Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

arstechnica.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 224 posts

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#211

Post by zaroth »

zaroth wrote: post #107
hiq wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons are stated in the article (the suspect never mistyped his password, and always remembered it), and addressed by the commentators you criticize (under pressure and after seven months without typing it, it is not impossible that you forget a possibly complicated password). Even if you think that chances are high that the guy both is guilty of some crime and remembers the password, that still leaves the "wha…

> The suspect never mistyped his password, and always remembered it They even went so far as to say he always got it right on the first try. I found that very interesting... How would they possibly know that? If they had a key logger obviously they would already know the password. Does FileVault store some indication of failed login count? That isn't reset after a valid login?

Actually, does this mean that Apple could be logging successful / unsuccessful decryption counts for FireVault volumes? Is there some sort of lock-out feature they are running?

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#212

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

belorn wrote: post #186
Spooky23 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? He's in possession of data deemed contraband, but apparently not linked to distribution. The police need to demonstrate possession and can do so when their search is complete. The police did an investigation, obtained a warrant to search for the contraband and seized the hard drive. The defendant was ordered by the judge to decrypt the drive per the warrant, and refused to follow the order. He's in contempt of c…

Should this work in the same way when other "data" is in the possession of the accused? Say, a murder suspect is considered by the judge as knowing the location of the victims body, and by refusing to tell the court, the suspect is detained as being in contempt of court.

The murder suspect has the right to refuse to testify against himself. The interesting part here is that this poor fella doesn't face any charges right now, so he has no such right. This is what makes it possible for the judge to jail him.

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#213

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

curun1r wrote: post #165
Spooky23 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? He's in possession of data deemed contraband, but apparently not linked to distribution. The police need to demonstrate possession and can do so when their search is complete. The police did an investigation, obtained a warrant to search for the contraband and seized the hard drive. The defendant was ordered by the judge to decrypt the drive per the warrant, and refused to follow the order. He's in contempt of c…

Because we have the 5th amendment. nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself As I understand it, Miranda established that the 5th amendment applies to all interactions with law enforcement, not just answering questions in court. So they can search the hard drive all they want, but the constitution protects us from being required to disclose what's in our heads which, in this case, sh…

There's no criminal case right now, so the fifth amendment doesn't apply.

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#215

Post by dkersten »

SixSigma wrote: post #148
dkersten wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot my previous master password a month or two after I changed it. But the point is, after many months (eg 7) plus stress... many people would. Not everyone, but enough people that I don't think you can blanket say "you surely know it, hand it over" .

But not while you were in prison for not revealing it. Surely you'd be lying there at night and passwords would be all you could think about! I keep going over where I went wrong in the exams I did a month ago and I've already had the results with all at 90%+ (yeah r/iamverysmart, I know)

I think people are different.

There was one rather important password that I hadn't used in a few months before I needed it. I tried for a week to remember before eventually resetting it.

Of course, if I were arrested tomorrow, I'd be able to remember my master password. I'd probably still remember it a month from now too, but a few months later not so much.

So the question is: if he was lying at first, but now no longer is, what does that mean for him, legally?

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#216

Post by duncan_bayne »

cpncrunch wrote: post #210
duncan_bayne wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think when you compare the US government to the likes of Russia and China, you'll see that the US is really not "out to get you". Have you any evidence that the US Government has changed their modus operandi? Programs like COINTELPRO weren't public knowledge until some time afterwards, ditto "rendition" of terrorism suspects for overseas torture. Snowden has demonstrated that your Government still engages in wide…

>I'd say the only reason such abuse seem "historical" is that we're unaware of the abuses going on right now. That's my point. The US government may or may not be mildly abusing it's citizens by spying on them illegally, it's hard to know. Compare to Russia or China where it most certainly is vehemently abusing people it disagrees with. Also, I think the rendition was only for non-citizens. The US doesn't really give…

Nope, it was for US citizens as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11...

