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Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

arstechnica.com

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Re: Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

#111

Post by function_seven »

tomflack wrote: post #110
dlytle wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to have a third volume as well, opened with a different key? Or a fourth? Maybe the solution is to have a first "primary" partition, then an "under duress" partition which you'll fight tooth and nail to protect, filing every appeal possible... and if you finally do give up the key, it's filled with entirely legal but extremely embarrassing pornography, plus a few self-written Harry Potter fanfictions.…

I've been wondering about this every time someone brings this up. So you use Truecrypt to secure your disk, and have say a "naughty" partition and two "clean" ones, for plausible deniability. Won't the police in the event they have compelled you to unlock your HDD check how big the partition is? If you have a 500GB disk divided by three say with the 20GB "naughty" partition, a 20GB "double-decoy" and a 460GB "decoy"…

That's the beauty of full-disk encryption. Even the empty space is encrypted. So the hidden volume is truly hidden. Even TrueCrypt has no idea the hidden volume exists if you unlock the outer volume with a different key.

Truly empty-space is indistinguishable from a secret inner volume.

Re: Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

#113

Post by nknight »

maratd wrote: post #109
nknight wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What actually happens is the prosecutor tells the court that they have X, Y, and Z evidence, which indicates the existence of W evidence, even though they can't actually get hold of W evidence. Then they don't charge you for W evidence directly, they just run the charges up for X, Y, and Z until you agree to a plea bargain anyway. Uh, yeah, so what? If they have the evidence to prove you committed a crime, then the…

> If you're not prepared to take that risk, you should probably avoid committing the crimes in the first place, no? That presumes you have the capacity to know what is and what is not legal. In the US, no human being is capable of that. On top of thousands and thousands of federal statutes, you also have state, county, and local statutes to worry about. If the prosecutor comes up empty and you piss him off by playing…

If someone has evidence on their encrypted drive that could put them away for life or a large portion thereof, or even trigger a capital case, the fine or few years of time behind bars for whatever piddly-ass crap the prosecutor can dig up is not going to be their primary concern. Worse for the prosecutor, if they go to extreme lengths to find something to charge you with, they risk pissing off the judge and/or appellate system with their vindictiveness.

You're always going to have to make a judgement as to whether you're better off cutting a deal or refusing to cooperate, but that does absolutely nothing to change the fact that a hidden volume may save your life.

Re: Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

#114

Post by jQueryIsAwesome »

What happens if a friend of a suspect burns some papers that the jury suspects that those were incriminatory evidence?

In this context: what would happen in the case the crypto software deletes all the data after not logging in for 1 week? (It would be too short for the trial to happen i guess)

Re: Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

#115

Post by nknight »

rmccue wrote: post #89
ctdonath wrote: post #51

It's a variant of what's called "rubber hose cryptology": sometimes it's technologically a lot easier to just beat the password out of someone (smacking the soles of one's feet with a rubber hose apparently being a rather effective technique). I draw the line using a "rag doll" model. They can compel fingerprints, physical keys, DNA, etc. insofar as they can manipulate your limp unresitive (albeit uncooperative) body…

Could you not then argue the same for data encryption? Bruteforcing it would be the equivalent of a blowtorch in that case. Would that not then mean that they can compel you to give the key/password?

We'll figure out how to read people's minds before some TLA brute-forces a volume encrypted with layered AES-Twofish-Serpent. If you're going that far, you might as well just dump the 5th Amendment now.

Re: Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

#116

Post by philp »

tomflack wrote: post #110
dlytle wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to have a third volume as well, opened with a different key? Or a fourth? Maybe the solution is to have a first "primary" partition, then an "under duress" partition which you'll fight tooth and nail to protect, filing every appeal possible... and if you finally do give up the key, it's filled with entirely legal but extremely embarrassing pornography, plus a few self-written Harry Potter fanfictions.…

I've been wondering about this every time someone brings this up. So you use Truecrypt to secure your disk, and have say a "naughty" partition and two "clean" ones, for plausible deniability. Won't the police in the event they have compelled you to unlock your HDD check how big the partition is? If you have a 500GB disk divided by three say with the 20GB "naughty" partition, a 20GB "double-decoy" and a 460GB "decoy"…

AIUI, Truecrypt is actually very clever about this. Until decrypted, every TrueCrypt partition consists of nothing more than random data. This, combined with the fact that hidden volumes are actually stored within your first / outer partition it should make it impossible to analyze whether other volumes / partitions exist.

See here for more information: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=hidden-volume

Re: Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

#117

Post by nknight »

WettowelReactor wrote: post #90
pyre wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a dead man's switch and you're not a career criminal, I'm sure you could convince a judge that it slipped your mind because of the distress caused by being whisked off to jail. Probably not a guarantee that a judge won't say 'too bad' though.

Then it depends on what you destroyed. If the data is provenly destroyed there are limits to what you can be charged with. If what your hiding is worse this still maybe a viable option. If however the data is still recoverable with your cooperation I believe you could be jailed in contempt indefinitely (until you cooperate).

The longest contempt detention I'm aware of was a very bizarre case involving a guy named Richard Fine who was jailed for something less than 18 months. It was a civil case, and as far as I know he never argued that the information he was being ordered to produce would incriminate him in a criminal matter. His attempts to secure his release involved some conspiracy-theory-level ranting that probably contributed greatly to higher courts ignoring him.

A local judge ultimately decided Fine was irrational and keeping him in jail didn't accomplish anything but taking up of jail space and resources.

In a criminal matter involving even a hint of self-incrimination, I'm disinclined to think a contempt sentence would be allowed to continue indefinitely by US courts absent an immunity deal.

Re: Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

#118

Post by Groxx »

Makes sense.

Yes, dead-man switches and whatnot always come up with cases like this - that's not really part of this ruling. This case includes: a) they have record of the defendant stating the information exists on the machine, which she stated she owns, and b) they have (a very good) reason to believe the drive can be decrypted.

All of this strikes me more as a search warrant than anything, in the same way that they can break locked doors if they have a warrant to search a location. That it's a cryptographic lock really has no bearing on the matter - if the documents were printed and put in a locked closet, they could be confiscated and searched. Why is this different?

Re: Judge: Fifth Amendment doesn't protect encrypted hard drives

#119

Post by tomflack »

function_seven wrote: post #111
tomflack wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been wondering about this every time someone brings this up. So you use Truecrypt to secure your disk, and have say a "naughty" partition and two "clean" ones, for plausible deniability. Won't the police in the event they have compelled you to unlock your HDD check how big the partition is? If you have a 500GB disk divided by three say with the 20GB "naughty" partition, a 20GB "double-decoy" and a 460GB "decoy"…

That's the beauty of full-disk encryption. Even the empty space is encrypted. So the hidden volume is truly hidden. Even TrueCrypt has no idea the hidden volume exists if you unlock the outer volume with a different key. Truly empty-space is indistinguishable from a secret inner volume.

Why can't I write a program that tries to expand itself to use any available space, then runs in to a wall if the "empty space" is actually encrypted data? If the space used by data + my program adds up to less than the total capacity of the disk, it indicates something is hiding right?
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