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Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

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Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#241

Post by Veratyr »

Powerofmene wrote: post #224
Veratyr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "forgone conclusion" argument makes no sense to me. If there's enough evidence that the conclusion is "forgone", what is there to gain by decrypting the contents?

The forgone conclusion is that evidence likely exists on the drives and as such the judge issued the Writ pursuant to the All Writs Act. But to prosecute someone in a court of law it takes evidence, admissible evidence, and conclusions that it likely sits on an external hard drive is not in and of itself evidence of pornographic images of children.

Doesn't this conflict with the precedent set by, for example, safe combinations?

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#242

Post by Faaak »

newcomcjoe wrote: post #240

I saw this in the article that was posted here on Ars technica and have thought about the issues it brings up. Why should this guy get a free pass on child pornography just because he encrypted his hard drive? Child pornography is terrible! Who cares if the guy encrypted his child pornography. He should be in jail either way. The only reason someone would rot in prison for 2 years is because he knows he's going to ro…

Why is the _consumption_ (not talking about production !) of CP terrible ? If that's what it takes to keep you off the streets..

Honest question

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#243

Post by khedoros1 »

mdekkers wrote: post #136
shaggerty wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says that there are hashes of known child pornography content on the drive.

there are hashes of known child pornography content on the drive On an encrypted drive? Sounds like bullshit to me.

I've been assuming that they saw him connect to a torrent tracker and download files with known hashes, or something.

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#244

Post by theWatcher37 »

ajross wrote: post #232
colejohnson66 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Miranda in your Miranda Rights wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen either

And again, if you want to talk about the constitution I'm all for it. But just don't do that in the context of "you know, maybe this guy is innocent". That's silly and counterproductive. The practical thing happening here is that the prosecution almost certainly could build a case on the evidence they have, but in practice they don't have to because the judge is willing to hold the guy in jail on procedural grounds.…

Then the government should do its freaking job and host a trial. This isn't a game.

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#246

Post by Powerofmene »

Veratyr wrote: post #241
Powerofmene wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The forgone conclusion is that evidence likely exists on the drives and as such the judge issued the Writ pursuant to the All Writs Act. But to prosecute someone in a court of law it takes evidence, admissible evidence, and conclusions that it likely sits on an external hard drive is not in and of itself evidence of pornographic images of children.

Doesn't this conflict with the precedent set by, for example, safe combinations?

If I remember correctly it does but I cannot recall what the courts reasoning For deviating from the safe combination decision.

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#248

Post by gtirloni »

joshribakoff wrote: post #211
gtirloni wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These issues are often around catching criminals but there's always the issue that they will be abused for something else and we (the common folks) are all at risk. That's plausible. Honest question: It's hard to do risk assessment at my level of ignorance so where can I find major cases where common people have been screwed by the overarching tentacles of govt surveillance in the developed world? Any noteworthy case…

Most "developed" governments recognize some right to privacy. Counter examples that come to mind would be censorship by governments who surveil internet traffic & lock up "rebels", or governments that go into people's houses without warrants, checking to see if you're harboring people of a "banned" sect. I worked with a developer who had just moved to the USA from Cuba, he told me stories about how they would go arou…

My question was not loaded. I'm not assuming anything (well, except that by having broad surveillance rights the govt can do harm to regular people).

I'm looking for documented cases where common people have been harmed so I can feel more impacted by it (and I have better examples when talking about these subjects with friends and family).

It's not fair to unload these research needs on HN so I'll do more googling to find a catalogue of cases I can refer to.

Again, I'm not dismissing any issues. I'm 100% acknowledging them and hoping to increase my own level of alertness based on concrete facts that I can relate to (or are closer to my reality vs. basing my rights on the rights of pedophiles and terrorists being impacted). I hope that clarifies my perspective.

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#249

Post by dTal »

Tech-Noir wrote: post #198
dTal wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 9 year old girl was napalmed to create this photo. Should it be illegal to possess? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d4/TrangBang.jpg

Really? The reason she was napalmed was to create that photo? You're sticking with that?

I'll allow that I exploited an ambiguity in the wording to make a point. The girl was not napalmed in order to create the photo, but existence of the photo did depend on her being napalmed. Either is a valid interpretation of the wording.

I don't think it invalidates the point, though. I'm pretty sure that provenance is irrelevant to child pornography possession - underage selfies and telephoto nude beach shots count even though no abuse took place. Conversely, photos of terrible things being done to children are legal provided they are not of a sexual nature. It seems to me that the true crime being punished is a thought crime: the crime of sexual arousal from inappropriate things.

Thought experiment: consider if you found a Polaroid of a child being abused in the street. What would the state response be, assuming it found out, if you:

  a) left it there
  b) picked it up and put it in the bin
  c) took it home, intending to report it to the police, but forgetting about it
  d) took it home, intending to masturbate over it, but forgetting about it
  e) as d, but following through

Re: Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

#250

Post by Powerofmene »

jsjohnst wrote: post #200
Powerofmene wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that does not mean he downloaded them if someone else has access to his computer nor does that mean they are still there. I read the article to mean that the police have proof that hashes of known child pornography were downloaded and are not on the computer so they are assuming that they were downloaded to the external hard drive. How can they see what files are sitting on a password protected encrypted drive? W…

Read this link: https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/rawlsopin... Specifically the top paragraph on page 7. If you can get through that paragraph and still give him the benefit of the doubt, then you are more open minded than I am.

Then the police need to work with the prosecutor and the prosecutor needs to bring charges and get a trial underway.

Prisons are overcrowded enough and it costs a pretty penny to house prisoners without us starting to house people indefinitely who have not been charged with a crime.

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