11–20 of 70 posts
If Moore's Law keeps working, this is a ticking time bomb for him. If the police stay interested and crack his crypto, he'll do more time for whatever he's concealed on his computer (if anything).
I don't know if a law compelling you to reveal encryption keys to the government/police/courts is valid in the UK. I do, however, know that such a law is morally reprehensible. Quite frankly, it is in the interest of the people to ensure encryption tools are entirely useable by criminals, gangsters, and terrorists, because that ensures they are entirely useable by lawful citizens as well. Unlike guns (something possi…
It is valid, and it is morally reprehensible. In the US, the Fifth Amendment protects us from such travesties.
I don't know if a law compelling you to reveal encryption keys to the government/police/courts is valid in the UK. I do, however, know that such a law is morally reprehensible. Quite frankly, it is in the interest of the people to ensure encryption tools are entirely useable by criminals, gangsters, and terrorists, because that ensures they are entirely useable by lawful citizens as well. Unlike guns (something possi…
It is valid, and it is morally reprehensible. In the US, the Fifth Amendment protects us from such travesties.
Edit: Indeed there has been a case, and so far the Fifth Amendment is holding strong: http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2010/04/passwords-and-5th-ame...
✓ Old story (October 6th). ✓ Original article omits context. ✓ US Constitution does not cover the British. ✓ Already covered. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 No discussion required.
Word War II: ✓ Old story (September 1, 1939). ✓ Thousands of articles likely omitting full context. ✓ US Constitution does not cover the British. ✓ Already covered. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1507526 No discussion required.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700
It's very likely that any comments here will cover the same ground, so if you're interested in might be worth reading the comments there first.
If Moore's Law keeps working, this is a ticking time bomb for him. If the police stay interested and crack his crypto, he'll do more time for whatever he's concealed on his computer (if anything).
In any case, if I was him I wouldn't worry about them decrypting the data in my lifetime. Do you know how many millions of years would it take to decrypt a 50 random char pass phrase decent encryption. Lots of those. So unless there is a breakthrough on computing power several magnitudes bigger than what we have experienced and the money to dedicate millions of computers to the cause, or someone finds a loophole in the encryption algorithm (highly unlikely if using any type of military grade encryption), his data won't be decrypted.
✓ Old story (October 6th). ✓ Original article omits context. ✓ US Constitution does not cover the British. ✓ Already covered. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 No discussion required.
Downvotes, what on earth for? Is it the checkmarks? Edit: not meaning to complain, I was trying to sort out if it was the Unicode, the tone, the list format, or the "no need to discuss" which is probably a bit rude. I was hoping to make a quickly read mark that would let people know HN had already been over this ground and there was nothing new in the article, but I failed miserably.
I don't know if a law compelling you to reveal encryption keys to the government/police/courts is valid in the UK. I do, however, know that such a law is morally reprehensible. Quite frankly, it is in the interest of the people to ensure encryption tools are entirely useable by criminals, gangsters, and terrorists, because that ensures they are entirely useable by lawful citizens as well. Unlike guns (something possi…
Let's say I have a hard drive full of illegal material, the police suspect it and have enough evidence to obtain a warrant, should I not then be obligated to show the contents of the hard drive? Much like a warrant for a home or business premises, why should it not be enforceable for digital things too?
In most (democratic) countries you do not have to cooperate with the police if they have a warrant. So they are allowed to search your house, they are allowed to break your lock/door, but you are not obligated to give them the key to your house.
It's already the same with digital things: The police can get a warrant and is then allowed to try to crack my password. But I'm not obligated to give them the key.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's say I have a hard drive full of illegal material, the police suspect it and have enough evidence to obtain a warrant, should I not then be obligated to show the contents of the hard drive? Much like a warrant for a home or business premises, why should it not be enforceable for digital things too?
But if you've written notes in your notebook that are comprehensible only to you, should you be compelled to explain to the authorities what they mean?
Which immediately made most of literature and theology illegal. You couldn't posses a poem or a bible unless you could explain to the police any hidden symbolism!
Pictures of the police kicking down doors and shouting "you're nicked - now explain what the poet really meant by a host of yellow daffodils"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's say I have a hard drive full of illegal material, the police suspect it and have enough evidence to obtain a warrant, should I not then be obligated to show the contents of the hard drive? Much like a warrant for a home or business premises, why should it not be enforceable for digital things too?
But if you've written notes in your notebook that are comprehensible only to you, should you be compelled to explain to the authorities what they mean?
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php
Computer programmers think, aha, I can apply an arbitrary algorithmic translation to input A and get output B, and applying the law to B would be absurd, so therefore applying the law to A is also absurd. What they fail to realize is that bits have color -- a type of metadata that law algorithms can see and operate on which your computer algorithms are ignorant of.
You think that encrypted contents of a computer harddrive is a logically equivalent operation to writing things in a form only comprehensible to oneself. This is only true if you're Colorblind.