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UK Court Rejects Encryption Key Disclosure Defense
truthsearch writes "Defendants can't deny police an encryption key because of fears the data it unlocks will incriminate them, a British appeals court has ruled. The case marked an interesting challenge to the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which in part compels someone served under the act to divulge an encryption key used to scramble data on a PC's hard drive. The appeals court heard a case in which two suspects refused to give up encryption keys, arguing that disclosure was incompatible with the privilege against self incrimination. In its ruling, the appeals court said an encryption key is no different than a physical key and exists separately from a person's will."
Hey ho
You guys point at us and laugh? Wait'll you see what your gov't is aiming for in the same country where 1984 was written.
I wish the US Supreme Court was that smart.
Protection from self incrimination was to prevent confesions under duress or torture.
I don't see the difference between refusing to turn over an encryption key and refusing to let the police in your house when they have a valid search warrant.
Oh noes! You police can't come into my meth lab. Me letting you in would be self incrimination!
if it is physical, can't they just take it off them? i guess it is will. that barrister sucks.
...I really don't want to visit Britain anymore. I read a while back about mandatory biometric scanning of tourists and from there it just gets progressively worse. Shame too since it really seems like a nice place to visit in terms of history. Oh well...
So now, in the UK, with the government inspecting everyone's e-mail, even encryption won't protect privacy anymore.
Memorised encryption keys exist outside of your will?
I'm sure the number exists somewhere out there, good luck finding it by brute force.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Suppose some incriminating evidence exists but it is hidden in a secret location. Can you be forced to disclose that location?
If not, then why not store your encrypted data on a huge partition of random data. To get it you need both the key and the location of the data. The latter you can simply refuse to disclose.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Obviously then, the way to prevent the cops from knowing about your encrypted data is to hide it from them. If they don't know about the encrpyted file, they can't ask for the password.
Two ways, plausible deniability (if you haven't heard of TrueCrypt yet, check it out>) is the way that most of you will use.
The other way is physically hiding the disk. Have a garden that you use, and store your data in multiple plastic bags and bury it.
The other thing you could do, have a strong magnetic field that is triggered in certain scenarios that will wipe your box of floppy disks/hard drive. Example scenarios include the cops breaking down the door, or the door being opened without a button being pressed.
I wank in the shower.
Why these jokers didn't say i forgot i will never know.
I mean how hard is it to NOT self-incriminate oneself: Say you forgot. Just like every other government official says after losing a laptop full of Witness Protection persons or intelligence officers, etc.
They can't compel you to recall something you don't remember.
Simply say "iam sorry i can't remember: my memory is a bit hazy from all the manhandling the cops did, your honor."
What's the worst? Gitmo? I don't think so (although Britain has a track record of renditioning suspects to US).
At a time when courts and the government make a combined assault on our privacy and rights, while being more secretive themselves, it is up to us protect ourselves. Call me paranoid, but am the Burt Gummer type.
The Government has NO right to force me to divulge my self-secrets just like i can't force a government of the people, by the people and for the people to divulge its dirty secrets.
I can't be transparent when the Government wants to be opaque.
After all it has been proven that the Government cannot be trusted even with the most basic secrets.
What is the criminal penalty for jokers who lost various laptops holding government secrets and OUR data? NONE.
What is the financial and criminal penalty the Government will pay if it causes me harm by leaking my secrets? NONE.
Until the Government pays for its mistakes(and heavily), am not going to divulge anything more to it. After all the Government am not trusty enough to know about its secrets, so why should i trust Government.
Ben Franklin, Hamilton and Mark Twain were absolutely right: You CANNOT and SHOULD NOT trust the government, if it doesn't trust you.
You can take my keys from my cold dead hands.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
In its ruling, the appeals court said an encryption key is no different than a physical key and exists separately from a person's will.
... an encryption key that exists only in someone's memory is clearly 'different' than a physical key ... choosing to divulge (or not) a memorized key is clearly a demonstration of 'will' ...
Ummm
you know where i can find a free whitepaper?
In case an adversary forces you to reveal your password, TrueCrypt provides and supports two kinds of plausible deniability:
1. Hidden volumes (for more information, see the section Hidden Volume).
2. It is impossible to identify a TrueCrypt volume. Until decrypted, a TrueCrypt volume appears to consist of nothing more than random data (it does not contain any kind of "signature"). Therefore, it is impossible to prove that a file, a partition or a device is a TrueCrypt volume or that it has been encrypted. However, note that for system encryption, the first drive track contains the (unencrypted) TrueCrypt Boot Loader, which can be easily identified as such (for more information, see the chapter System Encryption). In such cases, plausible deniability can be achieved by creating a hidden operating system (see the section Hidden Operating System).
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
What if you claim (perhaps even honestly) that you forgot it? Can they prove you are being dishonest? What is the punishment? I am guessing detention for some period of time.
Thermite would probably be the better and easier choice, because as far as I know, the magnetic fields you'd need to wipe out a disk are very strong (guess some T). Furthermore, it's much easier to set off a fuse without external power than a electricity powered coil.
However, it's not guranteed, that they x-ray your case before they open it, so some additional security layers would be needed.
Do not memorize the key, write it on a peace of paper. Then kill someone and hide the paper with the body.
Create an encrypted file. A lolcat or something. Encrypt it. Encrypt it again. Encrypt it again. Encrypt it again. Encrypt it again. And so on... See how long it takes for the police to get bored. You would need some decent legal representation to make sure to keep a loophole open so they can't demand all encryption keys.
A difference between a physical key and an encryption key is that if you do not provide a key to a door or to a safe the police are capable of opening any door or any safe without the key.
Firstly, this doesn't mean that the police can come and demand your encryption keys at any time. This isn't the US, where the police can kick your door in at any time for any reason, just because they feel like having a look at your stuff and maybe relieving you of a few high-value items. If they're looking for an encryption key, it's pretty much going to be because they've already had a warrant to search your property. It really *is* no different to being forced to hand over the key to the basement dungeon where you keep your step-daughter - chances are that they already know what they're looking for and where to look for it.
Of course, if you don't feel like handing it over, you can always say you left it on a bus, or in a taxi, or you posted it somewhere and it was never seen again...
We have not yet sorted out if software is a service or a commodity: if it is the latter then the '==physical key"-conjecture might hold; if a service then it is all in the mind...
It seems the judge did not ask for, nor got sufficient evidence, which points to ($#@$ stupid) lawyers/barristers representing the cases.
My gut feel is, apart from this miscarriage of justice, that the issue can only be resolved by investigating the intentions for encryption: if that intention was to protect the data from perusal by others, then this falls clearly under the gambit of "the privilege against self incrimination".
time time everywhere and not a second to spare
I am not a lawyer and this is not advice, but I did consult on the RIPA.
If the encryption key is destroyed by a pre-configured ``technical measure'' then by my reading of the Act one cannot be held in contempt for failure to disclose.
For example, a dead-man's switch that destroys all traces of keys if the owner does not log-in for a pre-arranged number of days.
Note that *all* traces must be destroyed. The Act can compel other parties ( e.g. work colleagues or holders of back-ups ) to disclose even if they are not directly involved in the case.
If I'm the defendant, I'm simply going to assess which is worse:
1. The punishment you'll get for not divulging your encryption key
2. The punishment you'll get when you divulge your encryption key and they find 18 gigs of child porn on your computer
Depending on the encrypte data in question, the decision whether to divulge your key could an easy one.
Our country doesn't make the same promises about liberty in a single document which all our countrymen regard as some kind of holy scripture. It is the American attitude of how you are all in the "land of freedom, better than all other nations in every way" that makes your massive overreaction to one terrorist attack so ironic. It's like a kid vowing to never go back to school again because a bully once stole his lunch money.
I don't mean any disrespect to those who died in 9/11, but people are dying all the time from accidents, disease and natural disaster. Wasting all the money you have on going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact it was a terrorist organisation and not a single country that attacked you, is pretty dumb. If you go around spending billions attacking everyone that you feel slightly threatened by, you'll end up in financial meltdown... oh, wait...
An encryption key is separate from a physical key, because no one can reliably prove if I still have it or not. Physical keys I may have hidden or swallowed can be found or the locks picked open. But for strong encryption, this is not feasible and the defendant might very well have forgotten the passphrase and never remember it.
What will They do when the defendant claims to have forgotten their key? (capital "They" intentional for Them being Orwellian monsters) - No one can ever prove or disprove that the passphrase still exists in the defendants brain cells, not the accuser and not the accused.
And then? Sleep deprivation? Torture? Guilty unless proven innocent? In dubio contra reo?
Releasing the defendant is under this view obviously unfeasible, because otherwise EVERY defendant would claim to have forgotten the passphrase, which would render this judicial scheme moot. But NOT releasing a possibly innocent defendant because they really have forgotten their passphrase - and no one knows whats inside the encrypted files - is a serious crime in itself.
I doubt there's a possible solution to this problem. Keeping people in prison for even one day because of abstract words that *possibly* exist in their minds (and only there) is pretty laughable - and pretty dangerous.
Something that no human and no machine can reliably prove or disprove cannot be the basis of a prison sentence. In the Western civilized society after the Renaissance era anyway.
Also, this is stuff from the darkest dystopian novels and can be misused in thousands of ways. We've all heard rumors about cops who place contraband in a defendants pocket or house. But that takes at least physical access to a contraband item.
But encryption keys that may not even exist anywhere? It is ridiculously easy to incriminate people that way, say for example to create a file containing several megabytes from /dev/random. Name it "pre-teen_volume_320.7z" and send it via mail to the defendant with a fake note "here's the 320th delivery of your stuff, you pervert and the password is the same as last time. the photos of your kids were nice, too".
