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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

#71

Post by supergirl »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #34

One potential option: 1. Install a hardware keylogger (software keylogger wouldn't work) in the laptop. 2. Release the defendant. 3. Get a warrant for the arrest of the defendant for CP-related crime. 4. Decrypt the laptop with the password recovered from the keylogger. All of this depends on the suspect using the laptop again, but I'm guessing they'd want to recover the contents on the laptop.

lol why not just call him and say "hello, this is Steve Jobs from Apple, you have won $100M for being a loyal Apple user. All you need to do to get the prize is unlock your Mac to prove it is yours"

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

#72

Post by maaaats »

poizan42 wrote: post #69
maaaats wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't unhash, so you could never retrieve the original file again.

What do you mean? You obviously store the encrypted file together with the encrypted hash.

Then I guess me and the downvoters thought you meant hashing the files for encryption :)

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

#73

Post by ameliaquining »

lsaferite wrote: post #58

> The suspect appealed the indefinite prison sentence twice, but both appeals failed. His lawyers tried to argue that holding him breaches his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself, but appeal judges did not see it that way. Judges pointed out that the Fifth Amendment only applies to witnesses and that the prosecutors didn't call him as a witness but only made a request for him to unlock his device, hence…

They don't know his password. They're claiming that they're not asking him to tell them what the password is, only to enter it into the computer, and that this makes it not a Fifth Amendment violation.

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

#74

Post by jo909 »

Clubber wrote: post #67
jo909 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My analogy would be that 1. There is an unbreakable safe 2. The judge believes he has the key to the unbreakable safe 3. They know there is evidence inside the safe 4. They ask him to unlock the safe 5. He refuses to do so, so they try to force him by jailing him They do not ask him to testify about the safes contents or even to hand over the key, just to "insert and turn the key". And their argument is that he can n…

I think a more apt analogy is a cyphered letter. Instead of anything physical like turning a key, the judge is compelling him to decipher the letter.

This is a reasonable analogy too, but that does not help (me at least) to understand the position of the judge and prosecution.

Deciphering the letter would mean he writes down the cleartext version, or reads it out aloud or something like that, which could much more obviously be argued as "being witness against himself". Their position is that this is exactly NOT what they are trying to force him to do, so the fifth does not apply.

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

#75

Post by gonmf »

Pharylon wrote: post #64
JohnBooty wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm uncomfortable with the banning of certain kinds of content. The root problem here is child abuse. Anybody abusing children, or financially supporting the abuse of children, is doing a seriously bad thing and this is what should be illegal. I'm highly skeptical that images on a hard drive can cause the abuse of children. That's the same kind of logic people used back in the 1970s to argue that playing D&D an…

But children were abused to create these photos.

I agree that child pornography should not be illegal to possess, only to make or profit from the distribution.

My theory goes: if you're not a pedophile, I don't think stumbling upon child porn will make you one, just like watching violent movies won't make you a violent person. If you are a pedophile already then seeing child porn may be a way out of actually harming children, just like watching gore movies be a way out for some sexual fetish with corpses.

We should be going after abusers (obviously) and people who actually profit from distribution, which add an incentive for child abuse even for people who are not pedophiles, just desperate for money.

Having pictures on your computer without an intent that could cause harm should not be illegal.

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

#76

Post by dTal »

lsaferite wrote: post #58

> The suspect appealed the indefinite prison sentence twice, but both appeals failed. His lawyers tried to argue that holding him breaches his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself, but appeal judges did not see it that way. Judges pointed out that the Fifth Amendment only applies to witnesses and that the prosecutors didn't call him as a witness but only made a request for him to unlock his device, hence…

I think you misread; the government doesn't know the password. Nor are they interested in the password, per se; they are interested in the contents of the suspect's hard drive. Therefore, rather than ask for the password itself, which is information contained in his head and therefore arguably "testimony", they are merely compelling him to perform an "action" in decrypting the drive; he is free to keep the secret of the password itself.

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

#77

Post by stinkytaco »

cabaalis wrote: post #46
geofft wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The fact remains that the government has not brought charges," Donoghue said in a telephone interview. "Our client has now been in custody for almost 18 months based on his assertion of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination." To be clear (and I am pretty sure the public defender knows this, but is just phrasing it like this for public perception), the prosecution's position is that the Fif…

So much for that whole constitution thing anyway.. They can just create some "act" that overrides it! And nobody will complain because the person affected is the bad guy, until they come for them.

But they are not asking him to testify, admit guilt, or anything like that. They aren't even asking him to tell them the password, just to enter the password to decrypt. This is more like expecting access to your house when a search warrant is provided.

EDIT: To be clear, it's not that I feel he should necessarily be compelled, but rather that a fifth amendment defense is weak in this case, since it's not a testimony at all, but rather revealing already existing material (as opposed to compelling the defendant to write a confession).

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

#78

Post by Clubber »

jo909 wrote: post #74
Clubber wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a more apt analogy is a cyphered letter. Instead of anything physical like turning a key, the judge is compelling him to decipher the letter.

This is a reasonable analogy too, but that does not help (me at least) to understand the position of the judge and prosecution. Deciphering the letter would mean he writes down the cleartext version, or reads it out aloud or something like that, which could much more obviously be argued as "being witness against himself". Their position is that this is exactly NOT what they are trying to force him to do, so the fifth…

I agree. When we think of it as a cyphered letter, it is more clear to me that the government is compelling him to incriminate himself. So instead of collecting evidence, they are forcing him to provide evidence, which to me is a clear 5th amendment violation.

When we use the safe analogy, well safes are easy to open, no big deal. The government opens them all the time. Why is that such a huge leap? Using the incorrect analogy muddies the real issue here IMO.

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

#79

Post by dTal »

Pharylon wrote: post #64
JohnBooty wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm uncomfortable with the banning of certain kinds of content. The root problem here is child abuse. Anybody abusing children, or financially supporting the abuse of children, is doing a seriously bad thing and this is what should be illegal. I'm highly skeptical that images on a hard drive can cause the abuse of children. That's the same kind of logic people used back in the 1970s to argue that playing D&D an…

But children were abused to create these photos.

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

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

#80

Post by JCharante »

Pharylon wrote: post #64
JohnBooty wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm uncomfortable with the banning of certain kinds of content. The root problem here is child abuse. Anybody abusing children, or financially supporting the abuse of children, is doing a seriously bad thing and this is what should be illegal. I'm highly skeptical that images on a hard drive can cause the abuse of children. That's the same kind of logic people used back in the 1970s to argue that playing D&D an…

But children were abused to create these photos.

Just like airplanes, the first few planes costs the most due to R&D and then the rest are just for materials + labor. The harm has already been done, and I doubt the guy has the originals.

If he's financially supporting the abusers by purchasing the pictures, then they should be prosecuted if there's proof, but is there really any harm done if the number of copies of a picture goes from 10,000 to 10,001?

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