8 ms·

Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password

57 points by kgermino 16y ago

templaedhel 16y ago
>> originally arrested for another alleged offence last May. It would be interesting to know the nature of this crime. Was it technology related, or was the computer ceased for less direct relationship with the crime?
moxiemk1 16y ago
I don't know if a law compelling you to reveal encryption keys to the government/police/courts is valid in the UK. I do, however, know that such a law is morally reprehensible. Quite frankly, it is in the interest of the people to ensure encryption tools are entirely useable by criminals, gangsters, and terrorists, because that ensures they are entirely useable by lawful citizens as well. Unlike guns (something possible to "defend liberty" as well as commit crime with), encryption has no victims, has no negative consequences. It can hide negative things, but it merely provides automation for knowing something you refuse to tell. Edit: spelling
- citricsquid 16y ago
  Let's say I have a hard drive full of illegal material, the police suspect it and have enough evidence to obtain a warrant, should I not then be obligated to show the contents of the hard drive? Much like a warrant for a home or business premises, why should it not be enforceable for digital things too?
  - lutorm 16y ago
    But if you've written notes in your notebook that are comprehensible only to you, should you be compelled to explain to the authorities what they mean?
    - oiuhjygtfghjnmk 16y ago
      That was one of the jokes with the original wording. To cover encrypted, as well as enciphered, text it said something like "any clear text that has a hidden meaning". Which immediately made most of literature and theology illegal. You couldn't posses a poem or a bible unless you could explain to the police any hidden symbolism! Pictures of the police kicking down doors and shouting "you're nicked - now explain what the poet really meant by a host of yellow daffodils"
    - patio11 16y ago
      This is talking about the Color of Bits, to quote a famous article on the subject of computer programmers discussing law about computers. http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php Computer programmers think, aha, I can apply an arbitrary algorithmic translation to input A and get output B, and applying the law to B would be absurd, so therefore applying the law to A is also absurd. What they fail to realize is that bits have color -- a type of metadata that law algorithms can see and operate on which your computer algorithms are ignorant of. You think that encrypted contents of a computer harddrive is a logically equivalent operation to writing things in a form only comprehensible to oneself. This is only true if you're Colorblind.
      - mindslight 16y ago
        > You think that encrypted contents of a computer harddrive is a logically equivalent operation to writing things in a form only comprehensible to oneself. This entirely depends on whether you view your computer as an extension of your personal consciousness or as being an external service that you're interacting with. I'd rather a society where computers act as individuals' agents, rather than people being at the mercy of the computers.
      - ovi256 16y ago
        This color is what normal people call intention. Big file that is storing your n-th computed prime : innocuous. Big file that is storing pirated movie, even if called "n-th prime" : not OK.
  - gst 16y ago
    "Much like a warrant for a home or business premises, why should it not be enforceable for digital things too?" In most (democratic) countries you do not have to cooperate with the police if they have a warrant. So they are allowed to search your house, they are allowed to break your lock/door, but you are not obligated to give them the key to your house. It's already the same with digital things: The police can get a warrant and is then allowed to try to crack my password. But I'm not obligated to give them the key.
    - aplusbi 16y ago
      I'm not so sure that's true. I'm pretty sure that not allowing the police to search your house (given that they have a search warrant) is at the very least considered obstruction of justice (in the US). The difference is in the consequences of refusal. For a home search, it's usually in your best interest to open the door because it's really easy for the police to break it down. For an encrypted hard drive, it's nearly impossible to retrieve the data if you refuse to decrypt it.
  - oiuhjygtfghjnmk 16y ago