And then? No one can distinguish between random data and well-encrypted data. No one can prove the defendant does NOT know the "password" to this "encrypted" file. Will They let them go or will they be imprisoned and tortured forever until they "remember" the nonexisting password or simply confess to having had intercourse with the devil?
Most encrypted data looks random right? How is one to know if the data is a meaningful arrangements of bits hidden behind a key? I am thinking in terms of truecrypt where you don't even know if the file is a truecrypt file or not without poking it with the correct password first.
So *my* defense would be to be silent about the file(s) in the first place (since that seems to be an option in this case). If they can't tell it's even encrypted then they certainly can't accuse me of not handing over a key.
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.8
hQEOA8MMd15mSaRoEAQA7v49OwHzXQ0vbzGru17meXPx0j0azurW1eypb4Ene8n3
FUCK YOU
tMOLJhDfAdJgYZPOhJZeMPqqtyBanLIOtrzHP8S2dxfh6WAiiCPHFymvFtK7S4g4
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
...that this isn't self-incrimination, as they are not being forced to reveal information that will incriminate them.
Simplified massively, the principle says that if someone asks "did you kill him?", you are not bound to answer "yes". That disclosure would incriminate yourself. In this case, the police demanded a copy of the decryption key; answering that question - admitting that you possess the encryption key - does not incriminate you. It is not illegal to possess an encryption key. Well, not in most circumstances.
He goes further to state that even in cases where admitting that you possessed the encryption key would incriminate you, a judge could surpress the fact that you provided the key, thereby avoiding incrimination. For example, if you have encrypted child porn on your computer, admitting that you possess the key could imply that you have viewed child porn, thereby incriminating youself. A judge could, however, allow the decrypted images to be used as evidence, while refusing to allow the fact that you provided the key to be used as evidence, thereby avoiding self-incrimination.
In essence, what they're saying is that you don't have to say "I killed him"; but if you write down "I killed him", then you have already disclosed the information. Once you have disclosed the information, they are at liberty to compel you to remove any protection you have placed around that information. There is a difference.
Oh, and to the posters that suggested he use the defence "I forgot it", the police arrested the guy while he was halfway through typing the key in. It's kind of hard to convincingly say you didn't know it at that point...
Your logic is flawed, my locking/hiding the door to my dungeon where I keep my daughter is to stop me incrimincating myself by her being found. ALL criminals hide data from the sight of others to stop them from showing their criminal activities.
If you accept that the police under the rules of law can demand access to things then this includes digital data. I have always been loath to see the internet and computers in general as some kind of new world where we can have a different set of rules. If I can be ordered to hand over my swiss bank account number (just a number for a service) then so can I be ordered to hand over the key to my encrypted files.
If you want to change it, chance ALL the laws related to the gathering of evidence. No cyber laws, just laws.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
suddenly im glad i live in the us
the right against self-incrimination is one firmly seated in reality. One can always not give the incription key, one can always say one does not remember it, there is nothing they can do to ge tit out of you, so if you are legally binded to give it then there is nothing preventing the government from saying and person has a key to something that they actually dont have and locking them up for that. with that right there is no line in the sand constantly moved and there is a good defense against tyerany, the man should not give up the key he should proclaim he forgot it weather he did or not, that is the only sane defense against tyranny.
There is nothing preventing the prosecurion and jury from believing bad stuff is behind that encryption wall but there is nothing, and it should be illegal to proclaim or legislate otherwise, that forces him to give up incriminating evidence. What the British court ruled is a downright lie and yields to tyranny, yields to guilty until proven innocent.
Its a pity it will never be implemented
> "Defendants can't deny police an encryption key because of fears the data it unlocks will incriminate them, a British appeals court has ruled.
As soon as I started reading this sentence, before I was halfway through, I *KNEW* this was about Britain!
This complements the last story about the UK really well. (By a definition of "well" that I don't even want to think about...)
Contrast with this. New tag: thankgodiliveintheus
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
If you have an encrypted hardrive, always have a honeypot. Then give away your honeypot keys. Seems like the UK is brewing something with these combination of laws...
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
What if the key is your fingerprint over the scanner? are they going to give you physical access to the machine?
Left thumb = open files
Right thumb = runs script that overwrites encrypted blob with random data 5 times while appearing to unlock....
Perhaps this was the crux of the problem, they used a defence of suggesting if they hand it over it would be self-incriminating?
Wouldn't a better defence have been to suggest that the data encrypted was entirely irrelevant to the case. Wouldn't it then be up to the police to actually do some police work and prove otherwise?
By using a self-incrimination defence it's effectively admitting, yeah you've got some data that's evidence locked up but you're not handing it over. Surely it's better to simply just deny the encrypted data is relevant to the case or even that you've no idea what that encrypted data is. Hell, claim it's your own personal copyrighted works or some trade secrets and get them to prove to a court either that it's not or that they need access to said private content. I'd have thought both of these would put the burden on the police to do police work in an ideal scenario.
That said, Labour's totalitarian regime doesn't follow the ideal scenario mindset and innocent until proven guilty means nothing anymore so I guess either way these people were screwed.
If the people are guilty then it's great they've been caught, but the way they go about reach the goal is entirely unacceptable and comes down to one thing - the police are too damn lazy to actually do any police work nowadays. It's all about abusing various laws and technologies Labour has handed them which they really shouldn't have.
Say the passphrase was something like "I am going to kill the Queen", or maybe just something against a company policy eg if the passphrase was "my company's root admin password is JaBB3erw0cky". (I can't think of better examples right now, I'm sure something must be illegal to say in the UK? - other than "Lloyds is pants" of course)
By being forced to say the passphrase, in effect the government is forcing you to break the law, or reveal company secrets. I wonder what would happen....?
In other words, they are making encryption worthless, as far as protecting you from the government goes. Sure, you can encrypt your data with a good key and cipher and they won't be able to read it. But then they can just arrest you, charge you with something, and force you to disclose your data to them. Even if there is nothing among your data that relates to what you have been charged with, the government now has access to all your data.
All that may be acceptable as long as the government is going after the people you want them to go after. But there's no guarantee that this will always be the case. Governments work for the people sometimes, but they can also work against the people. This is why some smart people have written down rules the government must play by, restrictions on what the government is allowed to do. These restrictions are there for your protection: if the government plays by the rules, they are limited in what they can do to you, should they decide to come after you. When the government breaks these rules, that's a bad sign. It means they are crossing the line between working for the people and working against the people. It means they have a problem, and they are willing to violate your rights to deal with that problem.
The defendants are right. Their encrypted data may or may not contain evidence against them. They don't have to tell the government anything about it, and they certainly don't have to give the government access to all of it. Even if the defendants are guilty of the crime they are charged with, they have rights. They are innocent until proven guilty, and they have the right to remain silent. A judge (or jury, as the case may be) has the right to make inferences as to why a defendant choses to remain silent, of course.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Have you noticed how no matter how much we're discussing this, no matter how many opinions come out, they inevitably CAN'T make everyone happy? This is a fact of life. Why is this? If science has taught us anything, it's that there's things in reality that we don't understand. There are laws of nature. At the moment we are defining them relatively to each other - but never actually understanding or perceiving the force behind them. When the government tries to make everyone happy with crap like this (and they DO think they're helping, however misguided that may be) it always fails. It doesn't matter if you live in the US, UK, or you're an aussie like me. We are all going to be touched by this. Look how close we are, how absolutely interconnected our money is, our internets, our ideas and feelings. Saying "i'm glad i live in the UK" won't shield you from it. As long as we keep trying to make a better world through influencing our physical reality, it is always at the expense of something else. We rob peter to pay paul over and over again (conservation, energy, mass, anyone?) And look how the government does their thing. They try to make us happy, or sad, with their laws and they fail every time. And eventually the laws turn into fascism because there's so fucking many of them. In terms of energy, the horse as left the gate by the time we perceive that it exists. So how can we expect to change things? Check out Bnei Baruch, it at least attempts to answer the real question.
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
I read a while back about mandatory biometric scanning of tourists
I'm really hoping you aren't a US citizen as getting into the US now requires the scanning of all your fingers and of course the answering of the 7 stupidest questions in the history of questioning.
The bio-scanning stuff is a pain in the arse, but its unfortunately not a UK invention, it started in the US for "Security" reasons. You also now have to have a printed out copy of your itinerary (like that would be hard to fake) as an electronic copy on a PDA or laptop just isn't good enough.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
How is this for a solution.
Fully encrypted hard drive which is divided into partitions on boot you get asked for a key which key you enter determines which partition is unlocked.
You set up say 3 partitions [{a,Super Secret}, {b,sacrificial}, {c, unlockable}]
you memorise the key/pass phrase for A and B and destroy the key for C so you can never unlock.
You set up OS on both A and B and use regularly for stuff you don't mind being found out. You only use A for your really secret stuff.
When you are coerced into giving you key you give your key to B and claim you never had the key to A or C.
The setup program strongly advises let it choose a key for one of these partitions and destroys that key immediately so there is at lease one partition you can not access.
This is like burglar alarms that have multiple pins, one for disarm, one for disarm under duress.
...and the government doesn't want us to forget that
The technical name for it is in fact "her majesty's government" so there isn't really any pretense that they serve us. They serve the status quo, always have and always will. Your rights and your privacy are just an obstacle to be brushed aside.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
"A warranted police search of your meth lab does not require any consent on your side - that's what the warrant is for. they will just break down the door and go on with the search."
That's true, but....
