3 ms·

This will probably get you into trouble in the US, too, which is why I make sure all my filesystems are encrypted. That's exactly what happened to this guy and

This will probably get you into trouble in the US, too, which is why I make sure all my filesystems are encrypted. That's exactly what happened to this guy and he got off: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9970660-7.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9970660-7.html I don't doubt that there's a sizable chance of getting convicted anyway, but I really hope it's not "probable".

jrockway 17y ago
The encryption ensures that you avoid charges in the first place. My imagined dialogue: "We're here to seize your hard drive to see if you are doing anything illegal." "OK." "Damn, it's encrypted, tell us your password." "I refuse to testify against myself." "Uh, you have to." "I forgot the password." "Fuck." The fishing expedition then ends fairly quickly. (If you really are distributing child porn, though, they will probably get you some other way. This is exactly how the system should work.) (You might want to have a "honeypot" that can be activated with a certain password so that you don't even have to claim you forgot the password. This could be helpful for avoiding "contempt of court". IMHO, this should not be necessary, but I Am Not The Supreme Court.)
- paulbaumgart 17y ago
  Slightly off topic, but I'm curious: what sort of encryption set-up/software do you use? Does it affect access times in any noticeable way?
  - jrockway 17y ago
    I use LUKS, and it doesn't appear to affect performance much. During heavy disk activity, the crypto threads do use some CPU, but it is not noticeably slow, even on my eeepc.
- chris11 17y ago
  Or you could create a hidden volume inside of a hidden volume. Supposedly Truecrypt's data looks random, so if you are forced to decrypt one volume, they wouldn't be able to prove there was another volume. http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability

jrockway 17y ago

The encryption ensures that you avoid charges in the first place. My imagined dialogue: "We're here to seize your hard drive to see if you are doing anything illegal." "OK." "Damn, it's encrypted, tell us your password." "I refuse to testify against myself." "Uh, you have to." "I forgot the password." "Fuck." The fishing expedition then ends fairly quickly. (If you really are distributing child porn, though, they will probably get you some other way. This is exactly how the system should work.) (You might want to have a "honeypot" that can be activated with a certain password so that you don't even have to claim you forgot the password. This could be helpful for avoiding "contempt of court". IMHO, this should not be necessary, but I Am Not The Supreme Court.)

paulbaumgart 17y ago
Slightly off topic, but I'm curious: what sort of encryption set-up/software do you use? Does it affect access times in any noticeable way?
- jrockway 17y ago
  I use LUKS, and it doesn't appear to affect performance much. During heavy disk activity, the crypto threads do use some CPU, but it is not noticeably slow, even on my eeepc.
chris11 17y ago
Or you could create a hidden volume inside of a hidden volume. Supposedly Truecrypt's data looks random, so if you are forced to decrypt one volume, they wouldn't be able to prove there was another volume. http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability