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Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

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Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#121

Post by shaggerty »

Powerofmene wrote: post #117

When the FBI used the All Writs Act against Apple to attempt to force Apple to bypass the password functions of an iPhone or develop a backdoor method of access, the courts ruled that decryption was not a violation of the Fifth Amendment "if the contents were a foregone conclusion." So if "foregone conclusion" is the criteria that must be met, I have to ask how the contents of this man's external hard drive could be…

The article says that there are hashes of known child pornography content on the drive.

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#122

Post by ada1981 »

geofft wrote: post #40
jancsika wrote: post #29

There's a better article in Ars: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/man-jailed-indef... From that article: > The court also noted that the authorities "found [on the Mac Book Pro] one image depicting a pubescent girl in a sexually suggestive position and logs that suggested the user had visited groups with titles common in child exploitation." They also said the man's sister had "reported" that her brother s…

> "The fact remains that the government has not brought charges," Donoghue said in a telephone interview. "Our client has now been in custody for almost 18 months based on his assertion of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination." To be clear (and I am pretty sure the public defender knows this, but is just phrasing it like this for public perception), the prosecution's position is that the Fif…

How does one prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that I haven't actually forgotten the password?

If I've forgotten the password, wouldn't I no longer be in a position to aid in obtaining the evidence?

Would the burden of proof be on the fed to prove that I have not forgotten the password?

If I lost the physical keys to a vault, could in be held for not being able to open it?

I think Child pornography / abuse is one of the worst offenses possible, but in this case, they need to find another way to convict him if he is guilty.

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#123

Post by snakeanus »

> Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content

How on earth is this supposed to work? Unless they can decrypt the hard drives I am pretty sure that this is impossible to deduce.

Maybe he used freenet or something in his unencrypted hard drive?

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#124

Post by ada1981 »

derekp7 wrote: post #119
geofft wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't override the Constitution, though. He's not compelled to testify against himself. In a pre-computer society, we'd understand the Fifth Amendment as allowing you not to testify to your crimes, but not allowing you to refuse the police the right to search your house with a court-signed warrant, simply because you keep incriminating things in the house. It might exploit a loophole, though (and I also think th…

But if the police found a document written in what looked like gibberish, they couldn't compel you to translate the document to English. In this case, they have executed the warrant, and found an electronic document filled with gibberish.

This is the best analogy I've seen.

Can you be compelled to labor to help the prosecution?

What if I had a huge stone vault. To get to the inside of it would take the fed 7 years of digging. The crime they have a warrant for has a statute of limitations of 5 years. If I help them dig, they can get there in 4 years. Can they force me to dig with them?

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#125

Post by stinkytaco »

derekp7 wrote: post #119
geofft wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't override the Constitution, though. He's not compelled to testify against himself. In a pre-computer society, we'd understand the Fifth Amendment as allowing you not to testify to your crimes, but not allowing you to refuse the police the right to search your house with a court-signed warrant, simply because you keep incriminating things in the house. It might exploit a loophole, though (and I also think th…

But if the police found a document written in what looked like gibberish, they couldn't compel you to translate the document to English. In this case, they have executed the warrant, and found an electronic document filled with gibberish.

> But if the police found a document written in what looked like gibberish, they couldn't compel you to translate the document to English. In this case, they have executed the warrant, and found an electronic document filled with gibberish.

Out of curiosity, is there any case law establishing this (i.e. a document written in code)? With a document in gibberish, I can't see any reasonable reason to believe that it means something (unless, say, the defendant was suspected for espionage). In this case, however, there is other compelling evidence to believe this drive is encrypted and has data on it. It would be curious to see if something like this has been prosecuted before.

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#126

Post by ZenoArrow »

roblabla wrote: post #115
ZenoArrow wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming it's a perfect solution, but what other options are there? Here's the only other options I see: * Detaining this individual indefinitely without charge. * Charge based on limited anecdotal evidence. * Release without charge. Can you think of other suggestions? Which of the available options do you think is best? Best being a balance between the rights of the individual and the laws of the state.

Sometimes, justice doesn't carry out fully. Cases fail for a variety of reasons. We sometimes fail to charge the guilty. The reason why it works this way is simple : it's better than charging the innocent. What should happen in this case IMO is that they should charge him with whatever they have right this moment, and if it fails, release him. Infinite detaining of individuals should be impossible, no matter what. Th…

I agree that indefinite detention of individuals without charge is dangerous, and I would not advocate for that. However, it's important to understand the precendence that would be set by the case you describe. Assuming that the evidence outside of what's stored on the encrypted hard drive is flimsy, and the charges are dropped, are we then open to the idea of untouchable criminals?

If all it takes to be a criminal that can't be charged for their online behaviour is to encrypt a hard drive, what ramifications does that have for our legal system?

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#127

Post by stinkytaco »

ada1981 wrote: post #124
derekp7 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if the police found a document written in what looked like gibberish, they couldn't compel you to translate the document to English. In this case, they have executed the warrant, and found an electronic document filled with gibberish.

This is the best analogy I've seen. Can you be compelled to labor to help the prosecution? What if I had a huge stone vault. To get to the inside of it would take the fed 7 years of digging. The crime they have a warrant for has a statute of limitations of 5 years. If I help them dig, they can get there in 4 years. Can they force me to dig with them?

Interesting question. In my opinion, no, they could not obligate you to help dig, because they could get someone else to help with that. If you had a key, however, it might be different?

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#129

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

shaggerty wrote: post #121
Powerofmene wrote: post #117

When the FBI used the All Writs Act against Apple to attempt to force Apple to bypass the password functions of an iPhone or develop a backdoor method of access, the courts ruled that decryption was not a violation of the Fifth Amendment "if the contents were a foregone conclusion." So if "foregone conclusion" is the criteria that must be met, I have to ask how the contents of this man's external hard drive could be…

The article says that there are hashes of known child pornography content on the drive.

What kind of shitty encryption revealed that information?

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#130

Post by jo909 »

LanceH wrote: post #107
jo909 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My analogy would be that 1. There is an unbreakable safe 2. The judge believes he has the key to the unbreakable safe 3. They know there is evidence inside the safe 4. They ask him to unlock the safe 5. He refuses to do so, so they try to force him by jailing him They do not ask him to testify about the safes contents or even to hand over the key, just to "insert and turn the key". And their argument is that he can n…

>> 3. They know there is evidence inside the safe "know" implies a fact. The determination of fact is up to the jury.

Well I state it like a fact because that is not part of the current argument. In this case the judge made that determination, and challenging that is a whole other argument where a jury might or might not come into play.
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