Slashdot Mirror
First Use of RIPA to Demand Encryption Keys
kylehase writes "The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) is being used for the first time to force an animal activist to reveal encryption keys for encrypted files she claims to have no knowledge of. According to the article, she could face up to two years if she doesn't comply."
If I was a cop investigating such a situation, the very first thing I would do would be to backup the entire contents of the drive onto an identical drive (if obtainable).
Byte by byte copy with dd should sort that out soon enough.
Then little accidents like this couldn't happen.
There would be other advantages to a duplicate as well, for example if a brute force password crack was to be attempted. Unlikely given the likely runtime required.
Now if I know how to do that (been using Linux daily for about 4 months), I'm pretty certain an encryption specialist would think of it too.
Name one time government did any good.
Highways. What do I win?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
So a law intended for terrorists is being used against animal rights activists, wow.
It is like a modern day version of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bs515rZOdk
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
for brute force you'll want to just delete everything after the third failed attempt, at home a duplicate copy is an advantage, in the lab, busting out a new hard-drive every time you want to test three passwords is not sustainable (course a VM environment might be different, with a lot of work). a duress password should lead to a plausible red herring.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism