Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by joshribakoff » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:33 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #93

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…

These issues are often around catching criminals but there's always the issue that they will be abused for something else and we (the common folks) are all at risk. That's plausible. Honest question: It's hard to do risk assessment at my level of ignorance so where can I find major cases where common people have been screwed by the overarching tentacles of govt surveillance in the developed world? Any noteworthy case…

Most "developed" governments recognize some right to privacy. Counter examples that come to mind would be censorship by governments who surveil internet traffic & lock up "rebels", or governments that go into people's houses without warrants, checking to see if you're harboring people of a "banned" sect. I worked with a developer who had just moved to the USA from Cuba, he told me stories about how they would go around in vans, if they detected illegal wifi signals they would kick in your door & put on a show. If you were sent to prison it would of course involve various forms of torture, like being forced to stand for days on end, according to him.

Your question is loaded though, because of course the common person will follow the law & avoid going on the internet.

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

#212

Post by zeep » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

gsnedders wrote: post #184

srge wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. And what if you genuinely forget the password to one of your encrypted drive. Couldn't it be used to incriminate you on whatever charge?

They have to convince a court beyond reasonable doubt that you know the password, AFAIK. An extreme example would be pulling the power plug on a computer you're using as the police arrive: you'd be hard pushed to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that you don't know it. Of course, shades of gray, etc.

Maybe if you kept a live Linux USB bootable drive plugged in at all times, you could say that you can't access the installed OS...might have a problem with time-stamps and such but that should be fixable

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

#213

Post by usanothanks » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:38 PM UTC

So, if they can get file hashes from encrypted file on HDD, does this mean, Apple worked together with NSA to "plaint" a backdoor into encryption?

It seems it's time to ditch Apple and start using Linux instead.

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

#214

Post by JohnBooty » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #56

mcny wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely but I'll go further. Having something in your hard drive or book or whatever should never be a crime in itself. I mean in India it is a crime to carry an authentic map of India with you. What harm does the contents of an encrypted disk do to society? It is not like he was going out and trying to legalize child abuse. If the person was involved in child abuse, we must try to convict him absolutely but we sh…

Yeah, I'm uncomfortable with the banning of certain kinds of content. The root problem here is child abuse. Anybody abusing children, or financially supporting the abuse of children, is doing a seriously bad thing and this is what should be illegal. I'm highly skeptical that images on a hard drive can cause the abuse of children. That's the same kind of logic people used back in the 1970s to argue that playing D&D an…

Replying to my own post here, but my initial post totally focused on the "are the contents of this guy's hard drive going to make him go out and abuse children?" question.

I totally ignored the question of the harm that the continued availability of this pictures might do to the victims in the pictures.

The ramifications of "revenge porn" are well known; it can be really hurtful to the victims for that stuff to be out there. It is, essentially, an ongoing sexual assault. (Jennifer Lawrence is one celebrity who has spoken about this at length) So, it was wrong for me to ignore that very important aspect.

Of course, it's not a given that this guy was distributing porn - there's a difference between saving a picture on your hard drive, and distributing it. If it was a torrent download, obviously, then he did both. And there might not even be people involved -- aren't underage hentai comics considered child porn in many jurisdictions? Barf, I don't want to think about this.

Because this is the internet and words get turned around so easily, let me be super clear that sexual contact with minors is wrong and I'd like to see it eradicated.

I have known victims of childhood sexual abuse. The lifelong damage caused can be absolutely devastating.

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

#215

Post by lightedman » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

sjy wrote: post #152

lightedman wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"Are you denying that the Fifth Amendment only applies to witnesses"

Yes, because of the first two words of the entire amendment - "No person" that 100% excludes any qualifying status and grants everyone immunity from testifying in any effect against themselves.

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

#216

Post by Veratyr » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:43 PM UTC

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 "forgone conclusion" argument makes no sense to me. If there's enough evidence that the conclusion is "forgone", what is there to gain by decrypting the contents?

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

#217

Post by usanothanks » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

These days you can only trust Linux. Anything else is full of backdoors backed by FISA court orders.

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

#218

Post by 300bps » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:45 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #188

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) ?

They’d also need to plant a sister who will testify that you showed her a bunch of child porn.

The judge's ruling says essentially what you're saying... there's enough evidence already that he considers it a foregone conclusion that there is child porn on the encrypted hard disk.

The only problem I have with this argument is that if it is such compelling evidence why not send the case to trial and let a jury decide?

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

#219

Post by andylei » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #47

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…

Yea, at this point they either need to charge him and take him to court with the evidence they have or release him. There is simply no way to prove he is knowingly withholding a password vs simply forgetting it.

its not like he argued he forgot it and the court didn't believe his argument. he didn't even make the claim that he forgot it.

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

#220

Post by Powerofmene » Sat, Sep 02, 2017, 6:51 PM UTC

jsjohnst wrote: post #200

Powerofmene wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that does not mean he downloaded them if someone else has access to his computer nor does that mean they are still there. I read the article to mean that the police have proof that hashes of known child pornography were downloaded and are not on the computer so they are assuming that they were downloaded to the external hard drive. How can they see what files are sitting on a password protected encrypted drive? W…

Read this link: https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/rawlsopin... Specifically the top paragraph on page 7. If you can get through that paragraph and still give him the benefit of the doubt, then you are more open minded than I am.

Who is giving him benefit of the doubt? I have repeatedly said there may be child pornography on the drive or evidence of other crimes. I am simply saying there are a number of reasons he is unable or unwilling to do as he has been ordered by the Writ.