Slightly older news: Judge trying to force woman to decrypt her hard drive

[Fern]

How about she says she simply "forgot" the password?

If she is asked if the was a lie, she then can plead the 5th under any interpretation of the amendment as forcing her to state that she lied when she "forgot" the password would incriminate her in other crimes.

Good one!

Fern

 

[GoPackGo]

What happens if the data on the drive after its decrypted is also then in code...is the person compelled to decode it?

 

[BoberFett]

What happens if the data on the drive after its decrypted is also then in code...is the person compelled to decode it?

Apparently, if you give them the password and they can't find the incriminating evidence because it's hidden with steganography, you'll have to walk through detailed steps on how to find it.

But it's OK, because they have a warrant, so it's not incriminating yourself.

 

[NetGuySC]

Deleted

 

[Munky]

DO you seriously think she "forgot" the password to the drive she routinely used?

Seriously?

It's up to the prosecution to prove one way or another. Doesn't matter what I want to believe, if they can't prove it then she should not be charged with it.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'd go with the Ronald Reagan defense- "I don't recall" the pgp code to get in. I committed it to memory, then forgot. Haven't been able to use the darned thing at all.

Make a case against that.

 

[runzwithsizorz]

DO you seriously think she "forgot" the password to the drive she routinely used?

Seriously?

Red paint job, mag wheels, and 4 on the floor. Now son, I know you were speeding back there, and you know you were speeding back there. So why
not just sign the ticket, and pay the fine. Don't make this anymore difficult
than it has to be.

 

[waggy]

Apparently, if you give them the password and they can't find the incriminating evidence because it's hidden with steganography, you'll have to walk through detailed steps on how to find it.

But it's OK, because they have a warrant, so it's not incriminating yourself.

that's just it. they don't know what is on the disk. if t hey don't know they shouldn't force her to give it over. there may be something else on it htey don't know about.

 

[disappoint]

How about she says she simply "forgot" the password?

If she is asked if the was a lie, she then can plead the 5th under any interpretation of the amendment as forcing her to state that she lied when she "forgot" the password would incriminate her in other crimes.

You would make a very good lawyer

He's a republican. Of course he would make a very good liar. Oh but pardon my accent.

 

[Sonikku]

This business reminds me of when Chief Wigum asked Homer to bring his illegal telemarketing phone on his court date, otherwise they didn't have any dirt on him.

 

[cybrsage]

Not a problem, all encryption can be broken with enough time. Just keep her in jail, pending trial, until she either suddenly remembers her password she had been using on a routine basis or until the encryption is broken and the data she is preventing them from obtaining (even though they have a warrant to obtain it) is obtained.

Using between 300 and 400 off-the-shelf laptop and desktop computers at EPFL, the University of Bonn and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. in Japan, researchers factored a 307-digit number into two prime numbers. Factoring is the term to break a number down into prime numbers. For example, factoring the number 12 would give 2 x 2 x 3.
Lenstra said they carefully selected a 307-digit number whose properties would make it easier to factor than other large numbers: that number was 2 to the 1039th power minus 1.
Still, the calculations took 11 months, with the computers using special mathematical formulas created by researchers to calculate the prime numbers, Lenstra said.

The ability to calculate the prime number components of the current RSA 1024-bit public keys remains five to 10 years away, Lenstra said. Those numbers are typically generated by multiplying two prime numbers with around 150 digits each and are harder to factor than Lenstra's 307-digit number.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/132184/researcher_rsa_1024bit_encryption_not_enough.html

The article is from 2007, so we are currently at that 5 year point. If we make the assumption it is now possible to break 1024 bit encryption (but simply not promulgated to the public for obvious reasons), it will be 11 months for them to break it (the breaking is harder but computers are more powerful now, so I made it a wash).

She can sit there for a year...maybe she will "remember" the password if she knows they are in the process of breaking it anyway.

