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DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

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Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#91

Post by palish »

marshray wrote: post #77
palish wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the moral of the story is, conduct your criminal activity via software running on an external server on a TrueCrypt partiton, and always interface with it via Tor? Then they can't prove it's "your server" and thus order you to reveal the key. (For example, if you have access to a credit card not in your name, you can set up an EC2 micro instance for free for a year. Then install TeueCrypt and be on your merry crim…

The DoJ would simply get a judge to sign an order giving their forensics lab a snapshot of the virtual machine with the key sitting decrypted in RAM. Amazon would be under a gag order not to tell you that they even had it (not that Amazon would even care to tell you anyway). If they wanted to pin it to you, they could easily show timing correlations between your client system activity and the VM activity. Probably th…

Interesting. Good point.

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#92

Post by marshray »

asciilifeform wrote: post #86
marshray wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you were referring to the thermite used to burn up the documents in high-security safes rather than as a general bomb. That's not a plausible scenario with general-purpose computer parts. The lab would obviously have made backup copies of the drive first.

Yes, and yes. Use general-purpose computer parts, with some imagination. One simple example: Modify the power pins (in a USB keychain drive and a dedicated USB socket, naturally ) such that +5v and ground are connected backwards. Connect a diode in such a way that should the stick ever be plugged into an ordinary USB socket, power is applied to a small piece of nichrome igniter wire (model rocket store, or cannibaliz…

OMG. With that much knowledge and creativity clearly you must be a terrorist. Or someone who grew up way back when the official US government policy was that kids should learn hands-on Science and Math.

In any case, you do something like that today you will frighten the living daylights out of enough technically-illiterate-but-powerful people that you will not get out of jail for a long long time, regardless of whether or not there is any reasonable justification for it.

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#93

Post by VladRussian »

djackson wrote: post #6

It's easy to see why you wouldn't want someone to decrypt your laptop. What about Bernie Madoff? Wouldn't you be furious if all data produced by a corrupt hedge fund manager was encrypted? Wouldn't you want the DOJ to be able to hold them in contempt of court? If you hamstring your government, you aren't allowed to complain that it is ineffective.

"If you hamstring your government, you aren't allowed to complain that it is ineffective."

Then what in your theory would be an explanation for an ineffective government of practically unlimited power?

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#94

Post by djackson »

anonymous246 wrote: post #38
djackson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has the right to avoid a reasonable search in the United States. You are protected by the fourth amendment from unreasonable searches, but you aren't going to convince me that a detective has no right, with a warrant in hand, to search a suspect's home for a murder weapon. Similarly, you aren't going to convince me that a prosecutor, warrant in hand, has no right to search a computer for evidence of credit car…

I think you're missing the conflict between allowing reasonable search and the right against self-incrimination when the thing being searched is an encrypted laptop. At least agree that there is a conflict here; otherwise you're just being dense. AFAIK the govt. cannot compel (legally) anybody to reveal the combination to a ticking time-bomb; or the location of a murder weapon etc. How the hell is asking for a passph…

I don't think that in the case that someone has your laptop in hand you can still plead the fifth. If there is evidence pertinent to the case on the physical drive obtained by the government, then they already are in possession of the container holding that evidence. Beyond that, it's a matter of litigation expense to crack it. It's up to you, at that point - unlock the laptop and allow a search or force them to hire a consultant (lawyers and cops are shitty hackers) to dig into it for them.

The hand-written note argument doesn't hold water, in my eyes, because it is the encryption of all of the evidence, not any one document, that is at issue. As was mentioned, the government has compelled people to open safes.

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#95

Post by VladRussian »

sorbus wrote: post #53
evilduck wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still make the assumption that the prosecuted knows the password and is implicitly guilty. Imagine for a second that I was less technically minded and didn't use encryption and I purchased a used laptop from someone who did, I then get caught up in the legal system (guilty or innocent for the charged crime, it doesn't matter, but I did not use encryption) and some prosecutor has a warrant to compel me to unlock t…

You would have explained the origin of the encrypted data on the laptop, and they would either drag the person who was the origin into the case as a defendant or have him testify. It's really quite simple; they're not just asking "what is the password?" and ignoring any answer that isn't the password, as you seem to think. If you were to refuse to give the password under the grounds that someone you refuse to identif…

>they're not just asking "what is the password?" and ignoring any answer that isn't the password, as you seem to think.