If my door was two inches thick steel and required an hour or so with a cutting torch to open...
Then you'd be looking at obstruction of justice, disobeying a lawful order, and destruction of evidence because they ain't finding a damn thing after two hours.
Exactly when did they start to go insane?
Once I would have like to go there. Now it sounds like an Orwellian nightmare. Cameras everywhere (that happen to be "malfunctioning" when police hold down an unarmed, ticketed Brazillian subway passenger and shoot him in the head multiple times). Laws passed monitoring all communications. No privacy. Jail sentences if you will not or cannot tell them an encryption key.
This is the kind of shit they would tell us about Russia during the cold war.
Who's getting rich and who's gaining power through this?
they're becoming a total police state. constant surveillance, intercept every email and now this.... i'd say this is absolutely different from a physical key or even a blood sample. in these cases, the thing can be FORCIBLY REMOVED from you without your consent. they CANNOT do that with the contents of your mind. yet. until they get a neural von eick phreaking thing working.... oh well, at least the suspects can just do the math. 1 to 5 years in prison vs. whatever might be on their laptops. ugh. jin
What? a nuke on front door bell pressing? or possibly so many torrents they cant find anything. I cant find anything so I dunno how the authorities will ;)
On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
The text of a court document which had been deemed protected?
Anyway, it wouldn't matter. At worst, you would be asked to reveal it in a closed court (i.e. just the judge and lawyers). There's no such thing as a secret in a court case, though they may choose to not disclose the information in public records or with the galleries full of the public if they think it would cause harm (e.g. the name of an underage defendant, or the location of someone who is at risk of vigilantism, trade secrets etc.).
Just out of curiosity...
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) article 14 sub 3:
"In the determination of any criminal charge against him, everyone shall be entitled to the following minimum guarantees, in full equality[...]
3g: Not to be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt."
Why doesn't this apply??
Your radical ideas about deniable encryption have been suggested before.. and actually work quite well! Here ya' go
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
It's amazing how many of the draconian, rights-reducing laws drawn up by democratically elected representatives get knocked back by the House of Lords, an un-elected body.
The Lords can alter Bills before Parliament, but are also the last appeal court (before going to the European Court of Human Rights).
Let's hear it for a benevolent oligarchy!
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
anyways don't more people die every year due to NUTS than terrorism?
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" ... sadly very true... So now we have two UK Big Brother bits of news in one morning. Oh what a time to live in the UK. But in the end, it doesn't just affect the UK. It will eventually apply to every country, because...
... My point is, the names in history change and the names of their ideologies change. But what remains is basic human psychology and that doesn't change. The lack of empathy of the ones in power over their powerless minions never changes. For all their words, its only their actions which count and millions now face loosing their jobs and millions are treated unfairly by the ones in power. In such a world, its no surprise that the ones in power would want to watch their minions very closely. After all, people could start to complain its getting all to unfair. But we cannot have that. We need ever more laws to protect the ones in power and ever more laws to keep the minions down and away from power.
Unfortunately most people fail to see the connection between lists and any danger. The lists are being made to influence people who speaking out against the ones in power. But most people fail to see the danger of giving the power seekers ever more data to mine on everyone. Knowledge is power and the ones in power seek the use that knowledge to prevent people standing against their point of view.
With ever more detailed lists on peoples views, soon we end up with people fearful of what they say on the phone and in emails, for fear of their views could even just risk being taken out of context and in any way critical of the people in power. At that point, the ones in power are influencing people directly.
At that point, we live in a police state, where freedom is gone and replaced by fear of the ones in power. Problem is, we are getting there now, and from here on out, its simply a matter of consolidation of ever more detailed data mining. The central reason why centuries ago votes were made in secret, was to prevent the ones in power, from seeking to influence the voters. Yet the power seekers are forever seeking to game the system to gain ever more information on peoples opinions. Now the ones in power are building automated systems to influence people.
Throughout history its been shown time and time again that the ones in power become ever more corrupt over time without any feedback on how they are behaving. Its been show so many times through history.
Most people don't realise the game people in power are playing. People in power are not so interested in individuals. The ones in power are interested in adding everyone to different lists so they can then control and profiling groups of people, so they can then use divide and conquer tactics, to break groups of people up. The goal is that the fragmented groups cannot then stand and oppose the point of view of the ones in power. That is why they data mine.
The lessons of history have not been learned by enough people. Looks like the world is seeking to repeat the mistakes of the past. Freedom and democracy are constantly undermined by a minority of people in power for their own gain. Its just a matter of time and how far we are going to let them all game the system to push the excesses ever more unfairly in their favour. After all, its not as if they are robbing hundreds of billions of tax payers money to keep their rich lifestyles while millions risk loosing everything.
Anyway, if the millions of people can't buy bread, then let them eat cake.
The world will never change until everyone worldwide realises that people who constantly seek power over others have a recognisable cluster B personality disorder. All cluster B personality disorders are ultimately driven by fear. And the ones with the disorder constantly seek to control that fear and control everyone around them based on their fear. (There are multiple fears, two examples are lack of a
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
How about you just touch the file into the past and then delete it? Sure they will be able to recover the file, but you can claim you deleted it a few weeks ago because you forgot the key.
... this doesn't sound too unreasonable. An encryption key isn't that different from a physical key. If the courts can demand one, why shouldn't they be able to demand the other under similar circumstance?. Certainly calling this totalitarianism (as certain tags do) is overreacting.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I hate to say this, but given this, plus proposals such as the Communications Data Bill (2008) (described recently in Slashdot, and intended to monitor all telecommunications traffic in the country), when will people start thinking of the UK as a former democracy, where all of the democratic forms and customs are in place, but leached of any real meaning ?
Of course, the proposal for 42 days detention without trial recently went down for defeat in the House of Lords, along with the proposal for secret inquests, so maybe the inevitable reaction to the excesses of the Blair years is setting in and people will stop this rot before it is too late.
Well, that is until some idiot judge rules that it's you who has to prove there are no encrypted files on your disk.
use it. don't rely on someone else or the law to keep you safe.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I tried to start using encryption once, so I installed what I thought was an encryption program.
Turns out what I installed was some sort of huge "key management system" with all sorts of ins and outs and a whole epic mountain of a learning curve which I was expected to either:
- Learn all of intimately before I began
or
- Ignore and pretend I was being a neato-l33to secure communications boy just because some random program I had installed told me I might be.
I don't need to understand the math behind it, but I do need to understand the concepts of what is going on. I should be able to say "Oh, I just received an e-mail, try using this key." instead of telling a huge system, which I presumably need to set up on every computer I ever touch, what to do for me.
-- Someone who uses sftp when he cares
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
One password generates one set of files. The other password produces an entirely different set.
Okay, you can have one of them, but I'm not telling the other...
I suggest you read Slashdot
Yes, but what about terrorist nuts?
What happens if you say you have forgotten the password to decrypt the key?
America, Home of the Brave.
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan openly supported Al Queda training camps used to prepare for the 9/11 attacks. The original Bush Doctrine (you know, before there were 30 of them) stated (more or less) that a government that supported a terrorist organization is as illegitimate at the terrorist organization itself. This was a Good Reason for removing the Taliban, and indeed we did so with strong support from the civilized world. (After 2001, of course, we threw logic out the window, but that's a different tale.)
By your logic, spending money to find a cure for a rare disease is "pretty dumb", since a lot more people die from other causes. I believe that your logic is faulty. It makes sense to address all of the causes of harm, as cash permits. To a person of my Libertarianesque perspective, that means the causes for which people are willing to spend their own cash, of course - including cash taken in taxes - but not my grandchildren's cash. A government that is trillions of dollars in debt ought to be horsewhipped and put on a very tight budget until they pay their debts - but again, that's a different tale.
...it's called the right to silence. As yet I think you can still refuse to speak... heh
Since America is more powerful than Iraq/Afghanistan, it's really more like the bully pounding the kid's face into the pavement (hundreds of thousands dead, billions of dollars lost) due to a prank played on him.
Seeing as how bullying is so prevalent, you'd think this behavior evolved because it's mostly effective. And yeah, overpunishing is a natural way to align incentives. There's numerous examples, but it's probably worst in politics. Many politicans can lose their jobs because of something small & unrelated like a slip of the tongue or an affair.
Don't be ridiculous. The problem isn't that people can't resist, the problem is that they don't. They don't care. Giving every person in the UK a gun is not going to change anything.
It's not illegal to say "I am going to kill the Queen". Otherwise I'd be locked up right now. Your second example is more important. Suppose they decide that 40GB encrypted partition of work documents that you are legally obliged not to reveal to third parties under Deed of Covenant. Now by asking you to release the key, they're asking you to break an existing legal agreement you have with another party.
BRB, being arrested for first sentence.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Honestly, officer, I don't know what you're talking about. This is not an 'encrypted volume', it's just a big /dev/random output.
compels someone served under the act to divulge an encryption key used to scramble data on a PC's hard drive
I think I see a way out of this lads!
I'm predicting ebay's traffic of pre-intel macs is about to take a massive leap!
I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was going blame you for it!
This is interesting as to how the ECHR will rule on this case.
Their case laws are as follows: article 6 grants you the right not to incriminate yourself and you do not have to divulge information that is DEPENDANT of your will. So the question either is, does the key exist apart from your will, or does the data exist apart from your will.
There is a difference between these two. If your key is solely in your memory, you do not have to divulge it. If someone else knows it, you have to give it. Does the data exist? Is encrypted state enough to say it exists.
I would really like a ruling from them on this.