    Because it's more like the police being given a warrant for you to tell them everything you know. In most countries the police don't get a search warrant for your head - except where you are wearing an orange jumpsuit and having water poured down your throat.
    - btilly 16y ago
      having water poured down your throat. If you're referring to waterboarding, the water goes in your nose and sinuses, not your throat. And the amount of water used is very small. The aim is not to drown the person. It is to trigger the drowning reflex. Which happens very fast when you are unable to move. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58 for a demonstration of how exactly it is done and what it looks like.
      - oiuhjygtfghjnmk 16y ago
        In that case then my point about the difference between searching your property and searching your mind is totally refuted.
- ax0n 16y ago
  It is valid, and it is morally reprehensible. In the US, the Fifth Amendment protects us from such travesties.
  - oiuhjygtfghjnmk 16y ago
    Assuming your congressman visits you while you are being secretly held in a Syrian prison
  - gunzler 16y ago
    Has there been a case where the Fifth Amendment protected someone from disclosing a password? I'm not sure that giving up your password is analogous to being forced to testify against yourself. Edit: Indeed there has been a case, and so far the Fifth Amendment is holding strong: http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2010/04/passwords-and-5th-amendment-privilege.html http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2010/04/passwords-and-5th-ame...
    - praptak 16y ago
      "I'm not sure that giving up your password is analogous to being forced to testify against yourself." This one is tricky. It depends on ones beliefs about the true reasons for the anti-self-incrimination laws. If you believe (as I do) that it is a fundamental right to remain silent whenever it could make your situation worse, then it is indeed analogous. An opposing view is that not being forced to testify against oneself comes from other, more basic reasons. One of the "higher-order" reasons against forced self-incrimination might be that punishment for refusing self-incrimination gives incentive to false self-accusation. This one does not apply to forced revealing of passwords (you cannot falsely self-accuse in this case.)
  - aplusbi 16y ago
    Not necessarily. For example, let's say I have a safe, and I've hidden the key. The police get a warrant to search my safe. I am then legally obligated to allow them to search my safe, which means that I am legally obligated to reveal the location of the key. In the case of the safe, if I refuse they'll just break it open. Strong encryption is not so easily broken so it may not be in my best interest to cooperate (whereas with the safe, it probably is). Personally I think encryption passwords should be protected by the 5th amendment, but I understand the logic in saying it's not.
- smokeyj 16y ago
  "It can hide negative things, but it merely provides automation for knowing something you refuse to tell." Encryption doesn't hide negative things, people hide negative things. Almost like guns don't kill people, people do.
  - eru 16y ago
    Bullets do.
    - forensic 16y ago
      Loss of blood does.
jws 16y ago
✓ Old story (October 6th). ✓ Original article omits context. ✓ US Constitution does not cover the British. ✓ Already covered. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 No discussion required.
- jws 16y ago
  Downvotes, what on earth for? Is it the checkmarks? Edit: not meaning to complain, I was trying to sort out if it was the Unicode, the tone, the list format, or the "no need to discuss" which is probably a bit rude. I was hoping to make a quickly read mark that would let people know HN had already been over this ground and there was nothing new in the article, but I failed miserably.
  - robg 16y ago
    It's worse to complain. Just point to the original thread and everyone will be happy.
- talbina 16y ago
  Word War II: ✓ Old story (September 1, 1939). ✓ Thousands of articles likely omitting full context. ✓ US Constitution does not cover the British. ✓ Already covered. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1507526 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1507526 No discussion required.
  - eru 16y ago
    I agree without irony.
- marze 16y ago
  It is an ongoing story, the man is still imprisoned. If he had been released and nothing further had happened, maybe you could say "No discussion required".
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
gstar 16y ago
