261–270 of 284 posts
I've got a few hard drives wiped with random data that looks like cipher text and yet it isn't and I don't know the password (but this can't be proven). Does this make me a criminal in the US?
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My question was not loaded. I'm not assuming anything (well, except that by having broad surveillance rights the govt can do harm to regular people). I'm looking for documented cases where common people have been harmed so I can feel more impacted by it (and I have better examples when talking about these subjects with friends and family). It's not fair to unload these research needs on HN so I'll do more googling to…
> I'm looking for documented cases where common people have been harmed so I can feel more impacted by it (and I have better examples when talking about these subjects with friends and family). https://www.thenation.com/article/how-clerical-error-barred-... https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-checked-wrong-box-rah... Some highlights: * it was revealed in the lawsuit that she was put on the no-fly list due to a cle…
I think a good argument against all of this massive surveillance for common people is that governments are usually pretty incompetent and a bureaucratic mess... it's a very asymmetric battle with massive blob holding a lot of information about you vs. you without few resources and picking up clues here and there about what might or might not help you in a lawsuit.
Thanks again, much appreciated.
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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?
Now, in response to the use of the All Writs Act about iPhone decryption, a couple of people raised the argument that the 13th Amendment, which prohibits "involuntary servitude," might prevent the government from just telling you what your job is (even if you're paid for it). I don't know that any court has had an opinion on the validity of this argument.
Also, I think the All Writs Act only applies to things that the Western legal system considers "writs," which is not clearly defined in statute anywhere. So you'd have to ask an actual lawyer who understands Western caselaw about whether "decrypt your hard drive," "write and sign firmware for an iPhone that doesn't lock you out on incorrect passcode attempts," and "dig stone for four years" count as writs. I have no idea.
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Some Googling finds http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-3rd-circuit/1853477.html , which says there's both an internal hard disk and an external hard disk, and the external one is the one at issue: > The Forensic examination also disclosed that Doe had downloaded thousands of files known by their “hash” values to be child pornography.[3] The files, however, were not on the Mac Pro, but instead had been stored on the encryp…
Ding ding ding. This is the answer. I know OS X also stores hashes of at least some downloads for the purpose of checking certificates on downloaded apps and disk images. This is clearly enough evidence to convict the guy, so I imagine they're holding him for some political reason (like generating jurisprudence for violating the 5th amendment in the future).
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A 9 year old girl was napalmed to create this photo. Should it be illegal to possess? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d4/TrangBang.jpg
Really? The reason she was napalmed was to create that photo? You're sticking with that?
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And again, if you want to talk about the constitution I'm all for it. But just don't do that in the context of "you know, maybe this guy is innocent". That's silly and counterproductive. The practical thing happening here is that the prosecution almost certainly could build a case on the evidence they have, but in practice they don't have to because the judge is willing to hold the guy in jail on procedural grounds.…
Then the government should do its freaking job and host a trial. This isn't a game.
Once more: this was a practical decision by prosecutors to deliver as much justice as they could given limited resources. It seems all but certain (yes, in the "beyond a reasonable doubt" sense) that there is no objective injustice involved in holding this guy.
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I mean, he could have testified at the contempt hearing or presented any sort of evidence that he just plain forgot the password, and the court might have heard that. He opted to not testify or introduce any testimony at this hearing. So that court hearing did not seriously consider memory failure because the defendant did not seriously assert it. (Of course if he was lying about the failure of his memory, that asser…
If indefinite imprisonment can result from one's failure to prove that one does not remember (or never knew) some piece of information, I consider that a serious flaw in our legal system.
> Note that testifying "I don't remember the password" is enough to activate part two.
I saw this in the article that was posted here on Ars technica and have thought about the issues it brings up. Why should this guy get a free pass on child pornography just because he encrypted his hard drive? Child pornography is terrible! Who cares if the guy encrypted his child pornography. He should be in jail either way. The only reason someone would rot in prison for 2 years is because he knows he's going to ro…
Why is the _consumption_ (not talking about production !) of CP terrible ? If that's what it takes to keep you off the streets.. Honest question
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I’m curious - how exactly do you propose to present evidence that you forgot something?
One way would be to bang your head into the wall and cause an injury serious enough that a doctor could testify that you have brain damage and therefore memory loss.