What the fuck. Nobody gets my passwords. I’m not unlocking shit for anyone. Looks like UK is on the hard avoid list.
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/22/cbp-border-searches-jour...
Who says they're from the US?
French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
31–40 of 241 posts
Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#32The 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 password being illegal self-discrimination, but I don't think it's unreasonable to have built legal precedent around that other view.
Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#33This is why passcodes are better than biometric auth. It’s easy for an officer to hold the phone up to your face.
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
Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#34Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#35The 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…
> Now, I definitely prefer the US's stance of a password being illegal self-discrimination
Is that true though? Never heard that before.
Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#36Totally totally insane. A revolution is coming, and it will be bloody.
Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#37What happens when people stop caring about being arrested? Prison is just a room after all.
Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#38This is why passcodes are better than biometric auth. It’s easy for an officer to hold the phone up to your face.
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.
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.
Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#39The 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?
> How is this different than refusing to tell where you've buried the bodies?
It would be more equivalent to refusing to let the police search one room in your house after they’ve established a reason to believe that you might be hiding bodies in it.
> Why should the police be permitted to assume you're guilty and in possession of vital information under certain circumstances?
They haven’t assumed guilt of the suspected crimes. However, if they have sufficient reason to believe that evidence of a crime exists in a certain location then they can compel someone to provide access to it. It’s similar to how the police can search your private property if they have sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed
That said, I don’t know the standard of evidence necessary in the UK to get this far.
Re: French publisher arrested in London for refusal to tell police his passcodes
#40The 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?
They're probably treating it the same as refusing to open a safe given a valid warrant; the rights against self-incrimination do not extend to protecting the contents of your safe, drawers, private letters, etc, and also to the contents of your smartphone.
See, but if you refused to open a safe for the cops, their fallback would be to drill it, not incarcerate you for failure to disclose the combination. Under that precedence, the cops have the right to try and crack my phone's encryption, but not to compel me to give them my passwords.