If Moore's Law keeps working, this is a ticking time bomb for him. If the police stay interested and crack his crypto, he'll do more time for whatever he's concealed on his computer (if anything).
- ax0n 16y ago
  As MC Frontalot raps: "You can't hide secrets from the future with math."
- sp4rki 16y ago
  Who knows what he does have in that hard drive. Maybe 4 months in prison is significantly better to what might happen if they do get to his data. Hell 4 months in jail because he refused to give a password sounds a lot better than a sexual offender conviction for 4 years. In any case, if I was him I wouldn't worry about them decrypting the data in my lifetime. Do you know how many millions of years would it take to decrypt a 50 random char pass phrase decent encryption. Lots of those. So unless there is a breakthrough on computing power several magnitudes bigger than what we have experienced and the money to dedicate millions of computers to the cause, or someone finds a loophole in the encryption algorithm (highly unlikely if using any type of military grade encryption), his data won't be decrypted.
  - proexploit 16y ago
    And yet, I'm surprised by technological advancement every day. If you'd asked me several years ago if I thought we'd have artificial limbs controlled by thoughts, I'd have said it was far far away. It's a race between the statute of limitations and encryption/computing technology. (I do agree it seems unlikely).
- kgo 16y ago
  Back-of-the-envelope math: 50 characters x 8 bits = 400 bits of entropy Even if you account for not having backspaces and linfeeds in the password, he could still easily have 256 bits of entropy. Even with Moore's law, a strong algo like AES-256 is generally considered to be uncrackable, assuming the algorithm and the implementation don't have any flaws.
RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Same story from three weeks ago with many, many comments. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 It's very likely that any comments here will cover the same ground, so if you're interested in might be worth reading the comments there first.
- marze 16y ago
  Three weeks later and this fast food worker is still in jail. I guess in the UK there is no "innocent until proven guilty" and that's why some left to form the USA a while back. This story couldn't occur in the USA.
  - RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
    I'm not going to argue the rights and wrongs of the law, that's a different question. What is certainly true is that he has broken the law regarding providing the password when requested to do so by officers of the law following due process. I repeat that I'm not arguing that the law is right. I'm merely pointing out that he is not innocent of the charges for which he is imprisoned. I'm also pretty sure there are similar or analogous breaches of what one might call natural justice in the USA - I'm sure someone can provide examples.
  - evgen 16y ago
    This story couldn't occur in the USA. Actually it can and does. If a judge compels you to turn over your password as a part of the discovery process and you refuse then you can be served with a contempt warrant and go straight to jail without trial and with limited possibility to appeal.
    - daten 16y ago
      What you have said isn't true or accurate. On December 17, 2006, defendant Sebastien Boucher was arrested on a complaint charging him with transportation of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(1). At the time of his arrest government agents seized from him a laptop computer containing child pornography. The government has now determined that the relevant files are encrypted, password-protected, and inaccessible. The grand jury has subpoenaed Boucher to enter a password to allow access to the files on the computer. Boucher has moved to quash the subpoena on the grounds that it violates his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The district court held that Boucher could invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to comply. http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2007/12/court-upholds-using-fifth-amendment-to.html http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2007/12/court-upholds-using-f... They later worked around it by requiring him to provide the decrypted contents of the drive instead of the password itself since a border agent witnessed some of the files on the drive and he wouldn't be providing new evidence. http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2009/03/5th-amendment-bummer.html http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2009/03/5th-amendment-bummer....
eiji 16y ago
This brings up an idea for TrueCrypt. Why not have two passwords: "foo" and "bar". If I type in "foo", I get my stuff. If I type in "bar", it may selfdestruct the data, but at least it will show a different content. So I create a 100GB container, and reserve 10GB as dummy content, maybe 1 mio. copies of the constitution, which will show up with "bar" as password. So I have a password for the police, and everybody is happy.
- kgo 16y ago
  Already in there... I think they call them shadow volumes...
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  http://www.truecrypt.org/hiddenvolume http://www.truecrypt.org/hiddenvolume
dot-sean 16y ago
I think the point here is that this Teenager thinks that the punishment for not handing over the password can't be as long as the punishment for proving a crime using the evidence stored on his harddrive. I didn't go to the link, but from what I remember, he's accused of possessing child porn. In US, it would be as easy as saying, I've been under so much duress because of all this, that I forgot what the key is and where I kept it. I mean, they can't keep him locked up forever, right.
- Dylanlacey 16y ago
  And that's the magic phrase right there. Along with "Terrorism", "Drugs" and "Rape", "Child Porn" is a bogeyman which many people feel justifies a reduction in rights of a serious nature. Are they right? Well, that's not something I'm going to speculate on, but I believe the judicial system will push as hard as people expect/will permit them too. If the encrypted data was stolen e-books, I doubt they'd be so very harsh. I think it's bollucks, however. I think you should have no punishment for refusing to help convict yourself, regardless of what you may have done.
olegkikin 16y ago
1) Plant an encrypted file on somebody's computer. 2) Call the police. 3) ???
jinushaun 16y ago
Doesn't sound like much of a story. He's jailed for obstruction of justice. His password was requested because he was already arrested and under investigation for something else. The fact that it's a computer password doesn't make this a 21st century "Big Brother" issue.
dotBen 16y ago
A few random thoughts: 1) While it is true to say you are protected under First and Fifth Amendment rights from having to disclose a password here in the US, it doesn't cover border inspections (including airport custom/immigration, where it is considered you are in 'no mans land'). The legal issues of this are currently going through the courts based around the number of people who have had their laptops searched (passwords are requested at the time of the search if necessary). But even if this is resolved, it probably will only apply to US Citizens and not visitors. 2) The chap who has gone to prison for not disclosing his password will go back again for another term if he doesn't disclose the password when he is released. Someone mentioned "maybe it's better to server 90 days in prison for not disclosing the password then to be caught with something more incriminating on his hard drive". That is mitigated by the fact that each request is treated separately so he could be in prison indefinitely if he doesn't comply :/ 3) I've always thought a great defense would be to have your password something like "gofuckyourself" or "obvious". That way if someone asks you for your password you can say "go fuck yourself" or "dude, it's obvious". When you go to court you can say "no, I fully complied. The password was 'gofuckyourself'"
ojilles 16y ago
Some really good PDF on how this works in Europe, the Netherlands and comparisons to US law. (I took me quite some time to find something looking authoritative enough to actually read.) "If Alice has stored her key on a diskette or a smart card, and if Polly is certain of its existence and Alice’s possession of them, she can summon Alice to deliver it – at least, in the United States she can, and also in European countries, according to the European Court’s decision in Saunders. In the Netherlands, article 107 paragraph 1 DCCP, however, prohibits Polly from commanding delivery from suspects." Further on (page 11) goes on to state that a key that doesn't exist in the physical plane might be considered admission, and therefore protected. That is unless it is demonstrated that the suspect used the same key (elsewhere) recently -- in which case it's already "admitted" by the suspect and the s/he needs to deliver the key. http://rechten.uvt.nl/koops/THESIS/cryptocontroversy-ch08.PDF http://rechten.uvt.nl/koops/THESIS/cryptocontroversy-ch08.PD...
ax0n 16y ago
If he was using Truecrypt Deniable Filesystem with FDE (and the proper protocols), we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

