Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

191–200 of 241 posts

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

#191
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lucky me that I am set to retire (15-20 years from now) about the time this will all kick off on the terrible side of that cycle...

unless ofcourse we get WWIII early due to Russia....

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, I definitely prefer the US's stance of a password being illegal self-discrimination Is that true though? Never heard that before.

btw, I think OP meant incrimination

I understood what he meant, and in fact I even missed the typo until you pointed it out.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, I definitely prefer the US's stance of a password being illegal self-discrimination Is that true though? Never heard that before.

It's somewhat up in the air. The prevailing theory is that the 5th protects against compelling what amounts to testimony... but it's only been tested a few times in court, never by SCOTUS. With mixed results.

Is there a way I can learn more about this? A resource for non-lawyers.

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

#194
Searching a phone is not fundamentally different to searching a home or searching a diary. The key difference is that encryption makes it impossible for the police to force their way in (as they would with a physical lock). We can then choose to either make it illegal not to let the police in, or give basically anybody a ‘one weird trick’ to prevent their phone or computer being searched.

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

#195
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 kind of see the logic in it. They’ve effectively been given a warrant to search your device and you are preventing that lawful search.

It’s like if they were trying to search your house for the dead children but you say you’ve lost the front door key and accidentally put a forcefield around it. Did you really forget to deactivate the forcefield or are you obstructing justice?

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

#196
post #89

It's even worse - under RIP act not only can you be "forced" to reveal any passwords: - the onus is on _you_ to "prove" that you don't know it or have forgotten it - you can be told not to reveal that you've told them the password Anyone administering systems might want to think about this, governments aren't known for good security.

And you can set someone up by just filling their hard drive with random data. Now all you need next is a fake tip off for child porn or something similar. The police will ask to "decrypt" it, but nobody has the key. Absolutely insane, yes the UK is probably already a de facto police state, because of this, the mass surveillance, "smart" CCTV everywhere and numerous other attempts by the government to strip us of our…

Charging under this law requires specific authorisation like most niche powers (eg charging someone for abducting their own child)

So they wouldn’t charge you based off a random anonymous tip off. It would more be, a naked child was found in your house and now they’re charging you for not giving them the tapes with the videos on it.

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

#197
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can set someone up by just filling their hard drive with random data. Now all you need next is a fake tip off for child porn or something similar. The police will ask to "decrypt" it, but nobody has the key. Absolutely insane, yes the UK is probably already a de facto police state, because of this, the mass surveillance, "smart" CCTV everywhere and numerous other attempts by the government to strip us of our…

Charging under this law requires specific authorisation like most niche powers (eg charging someone for abducting their own child) So they wouldn’t charge you based off a random anonymous tip off. It would more be, a naked child was found in your house and now they’re charging you for not giving them the tapes with the videos on it.

What about spoofing IP addresses (bittorrent DHT / IPFS / deliberately faked Tor IP leaks / etc.) or a combined technique, so that the police think illegal material was shared from that IP, and when they come to investigate they find large quantities of random data, which they think is encrypted?

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

#198
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not that "they're turning", it already happened. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton shared political platforms almost precisely. A recent effort to go "back to their roots" (the Corbyn years) ended with a stalinesque purge of such leader. Sadly this leaves free reign for upstart neonazi and neonazi-adjacent parties (BNP, UKIP, Brexit Party/Reform UK...) to rip through traditional Lab heartlands.

> Tony Blair and Bill Clinton shared political platforms almost precisely.

I think this needs justification. There is no evidence that Clinton has ever been in favour of socialized healthcare for example, investment in which was a major tenet of the Blair platform.

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

#199
post #97

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."

The defendant didn't admit to a crime and wouldn't open their house to unreasonable search. how suspicious

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

#200
post #198
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that "they're turning", it already happened. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton shared political platforms almost precisely. A recent effort to go "back to their roots" (the Corbyn years) ended with a stalinesque purge of such leader. Sadly this leaves free reign for upstart neonazi and neonazi-adjacent parties (BNP, UKIP, Brexit Party/Reform UK...) to rip through traditional Lab heartlands.

> Tony Blair and Bill Clinton shared political platforms almost precisely. I think this needs justification. There is no evidence that Clinton has ever been in favour of socialized healthcare for example, investment in which was a major tenet of the Blair platform.

They literally declared to belong to the same area, the "Third Way": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way . They both loved Anthony Giddens' works, believed in triangulation and private-public partnerships as essential, morality-based foreign policy, etc etc.

On healthcare, the difference was due to the starting points in the two countries. What eventually turned into "Obamacare" was a push started under Clinton to address the obvious shortcomings of insurance-based healthcare in the US, providing an approximation of European universal-healthcare principles that could actually be applicable to the US context. Hillary Clinton was a massive supporter of that effort, effectively the link between the two Democratic presidencies. It just so happened that, because of the specific peculiarities of the US system (i.e. massive lobbying and astroturfing from insurance and healthcare giants), the actual law eventually morphed into what Obama enacted.

Post reply on HN