Hmmm, if i was a terrorist or organised gang member what would i prefer? 2-5 years for not reveling the key or 25+ years for what the file contains...
All alcoholics quit. Some while they are still alive.
They're complementary. Help yourself.
I don't mean any disrespect to those who died in 9/11, but people are dying all the time from accidents, disease and natural disaster. Wasting all the money you have on going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact it was a terrorist organisation and not a single country that attacked you, is pretty dumb. If you go around spending billions attacking everyone that you feel slightly threatened by, you'll end up in financial meltdown... oh, wait...
It was an ideology that attacked America. A non-free ideology that can't assess it's superiority in any manner other than killing.
Then again, since this is a religion, and we're "secular" : here's a thought : if Darwin's right, and they can kill others with relative impunity (which you propose : no real reaction against the ideology due to the 9/11 attack) then you have supported their behavior : they will obviously attempt to repeat it.
And if they succeed, according to darwin, the price for you is extermination, down to the last man, woman and child.
Tell me, is Darwin right ? Do Ideologies get selected out because of the killing/defense and procreation properties of their carriers ?
Or is all that stuff nonsense ?
(btw, I am an atheist too, I just honestly don't know how to think about this consistently. If Darwin's right, we have exactly one choice : fight back and fight to exterminate every last one of them. Extermination for one of the 2 parties is, regardless of tactics or respect for human rights (which the other side doesn't even pretend to have), or even firepower available the expected outcome. Even whether or not nuclear weapons are used (or even agreed to not be used) changes nothing : extermination is the Darwinist fate for all except one : one of the many is the fittest, after a little while this one will dominate. A little while longer and all others will be gone, and Darwin will start trying out new varieties, all descendent from this "one". Funny how it's entirely possible that the party that's killing people for embracing Darwinism could be the most fit one).
It is also about avoiding catch-22s. The problem with requiring self incrimination is it can lead to a situation where they can lock people up for no reason. They charge you with a crime and say "Confess to this crime," you say "I didn't do it," they say "Refusal to testify against yourself is against the law, we are going to lock you up until you confess." So that is one important reason for the 5th amendment, it avoids situations like that.
Well encryption keys fall in that category. There are three important cases I can think of:
1) You forgot the password. This happens. I deal with many password reset requests a year and this is for computer/e-mail accounts that people use on a regular basis. If these people can't remember that, I find it extremely reasonable to assume they'd forget the password to an encryption volume they don't often use. Well, if you can go to jail for refusing to disclose your key, then you can go to jail for being forgetful.
2) A file that isn't yours. Your computer gets hacked, or someone you know uses it without your permission. Whatever the case, an encrypted file gets stuck on your computer that isn't yours. You can't had over the key, you don't know it. However there's no way to prove that so you go to jail.
3) Random data. Good crypto is nice and random. You can't distinguish it from other random or pseudo random noise. So you have a random file on your computer, or maybe just random data that there is a deleted file record for (as in there was a legit file there, it got deleted, it's space has now been overwritten by garbage). You can't prove it isn't encrypted data so you go to jail.
So I see encryption keys as very relevant under 5th amendment protection. We do not want a catch-22 situation where police can lock you up indefinitely just because they find something that looks encrypted.
i know lets declared a War on Nuts!
In its ruling, the appeals court said an encryption key is no different than a physical key
Then they should have absolutely no trouble obtaining it without my cooperation.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
... my encryption key consists of a complete confession of my latest crime plus GPS coordinates of where I've buried the evidence. I'd definitely be incriminating myself by divulging it, so I won't.
The fingerprinting is for visitors only. I'm a US citizen and I travel to Canada at least one a year. No fingerprinting on the way back in, no set questions (they ask varied amounts) and I don't have to present an itinerary . They figured, correctly, that visitors would have trouble contesting the retarded law whereas citizens could get it struck down. As a practical matter they pretty much can't keep you out if you are a citizen. You have a right to return to your country.
"Fail to do so and what's coming to you is solely your own fault."
Really? You don't think its the fault of the person who goes on to commit what ever injustice against the victim?
So you're saying, for example, a robbery is the house owners fault for not locking his door? The robber is some sort of force of nature that bares no responsibility?
Is that really what you mean or have you just not thought you statement through.
You premise fails because the UK is also in a utter mess, as are the other major markets. Some of whom are not fixated with invading other counties and killing thousands of civilians.
In my opinion this is great news. And I mean that in all seriousness.
This case sets the precedent that digital items are no different then there analog counter parts. Which is GREAT! Because investigators have avoided holding themselves to the same standards for respecting the privacy of digital mail and digital files that they have for their analog equivalent. So when you get dragged to court to reveal the key for your files that the government would have no business in if they were physical files, then the second the judge says you have to give it over because it's no different then a physical key, you can just argue that you shouldn't be compelled to give over the key because the government has no business being all up in your files.
Ok, so this only good in an unreasonable search and seizure sort of way. But quite frankly that's the area of personal privacy that I care about. If they have a valid reason to be all up in your junk, I'm glad that you get to be held in contempt if you don't provide them a key.
That's why it's far better to create hidden, encrypted containers, using Truecrypt's plausible deniability. If the cops see your whole HD is encrypted, it's pretty obvious, and they will want to see what's on it because then they start suspecting you have something to hide. But if you have a file called C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\kb2357334.dat which is in fact a hidden Truecrypt volume, first they'd have to find the file, and then think that it may be encrypted, which is a chance in a million, so you're so much safer.
Like, for example, if the passphrase was something that is covered by the Official Secrets Act and which would be illegal to divulge?
Coincidently, that is not only their title but their job. Judges "judge" things.
I guess it's time for an http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/10/15/2222209.shtml over-sea proxy and http://www.truecrypt.org/ then
Shit, statistically you have a MUCH better chance of being killed by a falling vending machine than terrorism.
Unfortunatly /. don't make up the majority of the UK. Average Joe over here does what he's told by the Daily Mail.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
You can go 2 different routes. Encrypt all your HDs, speak out against the government on what we know are monitored channels like email, cellphones and IM, do highly visible speeches and get put on even more lists by the authorities... or you can create hidden encryption files, send files over under the radar mediums like IRC or XMPP, use word of mouth to speak directly to people in a way you know is not monitored, and in the end probably be just as successful, but being smart about it.
an encryption key is no different than a physical key and exists separately from a person's will."
I would respectfully have to disagree with the court's position and prove that it is false by willfully refuse to disclose any information that could incriminate me. The court's opinion is in conflict with obvious evidence to the contrary.
Most people don't realise the game people in power are playing. People in power are not so interested in individuals. The ones in power are interested in adding everyone to different lists so they can then control and profiling groups of people, so they can then use divide and conquer tactics, to break groups of people up. The goal is that the fragmented groups cannot then stand and oppose the point of view of the ones in power. That is why they data mine.
Now replace "the people in power" with "everyone". Give a few days thought for the very obvious but highly non-trivial fact that you yourself are part of "the people in power", and how you, nor anyone else, will do better.
Because let's not kid ourselves. The more "progressive" a government, the more it progressed in the UK in placing surveillance. This is not to say the tories did not do it too.
They did it less, and that's all we can hope for in the real world.
did you even read the summary? the whole point is that they decided NOT to accept this argument!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
http://www.algorithman.de/freedom/protest_images/adolf_brown1.jpg
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
You bring up a good point, but the law in this case would not change. I highly doubt any court of law that could complel you to reveal a password would have ANY compassion.
Of course I hope there ARE sane Judges out there... I just doubt it.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" -- George Orwell
Really? Ban NUTS! We must stop these murdering pulses! I suggest a bill to allow police to seize food recepies and food construction premises!
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.
No they don't.
The procedure is the same:
The judge will decide whether the demand for the key is legitimate. The judge will decide whether it is reasonable to believe you can produce it.
That is "due process."
If his answer to both questions is "Yes" then you can either cough up the key or reconsider your options from inside a 6x8 cell.
I challenge the court! - Demonstrate how to obtain an encryption key from a completely uncooperative person without using illegal means like torture or mind altering drugs. A physical key can always be found and secured if it exists and the suspect is able to do so. A memory pattern is a completely different matter.
No, a memory pattern is a most certainly an irremovable part of the person in whose brain it resides.
What is the plan in case a person blankly refuses to cooperate? - Barring torture and drugs, they can only use the method of keeping the suspect in custody until he or she reveals the key, which also happens to be considered against basic human rights and a form of torture.
If it was made legal to incarcerate people until they reveal an encryption key, it would be a police state backdoor to imprisoning people indefinately if they have any form of computer at the time of their arrest...
"We suspect there is a hidden container on your harddrive! - Reveal the key or else!"
"But I know nothing of any hidden containers!"
"Just give us the key"
"I don't know any key!"
"Okay, you'll rot in a prison until you reveal it."
Remember, with programs like TrueCrypt is it impossible to prove the existence of a hidden container without the key so either the court will never grant the unlimited imprisoning or it will blindly trust the police when they say that "it's likely there is a hidden container" and you have yet another element of a police state.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
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Over here in Sweden TV8 showed "The Anti-American" talking about how various european saw at USA. They talked with people in Poland, France and the UK. Maybe there was some italians or something to.
Very interesting and it somewhat made me feel bad for saying stupid things about USA sometimes. Then french people was the most funny one talking about how everyone in USA except in NY was rasists and also how to keep the american culture and english words and influences out of their country.
Yeah right, because french people are so open minded when it comes to influences themself? And they don't think everyone should learn french? Hillarous.