57 points by kgermino 16y ago

>> originally arrested for another alleged offence last May. It would be interesting to know the nature of this crime. Was it technology related, or was the computer ceased for less direct relationship with the crime?

moxiemk1 16y ago

I don't know if a law compelling you to reveal encryption keys to the government/police/courts is valid in the UK. I do, however, know that such a law is morally reprehensible. Quite frankly, it is in the interest of the people to ensure encryption tools are entirely useable by criminals, gangsters, and terrorists, because that ensures they are entirely useable by lawful citizens as well. Unlike guns (something possible to "defend liberty" as well as commit crime with), encryption has no victims, has no negative consequences. It can hide negative things, but it merely provides automation for knowing something you refuse to tell. Edit: spelling

citricsquid 16y ago
Let's say I have a hard drive full of illegal material, the police suspect it and have enough evidence to obtain a warrant, should I not then be obligated to show the contents of the hard drive? Much like a warrant for a home or business premises, why should it not be enforceable for digital things too?
- lutorm 16y ago
  But if you've written notes in your notebook that are comprehensible only to you, should you be compelled to explain to the authorities what they mean?
  - oiuhjygtfghjnmk 16y ago
    That was one of the jokes with the original wording. To cover encrypted, as well as enciphered, text it said something like "any clear text that has a hidden meaning". Which immediately made most of literature and theology illegal. You couldn't posses a poem or a bible unless you could explain to the police any hidden symbolism! Pictures of the police kicking down doors and shouting "you're nicked - now explain what the poet really meant by a host of yellow daffodils"
  - patio11 16y ago
    This is talking about the Color of Bits, to quote a famous article on the subject of computer programmers discussing law about computers. http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php Computer programmers think, aha, I can apply an arbitrary algorithmic translation to input A and get output B, and applying the law to B would be absurd, so therefore applying the law to A is also absurd. What they fail to realize is that bits have color -- a type of metadata that law algorithms can see and operate on which your computer algorithms are ignorant of. You think that encrypted contents of a computer harddrive is a logically equivalent operation to writing things in a form only comprehensible to oneself. This is only true if you're Colorblind.
    - mindslight 16y ago
      > You think that encrypted contents of a computer harddrive is a logically equivalent operation to writing things in a form only comprehensible to oneself. This entirely depends on whether you view your computer as an extension of your personal consciousness or as being an external service that you're interacting with. I'd rather a society where computers act as individuals' agents, rather than people being at the mercy of the computers.
    - ovi256 16y ago
      This color is what normal people call intention. Big file that is storing your n-th computed prime : innocuous. Big file that is storing pirated movie, even if called "n-th prime" : not OK.
- gst 16y ago
  "Much like a warrant for a home or business premises, why should it not be enforceable for digital things too?" In most (democratic) countries you do not have to cooperate with the police if they have a warrant. So they are allowed to search your house, they are allowed to break your lock/door, but you are not obligated to give them the key to your house. It's already the same with digital things: The police can get a warrant and is then allowed to try to crack my password. But I'm not obligated to give them the key.
  - aplusbi 16y ago
    I'm not so sure that's true. I'm pretty sure that not allowing the police to search your house (given that they have a search warrant) is at the very least considered obstruction of justice (in the US). The difference is in the consequences of refusal. For a home search, it's usually in your best interest to open the door because it's really easy for the police to break it down. For an encrypted hard drive, it's nearly impossible to retrieve the data if you refuse to decrypt it.
- oiuhjygtfghjnmk 16y ago
  Because it's more like the police being given a warrant for you to tell them everything you know. In most countries the police don't get a search warrant for your head - except where you are wearing an orange jumpsuit and having water poured down your throat.
  - btilly 16y ago
    having water poured down your throat. If you're referring to waterboarding, the water goes in your nose and sinuses, not your throat. And the amount of water used is very small. The aim is not to drown the person. It is to trigger the drowning reflex. Which happens very fast when you are unable to move. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58 for a demonstration of how exactly it is done and what it looks like.
    - oiuhjygtfghjnmk 16y ago
      In that case then my point about the difference between searching your property and searching your mind is totally refuted.
ax0n 16y ago
It is valid, and it is morally reprehensible. In the US, the Fifth Amendment protects us from such travesties.
- oiuhjygtfghjnmk 16y ago
  Assuming your congressman visits you while you are being secretly held in a Syrian prison
- gunzler 16y ago
  Has there been a case where the Fifth Amendment protected someone from disclosing a password? I'm not sure that giving up your password is analogous to being forced to testify against yourself. Edit: Indeed there has been a case, and so far the Fifth Amendment is holding strong: http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2010/04/passwords-and-5th-amendment-privilege.html http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2010/04/passwords-and-5th-ame...
  - praptak 16y ago
    "I'm not sure that giving up your password is analogous to being forced to testify against yourself." This one is tricky. It depends on ones beliefs about the true reasons for the anti-self-incrimination laws. If you believe (as I do) that it is a fundamental right to remain silent whenever it could make your situation worse, then it is indeed analogous. An opposing view is that not being forced to testify against oneself comes from other, more basic reasons. One of the "higher-order" reasons against forced self-incrimination might be that punishment for refusing self-incrimination gives incentive to false self-accusation. This one does not apply to forced revealing of passwords (you cannot falsely self-accuse in this case.)
- aplusbi 16y ago
  Not necessarily. For example, let's say I have a safe, and I've hidden the key. The police get a warrant to search my safe. I am then legally obligated to allow them to search my safe, which means that I am legally obligated to reveal the location of the key. In the case of the safe, if I refuse they'll just break it open. Strong encryption is not so easily broken so it may not be in my best interest to cooperate (whereas with the safe, it probably is). Personally I think encryption passwords should be protected by the 5th amendment, but I understand the logic in saying it's not.
smokeyj 16y ago
"It can hide negative things, but it merely provides automation for knowing something you refuse to tell." Encryption doesn't hide negative things, people hide negative things. Almost like guns don't kill people, people do.
- eru 16y ago
  Bullets do.
  - forensic 16y ago
    Loss of blood does.

jws 16y ago

✓ Old story (October 6th). ✓ Original article omits context. ✓ US Constitution does not cover the British. ✓ Already covered. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 No discussion required.

