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TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

forums.truecrypt.org

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Re: TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

#41

Post by manthizzle »

timewasted wrote: post #6
CWuestefeld wrote: post #2

The author references a previous letter that describes what he's doing in jail. Can anyone find that?

Searching for all posts by Bella1 that contain "Matthew", "jail", or "letter" doesn't find a previous letter. The closest thing is this post that provides case information (such as the case number, etc): http://forums.truecrypt.org/viewtopic.php?p=94607#94607

I tried looking up the case number in PACER (http://www.pacer.gov/) but when I went to register I saw that they charge 8 cents for every page returned, that is every page of a document clicked on as well as every page linked to in a search result. Transparency comes with a price tag these days I guess.

Re: TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

#42

Post by VladRussian »

shareme wrote: post #15
Luyt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The user received a subpoena duces tecum requiring him to type the passwords or pass phrases necessary to produce the encrypted contents of drives seized 6 months earlier. The true crypt user has attempted to comply but he is still being held in contempt." Did he forget his TrueCrypt password?

Its a criminal case.,..which basically means if he judge requests a document that is encrypted on a hd than defendant cannot refuse or they are in contempt

i don't get it. Is "you have the right to remain silent" limited only to oral means of communication? Or does it include the right to remain silent with respect to any means of communication, including writing, keyboard typing, sign language gesturing, etc ...?

Re: TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

#43

Post by checker »

jordanb wrote: post #31

Depending on what's on the drive, obstruction of justice might carry a much less onerous penalty than what he'd otherwise be facing. For instance, if it's child porn, he'd be labeled a sexual predator for life. If it's state secrets, he'd be facing treason and espionage charges. If it's mp3s.. financial ruin on top of the felony charge..

Aren't there statutes against forced self-incrimination by the court? I am definitely not a lawyer.

Re: TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

#44

Post by lisper »

chc wrote: post #36
speckledjim wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A safe is obviously a safe. It obviously contains something. Encrypted data isn't so clear cut. It's trivial to make a datastore that has several encryption keys, so that you could give out one key, and it'd "decrypt" to some boring stuff, whilst keeping the real data, and the alternate key, secret. It'd also be trivial to devise a decryption algorithm, and key, which "decrypts" anyones hard drive to reveal illegal i…

Is it actually trivial to encrypt arbitrary text in such a way that it could be decrypted to the source text or a different but still meaningful alternate text? That sounds really hard to do. Is this indeed a solved problem and I just don't know about it?

It is trivial. Just encrypt the true plaintext and the alternate plaintext with separate keys and place the results in a container. To decrypt, try both ciphertexts and return the one that validly decrypts with the provided key.

Re: TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

#45

Post by geuis »

geuis wrote: post #33

So basically we have a guy in jail who is claiming something and making a public appeal. However, we can find little or no independent information about his case. He provides little information about his case. Indeed, the jail site containing his photo says Charges Unknown. Let's not jump to conclusions just yet. He was arrested on April 14th. Find out the full case history, what was said, what he's accused of, etc.…

A little more info: http://www.ypsort.com/info/GA/3899392/

Searching on the address finds some info, but the names do not match up. There is a phone number listed however. Im not calling it though.

Re: TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

#46

Post by qq66 »

geuis wrote: post #33

So basically we have a guy in jail who is claiming something and making a public appeal. However, we can find little or no independent information about his case. He provides little information about his case. Indeed, the jail site containing his photo says Charges Unknown. Let's not jump to conclusions just yet. He was arrested on April 14th. Find out the full case history, what was said, what he's accused of, etc.…

With new laws giving more ability to charge people secretly, you'll see more and more people in this situation. Not saying that this is what's going on here, but the purpose of the secrecy provisions of the Patriot Act and similar is to make it harder to identify when citizens are being abused.

Re: TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

#48

Post by jgmmo »

checker wrote: post #43
jordanb wrote: post #31

Depending on what's on the drive, obstruction of justice might carry a much less onerous penalty than what he'd otherwise be facing. For instance, if it's child porn, he'd be labeled a sexual predator for life. If it's state secrets, he'd be facing treason and espionage charges. If it's mp3s.. financial ruin on top of the felony charge..

Aren't there statutes against forced self-incrimination by the court? I am definitely not a lawyer.

It's called the Fifth Amendment.

"nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself"

Re: TrueCrypt User Held in Contempt of Court

#50

Post by bhickey »

chc wrote: post #36
speckledjim wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A safe is obviously a safe. It obviously contains something. Encrypted data isn't so clear cut. It's trivial to make a datastore that has several encryption keys, so that you could give out one key, and it'd "decrypt" to some boring stuff, whilst keeping the real data, and the alternate key, secret. It'd also be trivial to devise a decryption algorithm, and key, which "decrypts" anyones hard drive to reveal illegal i…

Is it actually trivial to encrypt arbitrary text in such a way that it could be decrypted to the source text or a different but still meaningful alternate text? That sounds really hard to do. Is this indeed a solved problem and I just don't know about it?

The short answer on this is no. Check out unicity distance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicity_distance

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