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Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal

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

#341

Post by Arizhel »

byuu wrote: post #307
jMyles wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Obscenity" is the thing that needs free speech protections the most. Agreed. I'm even of the mind that mere possession of any piece of media cannot be properly regarded as criminal, precisely because it interferes with the far more important right to free speech. It seems to me that prohibiting the creation or sale of child porn is more appropriate.

In an ideal world, I want possession of real CP to be a crime ... that is, if it could stop there. I would be willing to accept that small bit of cognitive dissonance / hypocrisy. I'm very sympathetic to the victims of abuse having their images out there being sold and traded online. But then you have cases like Handley where cartoons are criminalized (which I consider to be a thought crime), and cases like this stor…

>In an ideal world, I want possession of real CP to be a crime ... that is, if it could stop there.

I partially disagree with this. I think it should only be a problem if it's actually real, and can be proven to be, and thus can be proven to have an actual victim. And that victim needs to actually be a child.

In today's age of Photoshop and life-like realistic rendering programs, it's entirely possible to create stuff that looks real, and really isn't. It's also possible for models/actors to look less than 18, while not really being that young. How do you tell for sure that a person in an image is 17 years and 364 days, and not 18 years? Pretty soon, the rendering technology will be so realistic you'll be able to create movies with fake humans that look entirely real. So if someone buys this software and makes some naughty stuff with it, why should they get in horrible trouble and spend decades in prison, when someone else can buy the same software, buy the same digital assets of child models (which aren't really real children, just fake but realistic looking children), and then make movies of these "kids" being slaughtered by dinosaurs or mowed down with machine guns or something, and that's perfectly OK?

The bottom line is: victimizing innocent people should absolutely be illegal and punished. Anything which doesn't victimize an actual person should not.

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

#342

Post by rayiner »

marcosdumay wrote: post #322
rayiner wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "witness" is a legal term with a specific meaning. It requires providing testimonial evidence. The landlord that unlocks the defendant's apartment where the bodies are stored in the fridge is not a "witness" even though he helped the police get evidence.

And here we are, talking about a guy presumed to have some information on his head, arrested for refusing to disclose that information, in a thread about legal professionals creating BS, with somebody arguing that "witness" has a legal meaning that does not cover people disclosing information they have on their heads... Or, at least not on this case.

> arrested for refusing to disclose that information

The information in the guy's head is the password. They're not asking him for the password. They're asking him to perform the action of decrypting the drive. They explicitly told him he could keep the password secret.

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

#344

Post by xeonoex »

bawana wrote: post #315

Although most of the comments here have to do with legality, I am more concerned with the technical aspect. The prosecutors say they know that he has porn because the hash values they obtained are identical to the hash values of porn images. Are hash collisions not a consideration? Can hash values be as incriminating as direct evidence? Is it possible to take a hash of a benign image (kitten?) and encrypt it with an…

I'm wondering how they obtained the hashes. You can't hash images on an encrypted drive. How are they able to obtain a hash of an image without actually having the image? Were the hash values from what he has downloaded stored somewhere?

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

#345

Post by binutils »

kelnos wrote: post #191
salesguy222 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this story actually makes me ill. When a technical defense protects you from the state, they jail you for contempt. When you say, "but we have a constitutional amendment that protects us from self-incrimination", they say "sure but that doesn't apply here." And of course it is child porn that is in question. It is a mere crime to "possess" it, that is to say, possess a hard drive on which images are found. It…

If that's all they had, I'd probably agree with you. But that's not. They have: * Backup logs that show hashes of files that match that of known child porn image files. * Testimony from the guy's sister that she has seen him decrypting the drives, and that he showed her child porn from the drives. So yes, what you're saying is true, but in this case, I'm (reluctantly) on the side of the authorities.

Those are my sister's hard drives, I allow her to use my computer when she visits. Please ask her to decrypt them as I don't know the password.

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

#346

Post by BearGoesChirp »

RUG3Y wrote: post #54
NightMKoder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they key is that the evidence is beyond circumstantial - they have concrete evidence that he uploaded files that were CP from that computer. It's a bit worrying why that isn't circumstantial (hacked computers aren't a thing?), but maybe the standard for issuing a subpoena is lower than guilt but higher than circumstantial. Sounds like the only right answer for your password is "I do not recall"

This might be a stupid thought but if they already have enough concrete evidence against the suspect, why do they require the contents of the drive?

I see two possibilities.

1. They don't have enough evidence to convict, and know it, and thus are waiting for this evidence. The problem here being a question of how are they sure enough of guilt to hold him in jail for so long.

2. They do have enough evidence to convict, but they rather have a precedent destroying (or weakening) encryption. This would be like the San Bernardino iPhone case.

I'm not sure which possibility is worse.

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

#347

Post by jcranmer »

geggam wrote: post #297
int_19h wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the sheer power and reach of SCOTUS today, and increased partisanship in practice (even though everyone pretends it's a non-partisan body), does necessitate some reform. But electing judges makes no sense - you might as well then just give the fullness of power to Congress, a la UK's parliamentary sovereignty. What I think we should do is revisit what exactly SCOTUS does, and why. Right now they basicall…

This is the part of the system which makes me scratch my head. The constitution is the source of where the courts derive their power. Being able to change the level of power you have seems to be against the constitutions purpose of defining, limiting, and binding the Govt. Article III, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution states: The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this C…

That kind of parsimonious interpretation has no legal bearing. A dispute over the meaning of the Constitution would naturally arise under [the laws of] the Constitution.

It should also be noted that it was long-standing British common law that courts ruled on the interpretation of law, and that there was ample precedent in the US revolutionary period of state Supreme Courts voiding state laws under state constitutions. Virtually every reference to the notion of questions of constitutionality pre-Marbury v Madison accepts that the judicial courts would play a role in this regard. The only extent to which the decision would have been surprising would have been in arguing whose opinion won it in the case of conflicts. (Note that nullification crises continued up to the Civil War).

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

#348

Post by undersuit »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #127
nickpsecurity wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My completely amateur thoughts: If they already can prove he has child porn, then they don't need the additional evidence. If they do need the additional evidence, then he is incriminating himself." That's a good point. They either have proof he downloaded child porn or they don't. They're definitely trying to do more than prove it. Probably set a precedent increasing their power as usual.

"so you, Mr expert witness, are telling me that hashes collide? What's that you say, there are actually people who actively look for and produce such hashes for fun?? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury..." And so on. I'm pretty sure pedophile is near the top of the "you better make damn sure they don't get off" list.

>I'm pretty sure pedophile is near the top of the "you better make damn sure they don't get off" list.

It's not illegal to be a pedophile. It's illegal to possess child pornography.

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

#349

Post by [deleted] »

jaredklewis wrote: post #170
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 an…

[deleted]

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

#350

Post by paulddraper »

Chris2048 wrote: post #277
paulddraper wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they can proceed without your assistance. Also, they can charge you with obstruction with justice.

What's the penalty that goes with such a charge?

IDK, but you can't keep breaking the law, and have penalties stop. So it won't be one-and-done.
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