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#217

Post by vinceguidry »

Retric wrote: post #203
vinceguidry wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, if you want to use it you need to demonstrate harm. That's a false dichotomy. We cannot have perfect knowledge about everything that could possibly help or harm society. We need to retain the ability to act in its absence. > I really don't know, but I also accept I don't know. Not all things should be treated this way, but in the case of kiddie porn, I'd argue that defaulting to the stance that all conduct in t…

I get where you are coming from. I think the sanctity of thought needs to be maintained so you can examine new evidence with minimal bias. However, as something to consider. There is a very long history of things people assume without evidence being wrong. Abstractly, unsupported ideas are random in nature and the number of true ideas are vastly outnumbered by the number of wrong ideas. So, IMO the default assumption…

So what if they turn out to be wrong later? Fighting paedophilia makes the world better now. Unless you are arguing that is not the case.

Look, at some point this is going to boil down to a simple question. Do you really consider sanctity of thought to be more important than the security of the people those thoughts threaten? Because to a very, very real extent, the thoughts themselves threaten. They create threatening atmospheres and markets in cruelty and suffering.

We're not talking about rights here. We can fight paedophilia completely within the current constitutional framework using completely aboveboard laws. We are talking about nothing more than social pressure of making people feel bad about thoughts that they have that are bad. Simple, uncomplicated moral pressure.

Sex with children is wrong and you deserve whatever happens to you if you do it. Can you at least agree with that?

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#218

Post by Retric »

vinceguidry wrote: post #217
Retric wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you are coming from. I think the sanctity of thought needs to be maintained so you can examine new evidence with minimal bias. However, as something to consider. There is a very long history of things people assume without evidence being wrong. Abstractly, unsupported ideas are random in nature and the number of true ideas are vastly outnumbered by the number of wrong ideas. So, IMO the default assumption…

So what if they turn out to be wrong later? Fighting paedophilia makes the world better now. Unless you are arguing that is not the case. Look, at some point this is going to boil down to a simple question. Do you really consider sanctity of thought to be more important than the security of the people those thoughts threaten? Because to a very, very real extent, the thoughts themselves threaten. They create threateni…

> So what if they turn out to be wrong later?

A peasant picks up a rock and due to a local legend decides it prevents tiger attacks. So, they carry it around for the rest of their lives. Not a big deal right?

Well, what if they have their tiger rock, hippo rock, fire rick, snake rock, cancer rock, martian rock, ... Until they are not willing to leave the house without 150 pounds of rocks in a backpack.

Individually each issue may have been tiny. But, each and every one of them are also a drain. Also, they may get eaten because they falsely assume they are safe when in imminent danger. Or in this case you might assume your fighting when in fact your just making things worse.

So, even if the cost is low and it might be true, avoiding wrong ideas is still valuable.

PS: As to actual direct harm, sure shoot em. But, that's really not what I have been talking about.

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#219

Post by curun1r »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #213
curun1r wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we have the 5th amendment. nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself As I understand it, Miranda established that the 5th amendment applies to all interactions with law enforcement, not just answering questions in court. So they can search the hard drive all they want, but the constitution protects us from being required to disclose what's in our heads which, in this case, sh…

There's no criminal case right now, so the fifth amendment doesn't apply.

Miranda vs Arizona established that 5th amendment protections apply outside of a criminal case. That's why police have to read the Miranda warning when arresting someone. He's been arrested and read his Miranda rights and is invoking them.

Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says

#220

Post by dragonwriter »

curun1r wrote: post #219
Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no criminal case right now, so the fifth amendment doesn't apply.

Miranda vs Arizona established that 5th amendment protections apply outside of a criminal case. That's why police have to read the Miranda warning when arresting someone. He's been arrested and read his Miranda rights and is invoking them.

> Miranda vs Arizona established that 5th amendment protections apply outside of a criminal case.

No, Miranda vs. Arizona set standards for how 5th amendment protections apply in a criminal case, and established remedies for violation of those protections in such case.

Post reply on HN