user uses a second key, it decrypts to a second set of values. Sure, in order to encode both sets of data into a single encrypted result would require more storage space, but that is a small price to pay for protection against self incrimination from our…

They also have a set of hashes of files they expect to find. If they don't find those files, they'll probably ask more questions.

How can they be sure that files weren't deleted?

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#163

Post by tedunangst »

kbart wrote: post #162
tedunangst wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have a set of hashes of files they expect to find. If they don't find those files, they'll probably ask more questions.

How can they be sure that files weren't deleted?

You want to outsmart the cops, be my guest.

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#164

Post by jMyles »

shard972 wrote: post #102
oxide wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's the mandatory minimums for possession of child porngraphy? The zero tolerance? Our prisons fill with drug offenders, yet we give sex offenders a scarlet letter + probation?

I don't think drug offenders should be put in prison since it's a victimless crime. I think child porno while much more serious does invoke some of that chain of reasoning. To me there is a big difference between a guy who found some on the internet and someone who produces or pays for it. I would be wary of putting in minimum sentencing for such crimes unless it was only targeted towards those producing/paying as yo…

> That and art, if someone draws child pornography is that a crime? If blizzard says one of their overwatch characters is 17, are the people who make those animated porno videos making child porn? And are the people watching it consuming child porn?

The answers to these questions are obvious: no and no.

If the answers are any different or short of being absolute, then that's a clear hole in the first amendment.

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#165

Post by girvo »

jMyles wrote: post #164
shard972 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think drug offenders should be put in prison since it's a victimless crime. I think child porno while much more serious does invoke some of that chain of reasoning. To me there is a big difference between a guy who found some on the internet and someone who produces or pays for it. I would be wary of putting in minimum sentencing for such crimes unless it was only targeted towards those producing/paying as yo…

> That and art, if someone draws child pornography is that a crime? If blizzard says one of their overwatch characters is 17, are the people who make those animated porno videos making child porn? And are the people watching it consuming child porn? The answers to these questions are obvious: no and no. If the answers are any different or short of being absolute, then that's a clear hole in the first amendment.

In Australia, cartoon child porn is also illegal.

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#166

Post by ManlyBread »

shard972 wrote: post #62
eridius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument made in the article is that it's a "foregone conclusion" that there's child porn on the drives, so decrypting them isn't self-incriminating because they already know what's on the drive. That said, personally I don't buy it. What if there's evidence of other illegal acts on the drive too, ones the police don't know about? Then decrypting the drive would definitely be incriminating because it would tell p…

> The argument made in the article is that it's a "foregone conclusion" that there's child porn on the drives, so decrypting them isn't self-incriminating because they already know what's on the drive. The immediate thought that comes to my head when they say this is: Then whats the problem? You can prove it, so why do you need more proof? Unless your possibly maybe your case isn't rock solid or you want to find more…

I would suspect that the footage itself can be very valuable in terms of further investigations, so they're pushing for it because it will benefit them in future. The man will end up in prison anyway, so it's not like the law enforcement has something to lose.

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#167

Post by Consultant32452 »

xelxebar wrote: post #153
rayiner wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to distinguish between requiring the defendant to turn over incriminating evidence (which the 5th amendment does not protect), and requiring the defendant to make incriminating statements ( i.e. to provide incriminating testimony). Sometimes, the act of producing evidence in response to a government request involves the defendant making implicit incriminating assertions. If the government says "produce all y…

Thanks for the lucid explanation. What befuddles my non-lawyer mind is that why such evidence is needed in the first place. If it's established firmly that someone has piles of illegal files, then for the sake of their incrimination, why do the files need to be produced at all? If on the other hand, the files are being requisitioned for purposes unrelated to the the defendant's current outstanding culpability, then w…

If you refuse to hand over subpoenaed evidence you can be held in contempt of court which usually results in some sort of fine, but could potentially result in jail time. Note that this all occurs before your conviction, so time spent in jail for contempt does not count towards your eventual sentence.

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#168

Post by Karlozkiller »

fjdlwlv wrote: post #120
fencepost wrote: post #25

This is an interesting contrast to the article reported this past week about Nigel Lang, a black man in the UK who was accused of having or sharing child porn because of an extra digit added to an IP address during investigations[1]. One relevant section from the apology/explanation letter: "The issues around the downloading of IIOC [indecent images of children] are that statistically out of a cohort of offenders, th…

It's nice to see white folks be the victims of racial profiling once in a while.

Is racial profiling ever truly nice to see?

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#169

Post by Karlozkiller »

meesterdude wrote: post #152
null0pointer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered about scenarios where you can legitimately claim to not know the password to decrypt a drive. A few different cases I can think of which may be ruled differently by a court. 1) I use a password manager so I don't know the password. However, I have the means to acquire the password. 2) I use a password manager but somehow lost access to it unintentionally. 3) I use a password manager and lost access to i…

one i've ben thinking of is a shuffled keymapping or keyboard - you know what password you type, but not what it actually translates into.

Not bad, but that key-map would have to be accessible unencrypted from the encrypted device no? Unless somehow hard-mod a physical keyboard or something?

Re: Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

#170

Post by jaredklewis »

smsm42 wrote: post #16

This reads as extremely bizarre. I mean, reading the fifth amendment makes it pretty clear - no one should be compelled to witness against oneself. However, it looks like the current executive and judicial are thinking "well, those Founders were just idiots for putting such an amendment in, clearly it'd be much easier to prosecute people if we could compel them to witness against themselves, so why don't we just igno…

Your interpretation of the 5th amendment is quite different than it has been historically interpreted by the courts.

For example, in a trial, the prosecutor might subpoena some documents and you cannot refuse to turn over those documents, unless doing so would trigger a 5th amendment assertion. Turning over the documents implicitly testifies to at least two important pieces of information: that the documents exist and that you know about the documents.

So if you're asked for the documents and the prosecution has no evidence that the documents exist or that you know about them, the 5th will cover you.

However if during a police interrogation you admit that the documents exist, when they are subpoenaed, you can't withhold evidence.

I imagine that the 5th will work much the same with passwords. If it is known that you have the ability to unlock the device, refusing to do so will be withholding evidence.

However if revealing the password implicitly reveals the hitherto unknown information that you know the password, 5th will work.

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