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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

#151

Post by canttestthis »

sw00pur wrote: post #147
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…

> What if he no longer possess them? He could have deleted them. If that's the case he should give the FBI the key. That way he'll prove he wasn't possessing child pornography.

No, he might have files on the drive which would incriminate him in some other crime. He should not be forced to incriminate himself.

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

#152

Post by sjy »

lightedman wrote: post #87
geofft wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

The courts are trying to say that the Fifth Amendment only applies to witnesses. They're deliberately misleading the people in this case. The fifth amendment clearly states "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or…

Are you denying that the Fifth Amendment only applies to witnesses (which seems clear from the text), or are you just disputing the court's decision that being compelled to decrypt a hard drive is not 'in effect' forcing someone 'to be a witness against himself' within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment?

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

#153

Post by wyager »

weinzierl wrote: post #142
wyager wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 100% wrong. XTS-mode AES absolutely protects you from known-plaintext attacks like the investigators apparently claim to have pulled off. I suspect we don't have the full description.

> XTS-mode AES absolutely protects you from known-plaintext attacks like the investigators apparently claim to have pulled off. 1. I didn't claim XTS-mode AES is vulnerable to known-plaintext attacks. 2. I don't believe the investigators claim to have pulled off a known-plaintext attack. What is your source for this?

You said:

> Bitlocker, FileFault, TrueCrypt, VeraCrypt basically operate on one disk block at at time and this means they cannot hide data patterns well.

This is wrong, but you claimed it. In the context of this thread (matching files on an encrypted disk with known unencrypted files), that's a known-plaintext attack.

Maybe you weren't aware you were making this claim, but you did.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #131
lenkite wrote: post #49

So the police no longer need to plant drugs. They can just plant encrypted hard drives to which you have 'forgotten' the password. Hard-drives containing hashes of 'bad' pics. And then you can spend your life in jail (unless you plead guilty) ?

If they're going to do that, they might as well just leave the pictures unencrypted. I don't see how encrypting it and then going through all these gymnastics in court helps them; in fact doing that seems like a good way to draw unnecessary attention to the frame job.

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by AnthonyMouse »

DanBC wrote: post #143
JorgeGT wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 showed her hundreds of pictures and videos of child pornography. The fact that hey have so much evidence and yet they…

One reason they want him to unlock the drive is to protect children. Each of these images is a child that has been abused. Some of these are historic cases, and the child is now safe. But some of these are new, and the child is still living with the abuser, and the abuse is continuing.

Isn't that what plea bargaining is for?

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

#156

Post by weinzierl »

foldr wrote: post #94
weinzierl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, but the original quote doesn't say that they compared decrypted content with known hashes. It doesn't say anything about how they learned about the "content stored on the encrypted hard drive". "Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content." I read it like this: They figured out that the disk had some incriminating files, as I described…

If they're in possession of the original files they can just look at the files to see what they contain.

Sure. My point was more that they might possibly not want to openly admit that they are in the possession of the original files.

I'm sure law enforcement has lists with hashes of incriminating files, but I'm not sure if they are allowed to keep the original files. Even if they are, maybe they just want to avoid public discussion about it.

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

#157

Post by sjy »

eternauta3k wrote: post #3
godzillabrennus wrote: post #2

The accused crime is heinous and there is some evidence against him stated in the article but common, an indefinite jail sentence with no conviction? Then people wonder why the country elects Trump to shake things up. This guy should stand trial or be let go.

Forgetting a password can lead to life in prison. Reasonable.

The judge in this case found that he was able to decrypt the hard drive but chose not to.

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

#158

Post by Dolores12 »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #129
shaggerty wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What kind of shitty encryption revealed that information?

any torrent client

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

#159

Post by lemonycracket »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #131
lenkite wrote: post #49

So the police no longer need to plant drugs. They can just plant encrypted hard drives to which you have 'forgotten' the password. Hard-drives containing hashes of 'bad' pics. And then you can spend your life in jail (unless you plead guilty) ?

If they're going to do that, they might as well just leave the pictures unencrypted. I don't see how encrypting it and then going through all these gymnastics in court helps them; in fact doing that seems like a good way to draw unnecessary attention to the frame job.

What? Then you have to fabricate intricate evidence and may only put the person away for a couple of years

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

#160

Post by sjy »

lagadu wrote: post #55

What's appalling about this is that it effectively means that anyone can be arrested potentially for life because they forgot a password. As someone who has forgotten passwords in the past: this is outrageous.

The judge in this case found that he was able to decrypt the hard drive but chose not to.
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