41–50 of 239 posts
I've been resetting people's 8 character passwords lost due to Post-Vacation-Insomnia for ages, I'd really like to see them expect me to remember a 50 character password under stress conditions.
As a practical matter, I've wondered what would happen if someone simply claimed they couldn't remember the password. Especially if one could make it look like the encrypted files hadn't been accessed in over a year.
TrueCrypt's Plausible Deniability (http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability) makes these issues even more complicated.
But yeah: by simply refusing, you'd be thrown in jail for contempt and your only way out would be appellate review of the order. You'd have to challenge the contempt citation on the basis that the original order was unlawful.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can slap an "obstruction of justice" charge on. Or charge you with "contempt of court" and just jail you based on that. In broader terms yes the system has a way to inflict random punishment on you for disobidience. In other countries they will just start breaking your fingers, your loved ones fingers, and so on. So the password problem is solved a lot "easier" then.
Once they start breaking your fingers, it gets a whole lot harder to enter that 50-character password.
It seems like a bad idea to store anything incriminating on your local hard drive. Why not keep your encrypted files on a flash drive? If the police show up destroy the flash drive using a hammer, ensuring that the flash memory chip is thoroughly pulverized and completely unreadable. Likewise, if you are going to be using the internet for devious purposes drive around and use a neighbor's open wireless network access…
It seems like a bad idea to store anything incriminating on your local hard drive. Why not keep your encrypted files on a flash drive? If the police show up destroy the flash drive using a hammer, ensuring that the flash memory chip is thoroughly pulverized and completely unreadable. Likewise, if you are going to be using the internet for devious purposes drive around and use a neighbor's open wireless network access…
I'm wondering ... Person A refuses for - pure principle (and maybe some ripped DvD's) Person B refuses for - let's say child pornography and a dirty bomb manual
Both will get the same jail time?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably the UK police are aware of this feature, which could lead to a more interesting situation when you can't prove that you've really unlocked to the deepest level.
Seems like you're giving the police a lot of credit, but maybe not. Regardless, there's really no way to prove anything either way, is there?
As to proving anything, my understanding is that it is theoretically impossible to prove, but sometimes bugs in the implementation or various user mistakes mean that you can, in practice, sometimes get a good indication that something is hidden,
I wonder why he didn't say he "forgot the password". Although it may seem implausible, how could they prove it's not true?
I think that the law is worded so that it's an offence to have encrypted files and not be able to decrypt them. Whether it's deliberate or just forgotten isn't relevant (though I'd hope it would make a difference in sentencing).
It seems like a bad idea to store anything incriminating on your local hard drive. Why not keep your encrypted files on a flash drive? If the police show up destroy the flash drive using a hammer, ensuring that the flash memory chip is thoroughly pulverized and completely unreadable. Likewise, if you are going to be using the internet for devious purposes drive around and use a neighbor's open wireless network access…