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French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

theguardian.com

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Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#111

Post by mike_hock »

yongjik wrote: post #97
negidius wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means that someone who forgets their passcode because of the stress of being arrested and threatened with years in prison could easily be wrongfully convicted. It's a horrible law, even for those who don't care about privacy.

IANAL but it sounds like this defense would be received about as well as "Your honor, the defendant was in grave stress of being arrested and threatened with years in prison. That's why he completely forgot why and how he parked his car next to Crosby Lake and was walking in the shallow water, carrying an identified bag, at 3am."

So basically that just proves the parent poster's point because the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove that the defendant was carrying a bag containing a body and the defendant is under no obligation to remember or justify parking his car by the lake at 3am and walking around.

Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#112

Post by zahma »

Certainly puts the French government and Foreign Ministry in a curious spot. Were they the ones to ask Britain to intervene? What is a publisher doing on a counterterrorism watchlist? Are we to assume the worst that Britain is impinging on freedom of speech or just merely abusing a statute like the US and the Patriot Act?

I can see it working well politically for Macron to call for his release as a demonstration of civility and liberal virtue. However, before he swoops in, I suspect there is more to the story.

Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#113

Post by beezle »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #32
phnofive wrote: post #2

The legal system in the UK recognizes several rights against self-incrimination, but there is a carve-out for the per se crime of failing to disclose a key to encrypted information - punishable by years in prison. How is this different than refusing to tell where you've buried the bodies? Why should the police be permitted to assume you're guilty and in possession of vital information under certain circumstances?

I can definitely see how instead of viewing a device as an extension of a suspect's mind, you can view it as just another piece of property. If you had a dairy noting where you buried the bodies, or some receipts for your illicit arms deals, locked in a closet somewhere, the cops could reasonably break in and search it, or more relevantly compel you to hand over the key. Now, I definitely prefer the US's stance of a…

Suppose the hypothetical diary were itself encrypted? And what if it was done with a one-time pad?

Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#114

Post by than3 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #70
andy_ppp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder if the masses always end up voting in fascists every 50 years or so simply because they forgot that there were some things worth fighting for. Does it feel like to anyone else we are on the precipice of extremely big changes that might not be good for anyone?

Strauss–Howe generational theory holds that upheaval or major crisis (like a world war) occurs every 80-100 years If that holds true the next fews years are going to be interesting

It will definitely be interesting times.

It usually starts with lack of representation, then coercion and then compulsion. I'd say its probably closer to 60 years, all you really need is one bad large generational cohort to get the snowball rolling, and then it becomes almost impossible to reverse, 2 generations down; with the standard generational time period being 20 years.

Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#115

Post by 1letterunixname »

devmunchies wrote: post #9

This is why passcodes are better than biometric auth. It’s easy for an officer to hold the phone up to your face.

Exactly. You can't force a 34 character password out of a human brain if they have the will to refuse. All other means of storing and presenting cryptographic tokens are vulnerable.

Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#116

Post by kevviiinn »

blibble wrote: post #66
orra wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ironically, this was largely done by self-declared leftists Eh, the Parliament Act 1911 was passed by a Liberal Government. > who utterly failed to anticipate how fascism could easily manifest through such a system. The Liberal Party, and its successor the Liberal Democrats, has long been in favour of electoral reform.

and the RIP Act was passed by a Labour government (and the Terrorism Act)

From what I've heard, the UK Labour party does absolutely nothing for labor. They're turning into the US democrats

Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#117

Post by 1letterunixname »

ta1243 wrote: post #81
jxramos wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not sure how much face recognition was disabled by this but I rolled my eyes all the way up and it did not unlock, kind of strained my eyeballs though.

yes the rolling eyes method is the way to avoid it if you get into that situaiton.

They'll just wait until you can't hold your eyes up anymore.

Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#118

Post by 1letterunixname »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #33
olliej wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s super easy to disable biometric auth immediately, either explicitly all through repeatedly failing the biometric auth by moving and keeping your eyes shut.

Unless they use the Ludovico technique

Don't tell the cops I hate showtunes

Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes

#119

Post by kevviiinn »

beezle wrote: post #113
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can definitely see how instead of viewing a device as an extension of a suspect's mind, you can view it as just another piece of property. If you had a dairy noting where you buried the bodies, or some receipts for your illicit arms deals, locked in a closet somewhere, the cops could reasonably break in and search it, or more relevantly compel you to hand over the key. Now, I definitely prefer the US's stance of a…

Suppose the hypothetical diary were itself encrypted? And what if it was done with a one-time pad?

If you hand wrote diary entries in an encrypted scheme, could police compel you to decrypt it?
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