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Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

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Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#151

Post by dsfyu404ed »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #45
belorn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the same logic, they could subpoena the grave that the body is buried in as the existence of such grave is a forgone conclusion (a shovel and dirt found in the car, a hole in the ground must exist) and thus would not be a testimony. The accused in that case is also a witness in that they witnessed the grave where the body rest. If they lead the police to a different hole then analyze of the dirt can prove conte…

There's no pretense that the prosecutor isn't asking for the content. Of course they are. It's just not a Fifth Amendment violation for the government to look at content you've written, even if that content incriminates you.

So if they already have a pretty darn good idea you murdered someone and the government asks you where the body is and you refuse to tell them and they lock you up then that's not a 5th amendment violation?

In the hard drive case and the hypothetical body location case the government is trying to compel speech that directly leads to incriminating evidence. That seems like a solidly 5th amendment issue to me.

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#152

Post by emiliobumachar »

phkahler wrote: post #120
thaumasiotes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rawls argued that producing a password for the hard drives would amount to an admission that he owned the hard drives. But the 3rd Circuit rejected that argument. It held that the government already had ample evidence that Rawls owned the hard drives and knew the passwords required to decrypt them. So ordering Rawls to decrypt the drives wouldn't give the government any information it didn't already have. Of course…

It's more like they can make you open a safe. It's too bad for you if you kept someone's head in that safe.

Encryption is different in that all safes can be opened with physical access and a few days of expert work at most.

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#153

Post by nulbyte »

joering2 wrote: post #69
throwaway17_17 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a semi-counter-point: 1) the argument, made by every criminal defense attorney in trial ever, that a jury can not infer anything from a defendant’s exercise of his/her 5th amendment right to remain silent is basically pointless. Juries, and individual jurors in the vast majority, do not buy it, they don’t accept it as the law in their minds, and they certainly factor it into deliberations; I in no way want the fol…

Politicans who found Mr. Trump not guilty have stated its in part because of lack of evidence otherwise. Everyone welcome to keep downvoting, but I will remain certain in USA you are innocent until proven guilty. You don’t have to prove your innocence. And many cases - even the big ones like Casey Anthony, OJ, Zimmerman, now Weinstein - prove that fifth amandment works.

You are not innocent until proven guilty; you are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. You are guilty, or you are innocent, from the beginning; only, we admit uncertainty in the presence of reasonable doubt, which evidence and argument need erode to prove guilt.

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#154

Post by Nasrudith »

donny2018 wrote: post #100
nwallin wrote: post #92

The idea of being locked up for not handing over a password terrifies me. I was deployed a few years ago and living in the conexes. I was bored and decided to go all out on encrypting everything. I picked a completely random 16 character password (I piped the output from /Dev/urandom through some tr command that only allowed typeable characters through) and committed it to muscle memory. I used this laptop every day…

My understanding is that if there is evidence that you were committing crimes with connection to this encrypted data, there is a problem for you. Otherwise, this is not a problem.

That sounds like a very dangerous assumption. You don't get to decide that you have nothing to hide. They do.

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#155

Post by itchyjunk »

Maybe in this case, it is somehow clear that there is encrypted stuff and the government is also sure who can decrypt it (who owns the key to decrypt it.) But since a variety of Deniable encryption[0] exits, what happens when they think there is something to decrypt when there isn't? Or when they can't prove it but they want to believe there is something there?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#156

Post by Ntrails »

Johnny555 wrote: post #75
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't require you to personally admit to it, but if they know about a notebook where you wrote it they can require you to give up the notebook. (The rule makes more sense if you think about it in terms of financial crimes; it'd be hard to ever prosecute someone for fraud if they didn't have to give up their books.)

but if they know about a notebook where you wrote it they can require you to give up the notebook But if you wrote in a made-up language that only you know, can they force you to translate it?

How would you know the translation was accurate if it was done?

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#157

Post by Hitton »

himinlomax wrote: post #149
chii wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law often uses the "reasonable person" as a standard to measure such responsibilities. So would it make sense for a reasonable person to forget a password they typed in only yesterday (and/or perhaps many times before)?

I once forgot a 4 digit pin code I had used hundreds of time. It was scary, I thought I was going insane. I had to have it reset. (What I think happened is that I inverted two of the digits.)

Exactly same thing happened to me few months ago. Similar thing not that long before that with normal password. I was afraid that my memories are starting to fail me (we have a Alzheimer disease in our family, but I'm still way too young for that). And when I was teen, I kept encrypted text files with passwords, for which I managed to forget password too. I was lucky that I still remembered most of the passwords inside and was able to reset the rest.

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#158

Post by Hitton »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #28
nordsieck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I encrypted the device but don't have the key" isn't a defense to being compelled to decrypt the device? Try to think about it from the court's point of view. The truth could be: A. You legitimately forgot. B. You're lying. I know which one Occam's Razor favors.

I don't. I have users that forget their password 5 minutes after they set it.

Happened to me as well (multiple times). I blame copy pasting instead of repeating the password.

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#159

Post by jessaustin »

favorited wrote: post #66
jessaustin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so great, that Obama "commuted her sentence". Clearly that was a meaningful action that significantly affected something.

He commuted her sentence for a different crime. He didn't give her a pass to commit contempt going forward.

If he hadn't commuted that sentence, how would they be pressuring her to lie about Assange right now? They tortured her for years. There's not much they could have done to escalate from that.

Re: Court rules that people can't be locked up indefinitely for refusing to decrypt

#160

Post by JoeSmithson »

adgasf wrote: post #150
JoeSmithson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. The information you provide (the password) is not admitted as evidence in the trial. It's more like being compelled to act as a confidential informant against yourself. There's no prospect of this being used to bring about a wrongful conviction through coercing a confession.

If the key is not evidence then how can they prove that they got the incriminating files from the encrypted drive?

A forensic scientist would testify that they extracted the files from there.

It is exactly the same as when a confidential source gives up an address (for example) the source never gets into evidence.

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