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If you deliberately do anything which will cause evidence to be placed beyond the reach of law enforcement then you are likely to be hit with charges. You can

If you deliberately do anything which will cause evidence to be placed beyond the reach of law enforcement then you are likely to be hit with charges. You can quibble over technical details, but at some point a judge will be asked if it fits the charge, and make a layman decision, not a programmer's one.

mrsteveman1 8y ago
Then again, if a browser cookie is the only thing providing access to "evidence" on a particular machine, then it wasn't actually on that machine to begin with. That's far from a mere technical detail, as it also means the person lacked any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence. I recall there are some cases that centered on whether someone was aware of the existence of a browser cache and knew how to clear it. In that case the "evidence" really is on the local machine because that's what the cache is.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >That's far from a mere technical detail, as it also means the person lacked any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence. That would still be irrelevant if their intention for getting themselves to "lack any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence" is deemed by a judge to be malicious.
  - benchaney 8y ago
    You have badly misunderstood the point the GP was making. The person in question was always in a state of “lack[ing] any physical control of or, proximity to, the evidence”. They had no control of this in any way. This, by the way is why the technical issues are important, relying solely on the lay person interpretation is dubious. A court that issued ruling on issues it doesn’t understand is inherently unjust.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >The person in question was always in a state of “lack[ing] any physical control of or, proximity to, the evidence”. They had no control of this in any way. Well, if they arranged so they are always, from the start, in that position, with the intent to leverage that "lack of control" to not produce evidence (i.e. with doing some law breaking in mind), that could still be considering incriminating... And that, in the end, is a lay person's judgement to make...
- turc1656 8y ago
  I think the point you are missing here is that the person would be purposely altering the state of the device after it entered police custody, with the explicit intention of restricting access to the information that the device either 1) had directly, 2) had stored in cache, or 3) had access to through cookies, logins, etc. If you are doing something to alter the device itself in any way (i.e. the bits anywhere on the device), it's a pretty straightforward path to the clink. What isn't clear, though, is if the device was, for example, an "approved" device on some site/services and you logged into your accounts and removed access. Let's say for the sake of argument you had an encrypted chat app on your phone and that service has both web and mobile access. Your phone and laptop are approved devices. The police confiscate your phone. As soon as they release you, you log into your account from your laptop and remove the phone's access. The phone itself hasn't been changed. I wonder what would happen there.
steve_taylor 8y ago
It would be difficult to determine that a web app has been remotely logged out vs. an entire phone being wiped.
Nursie 8y ago
This point seems to get lost so often in these discussions - intent and a judge are involved here.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  The described intent is definitely to get in the way, but it's not to destroy anything. "Intent and a judge are involved" is not a magic answer.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    No, but it's a binding answer, and when you get before a judge you don't want to be caught splitting hairs.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Figuring out if it's a crime, and which crime, is usually not splitting hairs. Getting caught is less than half of the equation.
iamnothere 8y ago
Wouldn't this mean that measures to protect your data from other adversaries (criminals or competitors) would be illegal as well? Unless, of course, "intent" is determined solely by the fact that I am or am not a criminal. But in an age of overcriminalization, where you can indict a ham sandwich if you need to, anyone could be considered a criminal if the government takes enough of an interest in your activities. This would mean that everyone who takes reasonable security precautions is at risk of stacked charges for "destruction of evidence"! Not a great situation to be in for journalists and dissidents.
- AndrewDucker 8y ago
  The question is - have you, realising that you are under police investigation, attempted to destroy information which that investigation is interested in. Not "Do you have a lock on your phone" or even "Do you have a lock on your phone which causes it to self-wipe after 5 incorrect password attempts" but "Did you, when you realised the police were on to you, deliberately wipe some data to stop you getting into trouble."
  - iamnothere 8y ago
    The implication seemed to be headed in another direction. What you've just outlined is perfectly reasonable.
PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
>at some point a judge will be asked if it fits the charge, and make a layman decision, not a programmer's one. There seems to be a doubles standard in regards to the use of technical vs layman decisions. I've seen legal cases where the judge is making rulings on extremely technical points of law which are far outside the layman's understanding, but these only seem to happen when there are really expensive lawyers pushing for it. Have a public defender? Layman decisions, especially if they aren't in the defendants favor. I wonder if anyone would have the ability to formalize this into actual research to see if there is any truth behind my intuition.