 

[Jhhnn]

Not a problem, all encryption can be broken with enough time. Just keep her in jail, pending trial, until she either suddenly remembers her password she had been using on a routine basis or until the encryption is broken and the data she is preventing them from obtaining (even though they have a warrant to obtain it) is obtained.


http://www.pcworld.com/article/132184/researcher_rsa_1024bit_encryption_not_enough.html

The article is from 2007, so we are currently at that 5 year point. If we make the assumption it is now possible to break 1024 bit encryption (but simply not promulgated to the public for obvious reasons), it will be 11 months for them to break it (the breaking is harder but computers are more powerful now, so I made it a wash).

She can sit there for a year...maybe she will "remember" the password if she knows they are in the process of breaking it anyway.

Just go for indefinite detention based on suspicion option, right?

 

[Rebel44]

Not a problem, all encryption can be broken with enough time. Just keep her in jail, pending trial, until she either suddenly remembers her password she had been using on a routine basis or until the encryption is broken and the data she is preventing them from obtaining (even though they have a warrant to obtain it) is obtained.


http://www.pcworld.com/article/132184/researcher_rsa_1024bit_encryption_not_enough.html

The article is from 2007, so we are currently at that 5 year point. If we make the assumption it is now possible to break 1024 bit encryption (but simply not promulgated to the public for obvious reasons), it will be 11 months for them to break it (the breaking is harder but computers are more powerful now, so I made it a wash).

She can sit there for a year...maybe she will "remember" the password if she knows they are in the process of breaking it anyway.

OK, so now police should arrest you and hold you forever (lets say that CI claim that you told him about proof of your tax evasion on your encrypted HDD) - in some cases its impossible to even prove that there is any data on HDD and that it isnt just random 0s and 1s.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Oh god.

It is evidence. Just like the example of the safe brought up early on, if the court has a warrant for the INFORMATION ON THE HD, they have the right to ask for it to be decrypted.

They do not have the right to just go around asking for things with no reason and no proof.

If they open the drive up (figuratively speaking) and find out she was running guns from Mexico, that is akin to opening the safe and finding paper documents saying the same thing. It does not MATTER if that was not related to the case, it is another crime that should be tried and punished on discovery.

Now, OTOH, if they found love letters in there to someone she was having an affair with that she said, in testimony, that she wasn't... well, then that is entrapment. So long as that person had nothing to do with the original charges or with any other criminal act, lying about (him) to save face should not be brought up as a crime (ala Clinton/Lewinski).

Whatevah.

 

[airdata]

Oh god.

It is evidence. Just like the example of the safe brought up early on, if the court has a warrant for the INFORMATION ON THE HD, they have the right to ask for it to be decrypted.

Sure... They have the right to use their resources and ask their failure of a computer forensics division to do it. Otherwise they're SOL...

Laws they're trying to use to get her to decrypt it were written before such encryption existed and therefore don't properly apply to the context of the case. The judge is doing that because they're clearly too old to be presiding over a case in which such technology is in question.

Do they have other evidence on her aside from the assumed evidence they're saying is on the hard drive?

I bet this could decrypt it quick enough. That or a much smaller array of current gen AMD GPUs.

 

[HumblePie]

Cybersage, you are an idiot. Not everything can be decrypted within a reasonable timeframe. If using a ridiculous set of encryption algorithms with large amounts of entropy it could take thousands of years to find the right combination to decrypt the item in question.


As for the safe precedent, no they STILL can't compel a person to open a safe. They can ask, and you can refuse. They just slap a contempt of court charge and open the safe through other physical means because safes can be opened without the key since they are basically physical boxes that can be physically broken into. Your charges in the end will not be any worse if you refuse to give them the easy method of opening a safe.