jws 16y ago
Downvotes, what on earth for? Is it the checkmarks? Edit: not meaning to complain, I was trying to sort out if it was the Unicode, the tone, the list format, or the "no need to discuss" which is probably a bit rude. I was hoping to make a quickly read mark that would let people know HN had already been over this ground and there was nothing new in the article, but I failed miserably.
- robg 16y ago
  It's worse to complain. Just point to the original thread and everyone will be happy.
talbina 16y ago
Word War II: ✓ Old story (September 1, 1939). ✓ Thousands of articles likely omitting full context. ✓ US Constitution does not cover the British. ✓ Already covered. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1507526 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1507526 No discussion required.
- eru 16y ago
  I agree without irony.
marze 16y ago
It is an ongoing story, the man is still imprisoned. If he had been released and nothing further had happened, maybe you could say "No discussion required".
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

gstar 16y ago

If Moore's Law keeps working, this is a ticking time bomb for him. If the police stay interested and crack his crypto, he'll do more time for whatever he's concealed on his computer (if anything).

ax0n 16y ago
As MC Frontalot raps: "You can't hide secrets from the future with math."
sp4rki 16y ago
Who knows what he does have in that hard drive. Maybe 4 months in prison is significantly better to what might happen if they do get to his data. Hell 4 months in jail because he refused to give a password sounds a lot better than a sexual offender conviction for 4 years. In any case, if I was him I wouldn't worry about them decrypting the data in my lifetime. Do you know how many millions of years would it take to decrypt a 50 random char pass phrase decent encryption. Lots of those. So unless there is a breakthrough on computing power several magnitudes bigger than what we have experienced and the money to dedicate millions of computers to the cause, or someone finds a loophole in the encryption algorithm (highly unlikely if using any type of military grade encryption), his data won't be decrypted.
- proexploit 16y ago
  And yet, I'm surprised by technological advancement every day. If you'd asked me several years ago if I thought we'd have artificial limbs controlled by thoughts, I'd have said it was far far away. It's a race between the statute of limitations and encryption/computing technology. (I do agree it seems unlikely).
kgo 16y ago
Back-of-the-envelope math: 50 characters x 8 bits = 400 bits of entropy Even if you account for not having backspaces and linfeeds in the password, he could still easily have 256 bits of entropy. Even with Moore's law, a strong algo like AES-256 is generally considered to be uncrackable, assuming the algorithm and the implementation don't have any flaws.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

Same story from three weeks ago with many, many comments. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760700 It's very likely that any comments here will cover the same ground, so if you're interested in might be worth reading the comments there first.

marze 16y ago
Three weeks later and this fast food worker is still in jail. I guess in the UK there is no "innocent until proven guilty" and that's why some left to form the USA a while back. This story couldn't occur in the USA.
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  I'm not going to argue the rights and wrongs of the law, that's a different question. What is certainly true is that he has broken the law regarding providing the password when requested to do so by officers of the law following due process. I repeat that I'm not arguing that the law is right. I'm merely pointing out that he is not innocent of the charges for which he is imprisoned. I'm also pretty sure there are similar or analogous breaches of what one might call natural justice in the USA - I'm sure someone can provide examples.
- evgen 16y ago
  This story couldn't occur in the USA. Actually it can and does. If a judge compels you to turn over your password as a part of the discovery process and you refuse then you can be served with a contempt warrant and go straight to jail without trial and with limited possibility to appeal.
  - daten 16y ago
    What you have said isn't true or accurate. On December 17, 2006, defendant Sebastien Boucher was arrested on a complaint charging him with transportation of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(1). At the time of his arrest government agents seized from him a laptop computer containing child pornography. The government has now determined that the relevant files are encrypted, password-protected, and inaccessible. The grand jury has subpoenaed Boucher to enter a password to allow access to the files on the computer. Boucher has moved to quash the subpoena on the grounds that it violates his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The district court held that Boucher could invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to comply. http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2007/12/court-upholds-using-fifth-amendment-to.html http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2007/12/court-upholds-using-f... They later worked around it by requiring him to provide the decrypted contents of the drive instead of the password itself since a border agent witnessed some of the files on the drive and he wouldn't be providing new evidence. http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2009/03/5th-amendment-bummer.html http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2009/03/5th-amendment-bummer....