mrsteveman1 8y ago

Then again, if a browser cookie is the only thing providing access to "evidence" on a particular machine, then it wasn't actually on that machine to begin with. That's far from a mere technical detail, as it also means the person lacked any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence. I recall there are some cases that centered on whether someone was aware of the existence of a browser cache and knew how to clear it. In that case the "evidence" really is on the local machine because that's what the cache is.

coldtea 8y ago
>That's far from a mere technical detail, as it also means the person lacked any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence. That would still be irrelevant if their intention for getting themselves to "lack any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence" is deemed by a judge to be malicious.
- benchaney 8y ago
  You have badly misunderstood the point the GP was making. The person in question was always in a state of “lack[ing] any physical control of or, proximity to, the evidence”. They had no control of this in any way. This, by the way is why the technical issues are important, relying solely on the lay person interpretation is dubious. A court that issued ruling on issues it doesn’t understand is inherently unjust.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >The person in question was always in a state of “lack[ing] any physical control of or, proximity to, the evidence”. They had no control of this in any way. Well, if they arranged so they are always, from the start, in that position, with the intent to leverage that "lack of control" to not produce evidence (i.e. with doing some law breaking in mind), that could still be considering incriminating... And that, in the end, is a lay person's judgement to make...
turc1656 8y ago
I think the point you are missing here is that the person would be purposely altering the state of the device after it entered police custody, with the explicit intention of restricting access to the information that the device either 1) had directly, 2) had stored in cache, or 3) had access to through cookies, logins, etc. If you are doing something to alter the device itself in any way (i.e. the bits anywhere on the device), it's a pretty straightforward path to the clink. What isn't clear, though, is if the device was, for example, an "approved" device on some site/services and you logged into your accounts and removed access. Let's say for the sake of argument you had an encrypted chat app on your phone and that service has both web and mobile access. Your phone and laptop are approved devices. The police confiscate your phone. As soon as they release you, you log into your account from your laptop and remove the phone's access. The phone itself hasn't been changed. I wonder what would happen there.

steve_taylor 8y ago

It would be difficult to determine that a web app has been remotely logged out vs. an entire phone being wiped.

Nursie 8y ago

This point seems to get lost so often in these discussions - intent and a judge are involved here.

Dylan16807 8y ago
The described intent is definitely to get in the way, but it's not to destroy anything. "Intent and a judge are involved" is not a magic answer.
- coldtea 8y ago
  No, but it's a binding answer, and when you get before a judge you don't want to be caught splitting hairs.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    Figuring out if it's a crime, and which crime, is usually not splitting hairs. Getting caught is less than half of the equation.

iamnothere 8y ago

Wouldn't this mean that measures to protect your data from other adversaries (criminals or competitors) would be illegal as well? Unless, of course, "intent" is determined solely by the fact that I am or am not a criminal. But in an age of overcriminalization, where you can indict a ham sandwich if you need to, anyone could be considered a criminal if the government takes enough of an interest in your activities. This would mean that everyone who takes reasonable security precautions is at risk of stacked charges for "destruction of evidence"! Not a great situation to be in for journalists and dissidents.

AndrewDucker 8y ago
The question is - have you, realising that you are under police investigation, attempted to destroy information which that investigation is interested in. Not "Do you have a lock on your phone" or even "Do you have a lock on your phone which causes it to self-wipe after 5 incorrect password attempts" but "Did you, when you realised the police were on to you, deliberately wipe some data to stop you getting into trouble."
- iamnothere 8y ago
  The implication seemed to be headed in another direction. What you've just outlined is perfectly reasonable.

PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago

>at some point a judge will be asked if it fits the charge, and make a layman decision, not a programmer's one. There seems to be a doubles standard in regards to the use of technical vs layman decisions. I've seen legal cases where the judge is making rulings on extremely technical points of law which are far outside the layman's understanding, but these only seem to happen when there are really expensive lawyers pushing for it. Have a public defender? Layman decisions, especially if they aren't in the defendants favor. I wonder if anyone would have the ability to formalize this into actual research to see if there is any truth behind my intuition.