The polish people really liked you and looked up against you, seeing america as the saviour against everyone invading poland. And the UK as your strongest ally obviously like you to except they want to be the imperial worlds #1 force and not just follow lead as it is now :)
Sure we complain about your wars and playing world police, but in the end us europeans and everyone else always wait to long and do to little so I guess it's good that USA step in and fix up the crap, even if it's not a really democratic decision.
The sad part is that you just step in where you have something to gain from stepping in, so problems in countries where you don't gain anything from interfering nothing will happen. But that's fairly understandable in general to.
Oh, and they talked about how Europe, china (?) and especially japan needed the oil from the middle east region much more than USA but didn't helped to keep it political stable and keep the oil flowing. We just took the benefit without helping. Japan can always blame it on how they are pacifists. And also how you could have got the oil real cheap anyway so they argued that wasn't the factor, at least not egoistic and just for your own sake.
Anyway, interesting program.
Maybe the situation here is more dire in the UK, but I don't think your claim holds true for the US (and, absent statistics, it makes me doubt that it holds true for the UK):
Except, those that get killed by falling vending machines are always shaking it to get free product.
So an ordinary person can reduce their probability to zero simply by not trying to get free product by process of shaking the machine.
That is NOT true of risks of being killed by terrorism. Either mitigating the small risk is costly and life altering (buying and living on a ranch in some remote place, rarely leaving) or not predictable, and therefore cannot be mitigated by simple action.
A better number for this comparison would be "falling in the shower". Certain subsets of Slashdot demographic aside, everybody washes once in a while.
As emails can be retained and accessed without any control by various administrations there is no doubt that simple mail letters will soon be also read and filed.
Basically, one cannot write or read freely anymore.
That is the end of the freedom of information and speech.
The encryption key story is just another step towards this. It is effectively asked to somebody to provide information that will lead to incrimination. An encrytion key by its very nature is an information it is not like a door key, because a door can be open without the key.
So the argument given by the judge is false and a lie the comparison does not stand. it is again an abuse of power.
Our country doesn't make the same promises about liberty in a single document which all our countrymen regard as some kind of holy scripture
Our promises of liberty aren't contained within a single document. The Bill of Rights is one of those promises -- State Constitutions are another. Historically speaking many of our rights come from the Common Law. The US Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta also deserve some mention.
It's like a kid vowing to never go back to school again because a bully once stole his lunch money.
Ah yes, a perfectly legitimate comparison. Schoolyard bullies routinely kill thousands of people.
Wasting all the money you have on going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact it was a terrorist organisation and not a single country that attacked you, is pretty dumb.
You'll brook no argument from me on Iraq but what's the issue with Afghanistan? That's where the leadership of the aforementioned terrorist organization was located. I see no problem with going into that country to kill or capture them. My only regret regarding Afghanistan is that GWB was so preoccuipied with Iraq that we outsourced the job to the local warlords instead of doing it ourselves. If we had done it ourselves maybe OBL would already be dead.
If you go around spending billions attacking everyone that you feel slightly threatened by, you'll end up in financial meltdown... oh, wait...
The financial meltdown had very little to do with Afghanistan or Iraq. How did either of those wars result in an unregulated market for credit default swaps that equals nearly 5 times the entire GDP of the United States? What did either of those wars have to do with lending standards and sub-prime mortgages? How do you explain the fact that the rest of the World is also suffering when most of the other countries didn't support our efforts in Iraq and contribute very little to Afghanistan (apparently NATO is a one-way street where North America carries all the burden)?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
My thoughts exactly. Just say you can't remember, and tell them they will just have to look for it, since it's just like a physical key anyway.
Obviously, if it is memorized, it is not be physical - and it is part of your will whether you divulge such information.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
...it's called the right to silence. As yet I think you can still refuse to speak... heh
Sigh. The whole *point* of this discussion is that in this case you *don't* have a right to silence and *must* disclose the key or go to jail.
Maybe I should patent this idea. Similar to the two key system used by nuclear sub commanders to launch a missle, require two (or more) separate pass phrases to access the data where each person only knows ONE of the required pass phrases. If you are asked for your pass phrase, they woulds still have to figure out who has the other one and coerce them to give theirs up as well. If they are unrelated to the "crime" suspected it would be more difficult legally to force them to reveal it.
Yeah right, because french people are so open minded when it comes to influences themself?
The French have a cultural inferiority complex regarding anything from the Anglosphere. They feel that the French language and culture deserve the same recognition on the World stage as the Anglo-Saxon language and culture. They can be amazingly hypocritical at times -- our actions as the "world cop" don't even come close to the atrocities committed by the French in Algeria or Vietnam. I do always find it amusing that they accuse us of imperialism while forgetting about their own history though.
Oh, and they talked about how Europe, china (?) and especially japan needed the oil from the middle east region much more than USA but didn't helped to keep it political stable and keep the oil flowing.
This is the part that amuses me the most. We get most of our oil from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Keeping the Middle East stable is less for our benefit and more for the benefit of the countries that you mentioned. Funny how people never that.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
.
"The magistrate should obey the Laws, the People should obey the magistrate."
- Almanack 1734.
Franklin is always quotable.
But Franklin was always a man of the city.
The man who reforms and professionalizes the night watch - a man who thinks in terms of maintaining the public roads, the postal service, the fire department, the library.
The liberties which concern him most are not necessarily those of the individual, but of the community in which he lives.
How unaware you are.
First off, what does this have to do with the OP? Nothing, but it gives you are chance to vent I guess.
Second, your first sentence makes no sense whatsoever. How about answering the "as" implied?
Third, I love those who, like yourself, cheered the war when it came (because back then you know where the terrorists were and what we had to do to get TO them) but now that the harsh reality of war, and it's impact on YOUR cushy way of life is apparent, preach how it's a "massive overreaction" and "dumb".
There was nothing dumb about the Afgan war. Iraq is questionable, granted, but like I said, there were few questioning it when it happened but there's sure a lot of "wise" people questioning it now. I wonder why.
Congressional term limits need to be re-imposed. Career politicians/lawmakers are the problem.
Wait a second, don't compare apples to oranges, I am the first to agree with you about conspiracies to go into another country and steal their oil, but for one minute, if we were to assume it was a REAL attack, not staged by their own gov. then they owe it to their people to retaliate else they look feeble and attract more even more attacks from not just one terrorist cell, but all of them.
This was about respect and retaliation when the US was attacked.
If we use the bully at school, you would tell him to stand up to that bully correct, else the bully will just keep going at him. The USA had to do what they did, IF IT WAS A REAL ATTACK, but because you and I both DON'T KNOW the real facts, we can only accept it was a real attack as told to us by the US gov. If another country comes up with sound proof that it was in fact a staged event, then we could speculate, but innocent until proven guilty, is the American motto I believe.
You're example is only half-right.
Iraq was flat-out wrong, a fabrication by George W. Bush.
Afghanistan, however, is/was exactly where we needed to be (that's where Al Qaida was/is hiding out).
And yes, your other points are right. And it didn't help when Shrubbie stated "if you're not with us, you're against us!" Such a tool.
Maybe the situation here is more dire in the UK, but I don't think your claim holds true for the US (and, absent statistics, it makes me doubt that it holds true for the UK):
Ah, but he said "falling" vending machines.
That would not be classified as a vending machine fatality, but rather an industrial freight fatality. The real statistics are hidden.
I blame the labour party : )
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No, it's more like one teacher slamming another teacher's face into the pavement just because one of their students played a prank on the first teacher. Wonderful.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
The constitution USED to be referred to as "the supreme law of the land"
Unfortunately, since the nixon years, the supreme court has been using creative interpretations.
The most abused clauses I can think of a is "cruel and unusual punishment", followed in order, by the fourth, first, and fifth amendments.
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Coexistence is a third option.
If we hadn't gone to middle east centuries ago and randomly killed muslims just so we could have our 'holy' city back, they probably wouldn't be so pissed off at us.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
In its ruling, the appeals court said an encryption key is no different than a physical key and exists separately from a person's will.
"The key to the computer equipment is no different to the key to a locked drawer," the court found. "The contents of the drawer exist independently of the suspect; so does the key to it. The contents may or may not be incriminating: the key is neutral."
Fine .. I challenge the court to point to the exact location in my brain where an encryption key resides. .. so its not a equivalent with a physical object like a mechanical key is it?
Oh dear they can't
--- This meme is memory intensive
They could grant you immunity to prosecution and then force you to testify. You could then be jailed if you refused.
I could even imagine a multi-national jurisdiction case where you could be forced to testify in one jurisdiction with immunity that is not respected in another jurisdiction.
You could also be forced to testify against someone else, such as a spouse.
(1) Ignore it. This was the Clinton strategy,
actually, clinton was preparing to go after afghanistan toward the end of his term. He chose to allow his successor to begin this campaign rather than leave the commander's chair in its most critical phase.
Enter bush, with operationignore
Bill Clinton's far-reaching plan to eliminate al Qaeda root and branch was completed only a few weeks before the inauguration of George W. Bush. If it had been implemented then, a former senior Clinton aide told Time, we would be handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office." Instead, Clinton and company decided to turn over the plan to the Bush administration to carry out. Clinton trusted Bush to protect America. This proved, nine months later, to be a disastrous mistake - perhaps the biggest one Clinton ever made.
While all the Bushies focused on their pet projects, Clarke was blowing a gasket. He had a plan, and no one was paying attention. It didn't help that the plan had been hatched under Clinton. Clinton-hating was to the Bush White House what terrorism- fighting was to the Clinton White House.
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But then again yes, USA helps some countries become democratic / remove dictators/ whatever, but obviously not all countries. Though I guess it's hard to fix the whole world at once and USA have no obligations to do that.
(They also mentioned how you had the choice to just ignore it all and don't do anything. Then people wouldn't had the chance to blame it all on you, but then again the leaders didn't cared so much about all the lame whining =P. And I guess if USA didn't interfered but still had a huge powerful military force some people would start complaining how you didn't do anything instead :D)
(I think the polish people discussed who else would had helped them, the british? Not likely that they'd care, and so on.)
You really think the current state of the Middle East is due to the crusades?
Take the UK, US, France and Germany. There have been wars between various combinations of them on and off until fairly recently, and we all get along more or less OK now.
There's got to be more to it than something that happened a very long tiome ago.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I forgot.
Prove I didn't.
(I shudder to think what methods some of these psychos working in intel may have devised to try to counter this sort of argument - especially with how severely the "laws" in these western countries now seem to be getting in respect to not allowing any sort of due process).
The thing is that people DO forget passwords, especially ones they don't use everyday and, I would think, even more so with something embarassing, very private, or potentially incriminating that someone is going to want to make secure.
How would this be dealt with? I am sure they'd say it was all a ruse, but what if it wasn't?
Would they try to lock someone up until they "remember?" No due process there really, but I guess that is a disappearing concept, which is sad reallly.
A warrant can be enforced without my cooperation.
They can drag me away by force and search my house.
If I'm clever enough, I could have hidden it in a manner the investigators did not anticipate, and still get away with the crime.
Handing over an encryption key requires me to cooperate and incriminate myself.
They can copy and brute-force crack my drive if they like, and have several thousand years, but they should not be allowed to compel my password.
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Darwin did not make any claims as to the ways ideologies get selected, and the theory of evolution has no place evaluating foreign policy.
The confusion your post evinces is amazing.
I love the court trying to order that the encryption key exists seperate from the will of the defendant
Since the key only exists in the defendants mind, I wish the courts the best of luck in trying to separate it.
An encryption key is separate from free will only insofar as I am willing to give it to you by my own free will.
Go to this web site and download and read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. It's free. It's apropos to this story. It's enlightening. And it may just change your view of the world.
A clever person solves a problem, A wise person avoids it. -Einstein
Oh wait, tying two things together that literally can't be, is....
Oh yeah, bullshit.
I don't mean any disrespect to someone that doesn't know what they are talking about, but....
Letting a COUNTRY (like Afghanistan could be considered a working country since the USSR invaded, what, a couple DECADES ago) like Afghanistan to aid and abet, or allow them to let a known terrorist organisation to be harbored within their borders is a great idea. Like the ideas of the last couple decades of political communism (or European socialism, depends on your side of the pond as to what you want to call it) and ignoring the problems of the middle east where the PROPER way to deal with it, right?
You're an idiotic kid with little to no ideals of the real world. I'm sure a bunch of euro fags will come along (that have no idea of the linking of France and Germany, since most of you didn't have a fucking clue what happened before you where conceived) and mod me down, but that's OK, sometimes being CORRECT isn't being politically
correct.
Oh wait, you from the UK? Nevermind, I'm sure, since history repeats itself, we (the US) will have to come hand Germany their asses on a platter, AGAIN.
--Toll_Free
Back on topic... (where I Will Be Read)
I remember some years ago, a hacker group forged an e-mail that seemed to come from the minister who had proposed that very same law. It was ncrypted in RSA-512 or something that level, and then they reported the minister to the police, saying he was in touch with criminals (that word had not been replaced by "terrorists" yet). He evidently could NOT prouce the key, and the law was scrapped.
With politicians having no memory whatsoever, I think someone has to do the very same thing every time... Let's try the judge who ruled this.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
This would be the sane interpretation.
I'm wondering who touched the daughters of the mods who gave GP "insightful"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Social Darwinism has little to do with Darwin really and much to do with Herbert Spencer, a nutjob IMHO.
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
Wasting all the money you have on going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact it was a terrorist organisation and not a single country that attacked you, is pretty dumb.
That is blatantly unfair. We are not wasting all the money we have. We don't have nearly that much money - We're wasting money we don't have.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
This violates the well-known "nemo tenetur se ipsum prodere" principle that is also constituted in the European Convention of Human Rights, which overrides UK law.
The question is not whether encrpytion keys are comparable to real keys. According to the nemo tenetur principle you have to endure rightful passive measures, but never have to actively assist in your own conviction. The comparison to DNA samples also shows a poor understanding of this very basic principle for the same reason - they are taken, you're not giving them.
So put shortly - the defendant should claim a violation of his rights under the ECHR.
Mental note: Use a key that gets distributed among several confederates and that I retain no personal knowledge of, other than a small piece. It will at least distribute the risk. Retain only a small portion of the key for myself, and store it in an obscure place.
Program Intellivision!
The first thing investigators do is make a copied image of the entire drive. They do all of their investigation on the copy, leaving the original untouched. If your 'duress' password triggers the erasure of the copy, they will just have confirmation that it really is an encrypted volume of some sort, and knowing this, they will simply apply rubber-hose cryptanalysis to you until you give them the real password.
You mean I can be ordered to hand over the number to my Swiss bank account, when I don't even have one? When the authorities suspect that I do, but have no way of either proving or disproving it?
You mean I can be thrown in jail for up to a year for not giving them the number to my Swiss bank account, even when I don't have one?
How is it morally defensible to throw someone in jail and let them rot, until they cough up a piece of information that they may not even have?
I use full-disk encryption on my hard drives, so they are basically full of random bits. (By the way, the reason I do this is so that if my computers get stolen, the thieves won't have access to all of my personal data.) Now if some cop asks me for the password, I might be able to provide it... for the one I currently use. For ones I used a few years ago? Unlikely, I change it every year and I don't really remember the old passwords. I never write them down. How would they know the difference? If they won't accept "I forgot" as an answer, then what the fuck am I supposed to do?
I see all of this as just a way to punish people who try to hide things from them. Cause, like, if we've done nothing illegal, then of course we should have nothing to hide!
I would only add that it strikes me as quite possible the choice of U.S. president is already pre-decided? I realize this is one of those "far out conspiracy theories" ... but hear me out and see what you all think?
Perhaps, we're really being "governed" by a group of rich families with deep ties to the banking establishment? (Consider that President Bush's grandfather was married into this group of people.)
For quite a while now, America has been a "thorn in the side" of other nations, because we're perceived as a "young upstart" who won't just sit down and follow the rules (Socialism, etc.) that most other nations follow. We've got our own monetary system and are a big enough "player" in the world economics game that everyone has stakes in it ... but how much more convenient would it be if our American dollar was eliminated, replaced by something more like the Euro?
The problem is, we've got this pesky "Constitution" and "Bill of Rights" that our citizens tend to be such strong believers in. Nobody is going to seriously accept a leader who steps in and tears all of that down in one fell swoop. So instead, it has to be taken apart slowly, brick by brick, so people hardly notice it changing until it's too late to do anything about it.
I think that's where we're at today. Just like the last couple elections, this one will be VERY close, but I predict we'll see Obama "win" because that's what the real "puppet-masters" pulling all the strings want to have happen. Just like Clinton, Obama is one of those relatively unknown people that ascends out of nowhere to be a popular, well-spoken figure that a lot of people like. And he has the agenda that the powers that be want for us.
(Interestingly though, Clinton may not have played along quite how they envisioned. With his JFK complex and all, he apparently really thought he could run the country his own way - instead of just being one of their puppets. That probably would have gotten him killed, except he was smart enough to orchestrate that FBI theft that got him enough "dirt" on important people so he became dangerous. That, too, may be a key reason his wife was pretty quickly "shut down" at getting to run for president this time around?)
Or hey, maybe this is all way off base ... but I think it's interesting to ponder, at least.
Our country doesn't make the same promises about liberty in a single document which all our countrymen regard as some kind of holy scripture. It is the American attitude of how you are all in the "land of freedom, better than all other nations in every way" that makes your massive overreaction to one terrorist attack so ironic. It's like a kid vowing to never go back to school again because a bully once stole his lunch money.
I don't mean any disrespect to those who died in 9/11, but people are dying all the time from accidents, disease and natural disaster. Wasting all the money you have on going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact it was a terrorist organisation and not a single country that attacked you, is pretty dumb. If you go around spending billions attacking everyone that you feel slightly threatened by, you'll end up in financial meltdown... oh, wait...
Actually the constitution of the united states has more legal power than the holy scripture ever did. And the USA is not the only country which has such a document. Look at Canada. Look at Japan. Look at France. The UK is still living in the dark ages with respect to its constitution. It has none, and in its place it has nothing but dumb luck as to whether or not any given Monarch is going to be a benign and loving ruler, a tyranical maniac or perhaps an ignorant and naive child with a learning disability who lives in Denmark and doesn't speak English. The US constitution is a more valuable piece of law than anything which ever came out of the UK.
the people of the UK are at the complete and utter mercy of government, a government which is still partially hereditary and partially theocracy. The UK has the worst civil liberties in all of europe and its only going to get worse and worse without a written constitution.
At the most fundamental level, the UK has a government which is not by the people, but is separate and apart from the people. The people have no real power or rights in the UK except what the government supposes it gives them.
And FYI: In case you didn't know, the UK is also at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and is ALSO spending billions.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
If I were a terrorist, or had a boatload of kiddie pr0n on the drive, you damn straight I would "forget" the key.
Let's see, ONE year for obstruction of justice vs. many years in Pound Me In The Ass the prison? Gee, my memory would really suck ass about then.
