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> - An officer can use these requirements on anyone who "appears to him or her to have access". They don't appear to need any evidence beyond that. The person d

> - An officer can use these requirements on anyone who "appears to him or her to have access". They don't appear to need any evidence beyond that. The person does not need to be a suspect or, it appears, the subject of a warrant, just a person present at the location subject to the search warrant. Well that's handy then, the "helpful roomate" tries his best to enter the password, but didn't realise that after 3 wrong tries it wipes the device!

cge 5y ago
Yes, this legislation either seems to have been written by people who just want overly broad powers they'll use in a technically sound way, or by people who have no understanding of computer forensics. The way it's written makes it sound like the officers would be rifling through the computers and phones on site trying passwords they've found, themselves, or standing over the shoulder of people being forced to do so. It specifically talks about forcing someone to make information "visible and legible" and about copying documents, rather than just making forensically secure images of devices.
- bjornjajayaja 5y ago
  They would probably have to bag the devices as evidence. But let’s be serious here it has to be at a place where a warrant is issued right? Tech folks are super paranoid. Like, try to make sure no warrants are out for you and your cousins and you should be fine. If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time: sucks to be you anyway!
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Like a store or tech conference or a city. Location is overly broad.
- bennyp101 5y ago
  If so, it's a recipe for disaster. Easy enough to booby trap discreetly to delete things if not accessed the 'correct' way. Maybe this is to show that this approach is so crazy that it could never work (hence the written reports to gather data), and that they do actually need <insert some crazy power> here in order to do it properly because "we tried to do it the nice way and it didnt work"
  - rapht 5y ago
    > Easy enough to booby trap discreetly to delete things if not accessed the 'correct' way. Exactly! If I had anything to hide, I'd make sure to give them the 'correct" password that will wipe out selected data from the device.
  - yawaworht1978 5y ago
    Can you elaborate how you would do that on a mobile device, laptop/pc? Would you run different partitions? Can it be done by giving them one wrong password which will trigger a disc erasure? Serious question, as I wouldn't know how to do that.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      The easiest solution I see is to write a custom screen-lock for Linux. That could be defeated by a simple reboot, but the hapless roommate in this scenario wouldn't know to do that. For example, insert your filesystem-nuke (perhaps with an attempts counter) around line 78 of main.rs here https://github.com/akermu/rlock https://github.com/akermu/rlock
    - hatboxreappoint 5y ago
      Not quite the same but a hidden veracrypt volume [0] would easily circumvent this law. [0] https://veracrypt.eu/en/docs/hidden-volume/ https://veracrypt.eu/en/docs/hidden-volume/
    - MertsA 5y ago
      Look into PAM configuration. In particular I think you'd probably want some combination of pam_faillock and pam_exec. pam_exec can be used to call some arbitrary script to wipe your disks and possibly be extra evil and call flashrom to even wipe the firmware beforehand.
- Accujack 5y ago
  >Yes, this legislation either seems to have been written by people who just want overly broad powers they'll use in a technically sound way, or by people who have no understanding of computer forensics. Or both.
  - Zuider 5y ago
    Or they wish to extend the powers to detain, arrest and issue fines so that they can be based on over-broad and ill-defined premises.
ozim 5y ago
I can even see an option where they want me to unlock the phone but I was so stressed that I totally forgot my pin and I was trying to be helpful by trying as many times as possible...
- anitil 5y ago
  I mean if you were going to do that, you'd want to be sure not to talk about it on a public forum.

cge 5y ago

Yes, this legislation either seems to have been written by people who just want overly broad powers they'll use in a technically sound way, or by people who have no understanding of computer forensics. The way it's written makes it sound like the officers would be rifling through the computers and phones on site trying passwords they've found, themselves, or standing over the shoulder of people being forced to do so. It specifically talks about forcing someone to make information "visible and legible" and about copying documents, rather than just making forensically secure images of devices.

bjornjajayaja 5y ago
They would probably have to bag the devices as evidence. But let’s be serious here it has to be at a place where a warrant is issued right? Tech folks are super paranoid. Like, try to make sure no warrants are out for you and your cousins and you should be fine. If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time: sucks to be you anyway!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Like a store or tech conference or a city. Location is overly broad.
bennyp101 5y ago
If so, it's a recipe for disaster. Easy enough to booby trap discreetly to delete things if not accessed the 'correct' way. Maybe this is to show that this approach is so crazy that it could never work (hence the written reports to gather data), and that they do actually need <insert some crazy power> here in order to do it properly because "we tried to do it the nice way and it didnt work"
- rapht 5y ago
  > Easy enough to booby trap discreetly to delete things if not accessed the 'correct' way. Exactly! If I had anything to hide, I'd make sure to give them the 'correct" password that will wipe out selected data from the device.
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Can you elaborate how you would do that on a mobile device, laptop/pc? Would you run different partitions? Can it be done by giving them one wrong password which will trigger a disc erasure? Serious question, as I wouldn't know how to do that.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    The easiest solution I see is to write a custom screen-lock for Linux. That could be defeated by a simple reboot, but the hapless roommate in this scenario wouldn't know to do that. For example, insert your filesystem-nuke (perhaps with an attempts counter) around line 78 of main.rs here https://github.com/akermu/rlock https://github.com/akermu/rlock
  - hatboxreappoint 5y ago
    Not quite the same but a hidden veracrypt volume [0] would easily circumvent this law. [0] https://veracrypt.eu/en/docs/hidden-volume/ https://veracrypt.eu/en/docs/hidden-volume/
  - MertsA 5y ago
    Look into PAM configuration. In particular I think you'd probably want some combination of pam_faillock and pam_exec. pam_exec can be used to call some arbitrary script to wipe your disks and possibly be extra evil and call flashrom to even wipe the firmware beforehand.
Accujack 5y ago
>Yes, this legislation either seems to have been written by people who just want overly broad powers they'll use in a technically sound way, or by people who have no understanding of computer forensics. Or both.
- Zuider 5y ago
  Or they wish to extend the powers to detain, arrest and issue fines so that they can be based on over-broad and ill-defined premises.

ozim 5y ago

I can even see an option where they want me to unlock the phone but I was so stressed that I totally forgot my pin and I was trying to be helpful by trying as many times as possible...

anitil 5y ago
I mean if you were going to do that, you'd want to be sure not to talk about it on a public forum.