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doesn't mean he can somehow wave his hands and claim "but but but but, I've designed this system such that you will be able to also read other peoples emails wh

by Amadou 13y ago

doesn't mean he can somehow wave his hands and claim "but but but but, I've designed this system such that you will be able to also read other peoples emails whom you've not subpoenaed. That is against my mission statement!". Sure it does. If the police want to do something that impacts a very large number of innocent bystanders they need to have a higher level of accountability than if they just want to target one specific individual. For example it is unreasonable to search every house in a neighborhood in order to arrest one guy who owns a house there.

XorNot 13y ago
Yeah except that's not how it works. The police/law enforcement/courts can simply get a warrant which says they're allowed to look at exactly 1 guys email, and you are to provide decryption keys. You don't get to play "well I don't trust the government so I'm not going to let you" against the courts if the relevant parties promise they're not going to look at anything else - since amongst other things that would actually be breaking the law, and whatever they get would be inadmissible under various umbrellas - they certainly couldn't build a case off of it.
- amirmc 13y ago
  You might want to look into parallel construction. "Parallel construction is a police process of building a parallel - or separate - evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation which otherwise would rely upon evidence or tips received either from a confidential source or that might fall under the category of fruit of the poisonous tree. By building a separate evidentiary basis for an investigation, such as corroborating evidence using other resources or finding other valid reasons to investigate, prosecutors are able to avoid disclosing confidential or otherwise unusable evidence." (From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction)
  - XorNot 13y ago
    Yes. Note the important point though: it's based on the fact that a crime has other sources of evidence which would independently confirm a crime if they are found, which would be legal to pursue if they were discovered by other means. i.e. the murder victim, the weapon and the security tape you buried in the local national park. The police might not find them, but they also don't need a search warrant to go looking. Claiming you should for some reason be above the law entirely is absurd - the general point is to provide protection from stuff like "thought-crime" prosecutions, or at least a warning sign if that would otherwise be a thing.
- MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
  He never said "I'm not going to let you", he offered to give them the snowden document dumps but the emails could not be decrypted without snowdens personal password. They demanded his SSL keys (something completely unprecedented) and Ladar refused on the grounds that it would compromise the security of all Lavabit users, not just Snowden.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    And that's where he screwed up. Again just because your crypto sucks and has a weak spot doesn't mean the government is going to feel sorry for you and stop their investigation.
furyg3 13y ago
Yes, but the problem in this case is that the housing developer used one master key for all of the houses in the neighborhood. And now he is being asked to give over the master key to the police, so that they can search the house. Will they copy it? Who knows... this is a question related to how much you trust the government and all of it's actors, policies, and procedures. Or you can just not have master keys for all of the houses you build, or buy houses with unchangeable master keys.

by Amadou 13y ago

XorNot 13y ago

Yeah except that's not how it works. The police/law enforcement/courts can simply get a warrant which says they're allowed to look at exactly 1 guys email, and you are to provide decryption keys. You don't get to play "well I don't trust the government so I'm not going to let you" against the courts if the relevant parties promise they're not going to look at anything else - since amongst other things that would actually be breaking the law, and whatever they get would be inadmissible under various umbrellas - they certainly couldn't build a case off of it.

amirmc 13y ago
You might want to look into parallel construction. "Parallel construction is a police process of building a parallel - or separate - evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation which otherwise would rely upon evidence or tips received either from a confidential source or that might fall under the category of fruit of the poisonous tree. By building a separate evidentiary basis for an investigation, such as corroborating evidence using other resources or finding other valid reasons to investigate, prosecutors are able to avoid disclosing confidential or otherwise unusable evidence." (From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction)
- XorNot 13y ago
  Yes. Note the important point though: it's based on the fact that a crime has other sources of evidence which would independently confirm a crime if they are found, which would be legal to pursue if they were discovered by other means. i.e. the murder victim, the weapon and the security tape you buried in the local national park. The police might not find them, but they also don't need a search warrant to go looking. Claiming you should for some reason be above the law entirely is absurd - the general point is to provide protection from stuff like "thought-crime" prosecutions, or at least a warning sign if that would otherwise be a thing.
MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
He never said "I'm not going to let you", he offered to give them the snowden document dumps but the emails could not be decrypted without snowdens personal password. They demanded his SSL keys (something completely unprecedented) and Ladar refused on the grounds that it would compromise the security of all Lavabit users, not just Snowden.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  And that's where he screwed up. Again just because your crypto sucks and has a weak spot doesn't mean the government is going to feel sorry for you and stop their investigation.

furyg3 13y ago

Yes, but the problem in this case is that the housing developer used one master key for all of the houses in the neighborhood. And now he is being asked to give over the master key to the police, so that they can search the house. Will they copy it? Who knows... this is a question related to how much you trust the government and all of it's actors, policies, and procedures. Or you can just not have master keys for all of the houses you build, or buy houses with unchangeable master keys.