>If you were to refuse to give the password [...], then you would rightly be considered to be lying...

exactly. This is why you have the right to remain silent. You're not "refusing to give the password under the grounds", you're not giving "answers that isn't the password". You're just silent. A vegetable. Otherwise any answer, like you explained it yourself, can be used against you.

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#96

Post by djackson »

andrewcooke wrote: post #37
djackson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has the right to avoid a reasonable search in the United States. You are protected by the fourth amendment from unreasonable searches, but you aren't going to convince me that a detective has no right, with a warrant in hand, to search a suspect's home for a murder weapon. Similarly, you aren't going to convince me that a prosecutor, warrant in hand, has no right to search a computer for evidence of credit car…

all i'm saying is that you can't say a right cannot exist because it lets bad things happen. in this case, there may be a right to silence. i don't know (i am not american) if that "really is" a right. but if it is a right then it exists even if it allows, say, a paedophile to escape justice (through remaining silent). it's not nice, but it's the price you pay to help guarantee freedom. [edit: it's perhaps worth addi…

This case is not about rights, it's about a specific entity, the Department of Justice of the United States of America, having a specific investigative power, namely, that they don't have to keep a horde of expensive consultants on retainer to decrypt people's boring, completely legally irrelevant documents. On the off-chance that they lose that power, they'll still get whatever it is they want from your laptop, it'll just take longer and cost more.

Nobody is revising the Bill of Rights, the Fourth or Fifth Amendments.

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#97

Post by dkokelley »

jergason wrote: post #57

I thought this quote by the DOJ was pretty ridiculous: Public interests will be harmed absent requiring defendants to make available unencrypted contents in circumstances like these. Failing to compel Ms. Fricosu amounts to a concession to her and potential criminals (be it in child exploitation, national security, terrorism, financial crimes or drug trafficking cases) I don't like how they bring out the bogey-men of…

As soon as I saw "...be it in child exploitation..." I skipped the entire content in parenthesis.

Whoever said that was not attempting to provide a logical argument, but to elicit an emotional response in the audience. The point would have (and should have) been made without the references to all manner of boogie-men.

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#98

Post by djackson »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #71
djackson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand what a subpoena is. A subpoena is a compulsory order to produce all documents related to a matter, whether the government knows they exist or not. So yes, if you believe in subpoena power, you agree that you should have to produce that box.

And you are failing to understand the 5th Amendment. You do not have to give up that information, if it is only in your head, regardless of the subpoena. That is the entire point of the 5th. You can't stop the government from doing its search, you can't actively hide it, but you don't have to give them the information if it will incriminate you.

They have the information. They have your hard drive. You have a key, or they can brute force the information out with decryption software. This is not a Fifth Amendment case. They don't want or care about the password itself. They can't use the information you provide (the password) to incriminate you, no matter what the password is.

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#99

Post by VladRussian »

TheCondor wrote: post #65

There is a certain romantic man against the world sort of idea where I support this kind of privacy. Some kind of 1984 like scenario.. I'm thinking like someone writes some particular brand fiction for his own enjoyment, somehow it becomes illegal and he's now a criminal for his private thoughts or the contents of his private writings. Or practicing an outlawed religion in private or something. The reality of the mos…

>If we accept that this encrypted space is protected by the fifth amendment,

the encrypted space isn't protected by the 5th Amendment. The content of your brain is. If the police finds the password written on post-it under the keyboard, they would have all the rights to use it.

>then why won't we just regulate that encryption needs a "law enforcement access key" or make such encryption just illegal?

1st Amendment. A right to produce all kind of communication garbage, incl. XOR-ed image of your brain with Antarctica map or quasi-scientific reasons against tax increases or this my post.

Re: DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop

#100

Post by d0ne »

aplusbi wrote: post #90
nodata wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this was discussed here the other day (can't find the link, sorry). The thinking went something like this: a passphrase is equivalent to a combination wall safe and not to a lock with key: one requires a physical thing to open it, the other requires something within your head. The something within your head is equivalent to testimony.

The thing is, the court can compel you to open the safe. You don't have to reveal the combination but you do have to open it (or face contempt charges). This is pretty much the same thing they are demanding from her - we don't want your password, we want access to your hard drive.

However, in the case of a safe there exist other reasonable methods to access its content such as a safe cracker or breaking open the door.

As I stated in my comment above, in the case of properly encrypted data where exactly one person possesses the key this is not the same.

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