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The problems seem to be that the person may not know the information and the information may not be easy to verify. Wouldn't that make torture potentially effe

by devit 7y ago

The problems seem to be that the person may not know the information and the information may not be easy to verify. Wouldn't that make torture potentially effective in cases without those issues, such as torturing someone to get them to reveal a password to an encrypted device that you know they use daily?

XorNot 7y ago
Not if they have a deniable secondary volume set up. Or only encrypted a partition (which you can't mathematically prove its actually data and not just empty space). People have been arrested and held because they had Truecrypt installed but never actually used it. Basically if you decrypt the device what are you looking for? What if you don't find it?
tropo 7y ago
Yes, and it is often effective even with those issues. Suppose you know facts A, B, C, and D. You want to know E. You ask about all 5 facts. You can verify 4 out of 5, but you don't reveal that. After getting the 5 answers, you trust fact E if the other facts are verified. If not, torture, but don't reveal how exactly you are sure about lying, and then try again.
- XorNot 7y ago
  If you don't already know E, then how are you going to verify it? How do you even know they know it? Given that they don't want to tell you E in the first place, how many of the hundreds of answers they'll scream at you are you going to be able to follow up on?
  - winstonewert 7y ago
    The point is that you verify A, B, C, and D. If they are telling you the truth about those, they are probably also truthful about E. They could only effectively lie about E if they knew that was the one thing you couldn't verify.
    - XorNot 7y ago
      And if they lie about those? Which they will because your scenario starts with "sufficiently uncooperative that you are going to torture them". What you're actually going to do is here the answer you already know, stop the pain and ask something else, and thus tell the person exactly what to say to make the pain stop - while having no actual ability to know if there answer for E is truthful or if they even know it. Eventually you'll get an answer you like, and that will be the only answer they give because again, it made the pain stop.
      - tropo 7y ago
        You missed the logic here. I'll try again, but it's the third explanation. You need to ponder this. The items A, B, C, and D are all known. (from other sources of information) They are used as an honesty test. To make the pain stop, the only way out is to reveal E and to correctly reveal A, B, C, and D. Lying isn't going to work, because the fact that E is special is not revealed. It isn't reasonable to guess that E is the unknown.
        XorNot 7y ago
        If someone is sufficiently uncooperative that you've (foolishly) decided you're going to torture the information out of them, then the information is pretty important. So important they're probably already willing to die to protect it. That's the stakes here when you're at that point: fear of death is not enough motivation, fear of not dying quickly is. In this situation there's no reason the person isn't going to lie for an extended period of time about A, B, C and D. So why wouldn't they then lie about E? Because you think you're going to have broken them by that time? Gotten them suitably fearful of what you'll do next that they don't also just start lying about E? Are you so sure that after whatever horrors you've inflicted their psyche will be intact enough to even give a coherent answer? Keeping in mind, that sleep deprivation and extended interrogation has been shown - repeatedly - to be enough to make otherwise innocent people confess to brutal crimes they did not commit. EDIT: People keep thinking torture is effective because if I broke your fingers with a hammer, you'd give me your car keys. What's actually happening is I'm breaking your fingers one by one with a hammer, and saying I'll stop if you tell me where your family is so I can go murder them all.
downerending 7y ago
Almost certainly. Even with the plausible deniability measures others mention, if the torturer has no scruples and is willing to sacrifice you, you will give it all up. That this is awful does not make it untrue. If it makes everyone feel better, the tech to simply "read" your secrets out of your brain with no torture whatsoever will likely soon exist (or already does). That said, a lot of torture is performed not to extract information but to instill terror, etc.

by devit 7y ago

XorNot 7y ago

Not if they have a deniable secondary volume set up. Or only encrypted a partition (which you can't mathematically prove its actually data and not just empty space). People have been arrested and held because they had Truecrypt installed but never actually used it. Basically if you decrypt the device what are you looking for? What if you don't find it?

tropo 7y ago

Yes, and it is often effective even with those issues. Suppose you know facts A, B, C, and D. You want to know E. You ask about all 5 facts. You can verify 4 out of 5, but you don't reveal that. After getting the 5 answers, you trust fact E if the other facts are verified. If not, torture, but don't reveal how exactly you are sure about lying, and then try again.

XorNot 7y ago
If you don't already know E, then how are you going to verify it? How do you even know they know it? Given that they don't want to tell you E in the first place, how many of the hundreds of answers they'll scream at you are you going to be able to follow up on?
- winstonewert 7y ago
  The point is that you verify A, B, C, and D. If they are telling you the truth about those, they are probably also truthful about E. They could only effectively lie about E if they knew that was the one thing you couldn't verify.
  - XorNot 7y ago
    And if they lie about those? Which they will because your scenario starts with "sufficiently uncooperative that you are going to torture them". What you're actually going to do is here the answer you already know, stop the pain and ask something else, and thus tell the person exactly what to say to make the pain stop - while having no actual ability to know if there answer for E is truthful or if they even know it. Eventually you'll get an answer you like, and that will be the only answer they give because again, it made the pain stop.
    - tropo 7y ago
      You missed the logic here. I'll try again, but it's the third explanation. You need to ponder this. The items A, B, C, and D are all known. (from other sources of information) They are used as an honesty test. To make the pain stop, the only way out is to reveal E and to correctly reveal A, B, C, and D. Lying isn't going to work, because the fact that E is special is not revealed. It isn't reasonable to guess that E is the unknown.
      - XorNot 7y ago
        If someone is sufficiently uncooperative that you've (foolishly) decided you're going to torture the information out of them, then the information is pretty important. So important they're probably already willing to die to protect it. That's the stakes here when you're at that point: fear of death is not enough motivation, fear of not dying quickly is. In this situation there's no reason the person isn't going to lie for an extended period of time about A, B, C and D. So why wouldn't they then lie about E? Because you think you're going to have broken them by that time? Gotten them suitably fearful of what you'll do next that they don't also just start lying about E? Are you so sure that after whatever horrors you've inflicted their psyche will be intact enough to even give a coherent answer? Keeping in mind, that sleep deprivation and extended interrogation has been shown - repeatedly - to be enough to make otherwise innocent people confess to brutal crimes they did not commit. EDIT: People keep thinking torture is effective because if I broke your fingers with a hammer, you'd give me your car keys. What's actually happening is I'm breaking your fingers one by one with a hammer, and saying I'll stop if you tell me where your family is so I can go murder them all.

downerending 7y ago

Almost certainly. Even with the plausible deniability measures others mention, if the torturer has no scruples and is willing to sacrifice you, you will give it all up. That this is awful does not make it untrue. If it makes everyone feel better, the tech to simply "read" your secrets out of your brain with no torture whatsoever will likely soon exist (or already does). That said, a lot of torture is performed not to extract information but to instill terror, etc.