How about doing what I do? I carry around a SecureID fob that is broken (cracked it open, zapped the guts with 110v AC) and melted off a few of the serial ID's on the outside) and say "hey, the code is 1234 plus whatever is displaying on that key. I can't help it if the key is broken!!"
Haven't had to say it yet, but I'm ready to.
Well there are two good ones. One use a two key system like TrueCrypt which makes it impossible to prove you have any hidden data. Two, make the key an incriminating statement. The reason they ruled this way is that they treat the key as physically separate thing from the person, by making it an incriminating statement you can claim that they act of giving them the key would inherently incriminate you.
Giuliani'd in the 1st reply And its sort of on topic, well played good sir, well played.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Our country doesn't make the same promises about liberty in a single document which all our countrymen regard as some kind of holy scripture.
Does that make you feel better about this?
"the appeals court said an encryption key is no different than a physical key and exists separately from a person's will"
Well, at least here in Brazil, you have the right to do not give your keys to the police, but if they have a warrant, they can kick down your door.
So, they could stole my encryptation keys, but not force me to give it to them.
anyways don't more people die every year due to NUTS than terrorism?
Sometimes you feel like a nut...
What?
my encryption keyphrase is, of course, "i kill3d k3nny [...]" so i can't divulge it without incriminating myself.
should give the unsavvy judge a migraine...
but to that idiot, there may be no difference between my "confession"-keyphrase and the encrypted "suspected evidence", anyway...
Here you go. I'm sure this solution has shown up on slashdot before:
1) Visible Encrypted Volume containing:
a) Pr0n
b) Hidden Encrypted Volume containing:
i) Naked pictures of Bea Arthur, or otherwise freeky (but legal) Pr0n
ii) Suspicious looking but legal plans to take over your local condo board
iii) Hidden Encrypted Volume containing:
A) Your top secret plans to take over the world
If you get the court order then give them the key for 1). If they get pushy, then give them the key for b). Act like you have no idea about iii)
The difference is that with a search warrant for a house, police can simply lock you up for a short time and force their way into the house.
They cannot do that with a passphrase or key for an encrypted volume.
I hope you see the difference now.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
I disagree. Let's say I keep a written notebook (pen and paper). I write information in code. The police can demand the notebook, but I don't have to tell you what it means. Good luck reading it.
Likewise, you can demand my hard drive, but I don't have to tell you how to decode it.
Life in a free society means the police don't always get what they want, and yes, sometimes the bad guys go free. Deal with it.
Besides, technically I don't know the key. I know the passphrase that the program will then use to calculate the key.
I swear under oath that being forgetful is my only 'sin'. It is awful if law punishes this with years in prison.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
...this article is exactly why I protested against the RIP bill, including canvassing MPs and MEPs at the time.
The law also included (as I recall now some years later, but may have been a separate bill around the same time) the right to lock people up for possession of articles which may be used in the production of bombs etc....which means anyone with bleach in the house could be locked up.
With ID cards being promulgated through despite no logical argument for them, the UK is drifting somnambulant into a bureaucratic dictatorship (e.g. ID cards, in the law passed to set up the scheme, no one except a few gov agencies are allowed to even ask to see - if anyone else does, it's punishable in law. Plus, those agencies shouldn't need to see them and/or could already obtain necessary proof of ID using existing mechanisms...if only they applied them well enough).
Now is definitely a time in the UK to learn how to conduct activities "off grid" as far as possible and to do everything possible to get these awful draconian laws ditched as soon as possible too.
What if an encryption is used that involves not simply a passphrase, but a segment of original code in order to unlock the data? For example, the 'key' which I remember, in my head, might be '7345632', but that is only a reference used to generate the passphrase by computing the digits of pi and using some number of them starting at digit 7345632 (or some other algorithm). Thus I could use a passphrase generating program of my own design, that I could type in from memory - a python script, for example. That code could generate a passphrase, put it on the clipboard, and I could paste it in to my encryption program blindly.
Thus all I actually know is the algorithm and the seed I used. What could they compel me to reveal? The algorithm...even the existence of the algorithm? If I simply reveal the seed but not the algorithm, can they compel me to make it work for them?
The 'encryption keys are the same as keys for locks' comparison is incorrect. If keys for locks were the same, you could take a key and turn a pile of documents into something you could not identify as containing data. A pile of random, innocuous objects, with not even the flavor of original meaning. Any conclusions you could draw from the objects in the pile would be misleading - this bit here might look like a dog, but the original documents had nothing to do with dogs. The pile of objects would be indistinguishable from a pile containing no meaning. Locks and keys do not work that way; locks and keys work like physical objects limited by physical laws - encryption would be MAGICAL if it were to occur in physical reality.
They already made an image copy of the disk. They are working from copies of copies. But maybe what you could do is use a program that uses more than just a key. It also uses specific gestures in how you personally interact with the computer as part of hashing that key into the data table used to actually decrypt.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
...as a routine matter of course. If everyone does this, then all those unallocated blocks look like maybe they could be hidden data. But since everyone does this (that is, if we start doing this) it can be easily blamed on the residule random data. Need an excuse for even doing random data at all? It was a device test and there's no real reason to spend time to wipe it back to zero afterwards.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The real key *WAS* a big 32768 bit binary string stored in a key file. The key I memorized is just a pass-phrase key used to decrypt the real key. Unfortunately, the big binary key file was ... accidentally deleted and written over by another file. Or maybe the police damaged it or lost it when they were making that first image copy of the hard drive.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It is the American attitude of how you are all in the "land of freedom, better than all other nations in every way" that makes your massive overreaction to one terrorist attack so ironic. It's like a kid vowing to never go back to school again because a bully once stole his lunch money.
No, the American response to 9/11 was not avoid school because of one bully, instead , we declared war on virtually every bully on the planet because one punched us in the nose. The schoolyard mentality is exactly why it made sense to so many people to invade iraq even though there was no direct link to 9/11. The idea was that Saddam was a bully, so we chould go and get him too while we were bringing the big old stick to the playground. Had the war in Iraq not turned into an occupation, there is no doubt that Bush would have invaded Iran and then Syria after that.
This is my sig.
I am not familiar with the UK precedent, but this result is a reasonable extension of already established doctrine in the U.S.
The two are not identical, but similar.
In the U.S., the privilege against self-incrimination has been narrowly whittled down to cover "testimonial" statements... statements that are akin to testifying in court. The government can't compel those statements, or statements that could be testimonial. But they can do a lot else. This is why taking fingerprints or DNA, or even incriminating letters or bank documents are not covered by the 5th amendment. Those items are not testimony.
The analogy from an encryption key to physical key should be expected, even if it's not entirely accurate.
Apart from the issues raised by my sibling posts, it is painfully obvious that parent has never been to Europe, or never studied Europe, and probably never had a single conversation with a European. Well, I am from Europe and let me tell you, the picture parent sketches isn't in any way representative of any of the mindsets of Europeans I know of, as diverse as those are. Bonus points for treating Europe as a single monolithic entity when in fact there are huge divides between for example the islands and the continent, free Europe and not-so-free-as-we'd-really-like Europe (Italy, I'm looking at you), old Europe and new-but-medieval Europe (Poland) and so on. So next time, dear parent, think before you post.
As a whole [citizens allowed] the government over-reaction and "think of the children"/"OMG TERRRORISTS ARE GONNA GIT YOU" is a slap in the face of everything this country was built on. I can say I did my part of writing my congress-critters and saying my rights are to important to be trampled on, even going so far as to point out that they are directly violating the oath of office taken by passing some of the laws that have come to be and demanding that they step down. Not that it got me anywhere, but I can say it sit idly by as everything got flushed....
That aside, the financial meltdown is merely a symptom of deregulation that is starting to affect more than just the United States. I see this "meltdown" as more of a correction of an over-inflated stock market and have been expecting it to happen since the 10,000 mark was broken around 2002/2003.
My personal feeling on the meltdown is very simple, you made your bed FUCKING SLEEP IN IT. The Government's not coming to bail me out of anything unless they can charge me for it. AIG takes $100K+ trips to islands for "corporate meetings" with this "bailout" money, in my eyes, that means they owe every dime they were given back + 10% interest per day from the time the received it. The US Government however, looks the other way, at least from the last I've heard about it.
If they can't compel you to tell where the contraband is, just keep your secret key written on a piece of paper and hide the paper where they can't find it. They can't compel you to tell them where the paper is, and if the key is long enough, you can't be reasonably expected to remember it.
Keep in mind that the government has not been the voice of the people and has not been serving said people for many years.
9 out of 10 people I speak to is opposed to the increased oppression, government power and abuse of human rights.
My government does not speak for me, and neither do you.
Why not have an encryption system where you can encrypt with two keys. One will get you back the real data, while the other will give back a fake?
I have some old .zip files that I AES encrypted many years ago and although I thought I made the passphrase something very simple that my monkey brain would remember I dug these files up the other day and could not for the life of me remember the passphrase.
So I better go back and scrub them from the disk or else I'd be in serious trouble if there is suspicion of any computer crime and my systems are searched. I bet there are many people in this situation and that number will only be going up as these technologies get easier to use and people see the need to protect their electronic records. Should anyone in this situation have to go to jail over a few old encrypted document stores?
It's a matter of trust in the government, even though this current Labour one is crap, the public doesn't think it's corrupt.
I don't really get were people in the US are coming from about how screwed we are in the UK, it's not like in the US you can't be falsely imprisoned because of your sacred 'Bill of Rights'.
It's the same situation in both countries, we both have so many loopholes and anti-: Terrorism, Government, Criminal, ... laws that mean we could be framed and thrown in jail indefinitely.