 

[classy]

I don't think this is a 5th amendment case in reality. If they have a warrant to search for evidence of a crime, then a laptop would be no different than a person refusing a car search and locking the door. Eventually they will override the person's refusal and conduct the search anyway. Here they can't do that in reality. So the most that can be done here is to charge her with contempt of court and probably obstruction of justice, because evidence on the laptop could be used to convict others of crimes. This is a tough one though, because if the info on the laptop is not used against her, then there is no violation of her 5th amendment rights. This is really tough because its evidence they can only get with her cooperation, unlike a locked car or safe.

If its me I am not giving them the password except in a really generous plea bargain for myself and my spouse. Especially if I don't believe they can convict me without the evidence.

 

[airdata]

Classy : The thing is that they already have the laptop... they seized it. She's not responsible for helping the police w\ their investigation.

They have the laptop... and if they can't get into it, then too bad for them.

 

[HumblePie]

I don't think this is a 5th amendment case in reality. If they have a warrant to search for evidence of a crime, then a laptop would be no different than a person refusing a car search and locking the door. Eventually they will override the person's refusal and conduct the search anyway. Here they can't do that in reality. So the most that can be done here is to charge her with contempt of court and probably obstruction of justice, because evidence on the laptop could be used to convict others of crimes. This is a tough one though, because if the info on the laptop is not used against her, then there is no violation of her 5th amendment rights. This is really tough because its evidence they can only get with her cooperation, unlike a locked car or safe.

If its me I am not giving them the password except in a really generous plea bargain for myself and my spouse. Especially if I don't believe they can convict me without the evidence.

You don't know law.

Refusing a car search is a fourth amendment law. You know illegal search and seizure bit. The fourth amendment an be gotten around because it prevents ILLEGAL searches, not legal ones. Which means that cops just need a warrant with good probably cause to allow them to do a legal search.

Why do people get so confused between these two issues?

Fifth amendment protects against self incrimination in court. She is being asked by a court to incriminate herself by providing information in her head that they think will lead to evidence that will convict her. That is EXACTLY what the fifth amendment is suppose to stop.


People need to learn the difference between the Fourth and the Fifth amendment and not try to apply one scenario involving one with another. They cover completely different situations.

 

[cybrsage]

Just go for indefinite detention based on suspicion option, right?

Its her choice.

 

[cybrsage]

You don't know law.

Refusing a car search is a fourth amendment law. You know illegal search and seizure bit. The fourth amendment an be gotten around because it prevents ILLEGAL searches, not legal ones. Which means that cops just need a warrant with good probably cause to allow them to do a legal search.

Why do people get so confused between these two issues?

Fifth amendment protects against self incrimination in court. She is being asked by a court to incriminate herself by providing information in her head that they think will lead to evidence that will convict her. That is EXACTLY what the fifth amendment is suppose to stop.


People need to learn the difference between the Fourth and the Fifth amendment and not try to apply one scenario involving one with another. They cover completely different situations.

No, her password will not incriminate her. The data it unencrypts, which they DO have a warrant to obtain (which means she is not allowed to prevent them from obtaining it - which is what she is doing) will incriminate her.

She is actively preventing them from obtaining the evidence they have a warrant to obtain. She was told if she refuses to obey the order of the court, she will be held in contempt until she chooses to obey the order of the court.

 

[Darwin333]

Gotta love threads like this, protecting those who victimized homeowners and financial institutions.


http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_16391564

So we can't be protecting ALL of our rights in general? Instead we must obviously be protecting the criminal....

 

[cybrsage]

Cybersage, you are an idiot....

Everything you said after this point was invalidated by your personal attack. Try again, this time without the attack.

 

[Darwin333]

If that was the only means of entry, then yes. We all know she did not "forget" the password to the computer she was using shortly before they took it from her.

And what proof do you have of that?

 

[cybrsage]

And what proof do you have of that?

I little common sense. She was using the drive before they took it from her (else it would not contain the info they are seeking), which means she had to know the password to use it. She used it for many months (at least), so she had to repeatedly enter it.

Of course, maybe she suddenly has selective amnesia, where she only forgot one specific item, right?