eiji 16y ago

This brings up an idea for TrueCrypt. Why not have two passwords: "foo" and "bar". If I type in "foo", I get my stuff. If I type in "bar", it may selfdestruct the data, but at least it will show a different content. So I create a 100GB container, and reserve 10GB as dummy content, maybe 1 mio. copies of the constitution, which will show up with "bar" as password. So I have a password for the police, and everybody is happy.

kgo 16y ago
Already in there... I think they call them shadow volumes...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
yummyfajitas 16y ago
http://www.truecrypt.org/hiddenvolume http://www.truecrypt.org/hiddenvolume

dot-sean 16y ago

I think the point here is that this Teenager thinks that the punishment for not handing over the password can't be as long as the punishment for proving a crime using the evidence stored on his harddrive. I didn't go to the link, but from what I remember, he's accused of possessing child porn. In US, it would be as easy as saying, I've been under so much duress because of all this, that I forgot what the key is and where I kept it. I mean, they can't keep him locked up forever, right.

Dylanlacey 16y ago
And that's the magic phrase right there. Along with "Terrorism", "Drugs" and "Rape", "Child Porn" is a bogeyman which many people feel justifies a reduction in rights of a serious nature. Are they right? Well, that's not something I'm going to speculate on, but I believe the judicial system will push as hard as people expect/will permit them too. If the encrypted data was stolen e-books, I doubt they'd be so very harsh. I think it's bollucks, however. I think you should have no punishment for refusing to help convict yourself, regardless of what you may have done.

olegkikin 16y ago

1) Plant an encrypted file on somebody's computer. 2) Call the police. 3) ???

jinushaun 16y ago

Doesn't sound like much of a story. He's jailed for obstruction of justice. His password was requested because he was already arrested and under investigation for something else. The fact that it's a computer password doesn't make this a 21st century "Big Brother" issue.

dotBen 16y ago

A few random thoughts: 1) While it is true to say you are protected under First and Fifth Amendment rights from having to disclose a password here in the US, it doesn't cover border inspections (including airport custom/immigration, where it is considered you are in 'no mans land'). The legal issues of this are currently going through the courts based around the number of people who have had their laptops searched (passwords are requested at the time of the search if necessary). But even if this is resolved, it probably will only apply to US Citizens and not visitors. 2) The chap who has gone to prison for not disclosing his password will go back again for another term if he doesn't disclose the password when he is released. Someone mentioned "maybe it's better to server 90 days in prison for not disclosing the password then to be caught with something more incriminating on his hard drive". That is mitigated by the fact that each request is treated separately so he could be in prison indefinitely if he doesn't comply :/ 3) I've always thought a great defense would be to have your password something like "gofuckyourself" or "obvious". That way if someone asks you for your password you can say "go fuck yourself" or "dude, it's obvious". When you go to court you can say "no, I fully complied. The password was 'gofuckyourself'"

ojilles 16y ago

Some really good PDF on how this works in Europe, the Netherlands and comparisons to US law. (I took me quite some time to find something looking authoritative enough to actually read.) "If Alice has stored her key on a diskette or a smart card, and if Polly is certain of its existence and Alice’s possession of them, she can summon Alice to deliver it – at least, in the United States she can, and also in European countries, according to the European Court’s decision in Saunders. In the Netherlands, article 107 paragraph 1 DCCP, however, prohibits Polly from commanding delivery from suspects." Further on (page 11) goes on to state that a key that doesn't exist in the physical plane might be considered admission, and therefore protected. That is unless it is demonstrated that the suspect used the same key (elsewhere) recently -- in which case it's already "admitted" by the suspect and the s/he needs to deliver the key. http://rechten.uvt.nl/koops/THESIS/cryptocontroversy-ch08.PDF http://rechten.uvt.nl/koops/THESIS/cryptocontroversy-ch08.PD...

ax0n 16y ago

If he was using Truecrypt Deniable Filesystem with FDE (and the proper protocols), we wouldn't even be having this conversation.