Also at least in the UK we can't be tortured, and the CIA has a very large past record of extreme spying on US citizens so we're better off over here.
First Samzenpus posts FUD about the 42 days detention, then when multiple stories are posted to the firehose that contradict the FUD they're rejected. What do we get instead? More anti-UK FUD.
Samzenpus should get some credibility. He/she/it is getting worse than KDawson.
The early crypto-nerd set failed in one very important respect:
They didn't make basic information about public key encryption and signing widely available in an approachable manner. Also, the OS vendors like Apple and MS (and Redhat etc.) didn't represent keys as a unique class of objects, easily recognizable with built-in functions for key management. So the concept and behavior of a "key" remained slippery to people trying out schemes like PGP.
Probably the easiest way to start using public keys today is SMIME. It's built into most clients (yes, even Outlook Express). You just have to think of the 'certificate' as an ID tag with a key attached.
This is the problem with US. Smug people thinking nothing bad could happen to them, because they have 'the best system in the world'. It's truly sad that you're taught that, because it makes you apathetic (until someone tries to critique your system that is).
Here's news for you chap: we have a Bill of Rights, it was made law a full 100 years before yours was. Your Bill of Rights is based on ours.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
All that is silly. You don't need to wipe the hard drive, all you have to do is make sure it is unrecoverable from items in the house plus your memory.
First, build a machine that, on bootup, reads the encrypted header (With the actual key) into memory and then overwrites it on disk. With 0s, so it's obviously invalid. On proper shutdown, it writes it back.
Then put a screensaver password on the computer. Disable any sort of proper shutdown from that screen.
Then put a UPS toggle tripwire in places where, if the door is broken down, it turns off the UPS.
So if you're there and they break down the door, it cuts off without you doing anything, so no tampering with evidence charge. If they don't break down the door, you can quickly press a screensaver hotkey, which is technically illegal but unprovable, and (openly) disable the tripwire, so you can't be charged with tampering with evidence.
While in theory if they show up and the screensaver is on, they could demand you type in the password, in actuality they will 'intelligent' immediately shut the computer off to make a disk image. (And, of course, you could do exactly what they're trying to avoid you having done, and make a duress password, just in case they aren't 'intelligent'.)
Then find someone trusted in another country to hold a copy of the encrypted header for you. Tell them to destroy it if you are unreachable or arrested. Tell the police exactly what you did, (To avoid a tampering with evidence charge) they won't have time to stop it...international demands for witnesses and evidence are very convoluted.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Oh, and they talked about how Europe, china (?) and especially japan needed the oil from the middle east region much more than USA but didn't helped to keep it political stable and keep the oil flowing.
This is the part that amuses me the most. We get most of our oil from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Keeping the Middle East stable is less for our benefit and more for the benefit of the countries that you mentioned. Funny how people never that.
There is a single world market for oil. If the Middle East does not produce oil, then the countries mentioned will buy their oil elsewhere, which makes it harder for us to get our oil, as prices rise. It's like cars on bridges -- I don't use the San Mateo bridge, but rather the the Dumbarton; however, if the San Mateo bridge goes down, there will be a hell of a lot more cars on the Dumbarton, so really, I do benefit from the San Mateo bridge.
I wonder if it's illegal now to just forget. "I'd love to help you officer, but I guess I just forgot it!"
In addition to (or as a substitute to) a password, configure things so that you (also) need a hardware token. When you're asked for the password you can give to them, but tell them you've mailed the token to yourself/someone in another country. (Whether you actually mailed it or just hide it under a floorboard is up to you.)
You better hope your backups are also encrypted in a similar fashion.
If search warrants are required to search your house and the cops show up with a search warrant to search your house...and they find a lock box under a loose floor board, doesn't the search warrant entitle them to get the key from you? How is encrypted file(s) any different? In the lock box scenario, you could say 'Sorry, I lost it'. In the encryptions scenario, you could say 'Sorry, I forgot it'....how are the situations different? Do we need to rethink laws concerning the lock box scenario? Laws that are 100s of years old? I think not.
Lucky for us Americans, a subpoena can not force you to testify against yourself. It's a Constitutional right written in black ink and cannot be revoked by any mere subpoena.
Freedom of assembly and association were rights written right into the USSR's Constitution. Freedom of religion is written into China's.
I think the thing you have to recognise about religious thought is that time means something different from what it means in the objective historical sense. The Abrahamic faiths are based around a God who is timeless, and a sense of history in which much of what happens is seen as symbolically prefiguring other events. Every historical moment is a living part of the salvation history of that particular religion, and a continuity is assumed between Christians/Jews/Muslims then and Christians/Jews/Muslims now.
It's like the philosopher's axe: replace the handle, then replace the head, then replace the handle again - is it the same axe? Secular society may be beginning to move away from blaming people for the crimes of their ancestors, although we still have apologies for slavery from people who have never seen a slave in their lives, or apologies for war crimes by people who were barely born when they were carried out. Still, hopefully not too many people would think it sensible to blame the new generation of German people for the Holocaust.
In the religious hermeneutic, however, people can be cursed through their descendants until the end of time, and if that's the case, why can't the descendants (literal or figurative) of the Crusaders also be a focus of anger for the descendants of their victims? (Note that I am speaking rhetorically here, not expressing my own opinion.) Especially when those descendants appear to have an analogous hatred and desire to eradicate Islam?
I'm not saying that all religious people think this way, of course, but that religious modes of thought are favourable to a model of history which emphasises symbolic continuity rather than the autonomy of successive generations.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
massive overreaction to one terrorist attack
1. That was actually the second time that same building was attacked, by the same people.
2. You are also forgetting about several embassies of ours they blew up, and a Naval warship (the Cole).
3. While Iraq was (and is) completely seperate from the terrorism issue, the reason we're there is because daddy Bush go cold feet & didn't finish the job the first time around.
4. Afghanistan WAS (and is) tied to the terrorists, and were providing them shelter & resources as a way of saying thanks to America for helping them kick the Russians out.
5. I have never seen a country that claims they are NOT the 'best place' on the planet.
6. While the money spent on foreign wars certainly didn't help the economy, most of the current problem is the result of a bunch of crooked bankers and Wall Street financiers doing shady deals. Essentially it was a Ponzi scheme, which will always eventually collapse no matter how good your economy is. And this wasn't just the US banks involved, the European bankers were right in the middle of the crooked deals as well, and are also facing big financial problems.
Please check your history & facts before posting next time.
So easily defeated through any plausibly deniable encryption system.
No need for software install, no need for TrueCryp - just a stock 2.6 kernel.
Instructios
- take blank hard disk, put a small os partition (e.g. linux with samba), one large data partition. Shred it fully. Format it (Fat32 because it's so versatile). Copy 20GB of photos, rip some cd (not dvds) you own. Export through samba.
- Have usb stick with a kernel with a rmdisk. The ramdisk uses dm-crypt somewhere past the first 20GB. Have a full system there, chroot to it. Pu whatever you please there.
Now unless the usb key is found you just have a normal PC. No encryption software is even installed. You don't even know what aes means. You don't know how to compile a module or create a ramdisk. And just use your phone/camera to boot on instead of a usb stick, for good measure.
This is plausible deniability.
- Additional level assuming your usb stick is caught: upon booting dm-crypt uses a random password. Only as a "debugging" feature, if you rush to type something on the keyboard within say 15 secs. it uses that as a "seed". Add some UPS so that risking losing your ripped DVD is credible because it's supposed not to happen more often than the hard disk/psu/fan fails anyway.
This is tying your hands: It's not that you don't remember the password. You just never knew it.
In brief it is nowaday extremely simple using standad software to configure your PC such that even if forensics know bit-for-bit the file they want to prove exists on your PC - they just can't.
Policy makers are shockingly clueless.
Now if the NSA wants your data, that's a different story, consider they have it already anyway.
Is an encryption system that with one passphrase gives the real data, and with another gives something else, completely innocent.
I think the French "inferiority/superiority complex" has deep historical roots. Now, I know little about France and history, but there was a time when French was the defacto language for diplomacy and trade, just like English is today. That's where the term "lingua franca" comes from.
Likewise, until the defeat of Napoleon, they used to be a major military power that not only maintained a vast overseas empire, but also managed to subdue almost all of the other European nations. Come to think of it, maybe they were sorta like the "Americans" of their time (though of course I don't think they ever matched the clout of the British Empire).
Now that they are far less relevant in the world stage, their "has been" status conflicts harshly with their prideful history hence, I think, their "inferiority/superiority complex".
Exactly when did they start to go insane?
Maintaining this dalliance with a divine monarch and no constitution was bound to bite them in the ass sooner or later. Later has arrived. Sorry chaps.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You have some interesting points, and put them eloquently.
However I think I can beat you when it comes to being concise: they're a bunch of nutters.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's hard to believe that could happen in a developed democratic country. This is almost as unlikely as the "HIV does not cause AIDS" theory.
You would need some very strong sources to convince me of that.
Specifically,
It's well known that the authorities in Spain keep tabs on most of the organisation and could probably round up most of them overnight if they really wanted.
I really doubt the Spanish population would allow the government to behave like this.
Get real.
And what if I want to transfer the same encrypted / signed message via sneakernet to someone across the hall? I find that most "all inclusive solutions" have the attitude of "this solution is all-inclusive, so of course you wouldn't ever want to do anything involving anything other than what this covers."
Sometimes you just want to hand a courier* a thumbdrive with a file on it without worrying about where he might leave it while he's on lunch
*courier, kur--r (noun): some guy who will pass by steve on his way to a meeting later today
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All