UK Cops Want "Breathalyzers" For PCs

An anonymous reader writes "One of the UK's top cyber cops, detective superintendent Charlie McMurdie, says the top brass want to develop the equivalent of a breathalyzer for computers, a simple tool that could be plugged into a machine during a raid and retrieve evidence of illegal activity. McMurdie said the device was needed because of a record number of PCs were being seized by police and because the majority of cops don't have the skills to forensically analyse a computer."

Comments

Re:Outlaw encryption

[orzetto]

What happens if you "forget" the key? Like this: "Your honour, I once experimented with encryption, but could not understand how it worked. The files must be leftovers of that installation. I never used them and they must be empty." How can they prove you are lying, short of breaking the encryption and finding the evidence?

Re:Right

[Firehed]

At least in the US, evidence found against you found in an illegal search* cannot be used against you. If the search was legal (warrant attained or reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing), then it's your fault for having done whatever other stuff you get hit with, regardless of why you/your home/vehicle was searched. Don't confuse this with secondary offenses, like not having your seat belt on in many states (they can't pull you over specifically for that, but can add it to the ticket).

* if they can see the bag of weed (or whatever) on your back seat through the window, not only is it legal for them to arrest you for it, but it also gives them reasonable suspicion to search the rest of the vehicle without attaining a warrant, even if you protest.

IANAL, YMMV, laws vary by state, etc. And all bets tend to be off at border stops, especially internationally. As far as I'm aware, they have the legal (USA PATRIOT act legal, anyways) right to search your vehicle entirely at any international border.

But back to the topic at hand, if your computer is legitimately siezed, I think you should at least be able to know what processes were used to search for X when Y was found. If they want to arrest you for possession of goat porn, and then they find CP, you should be able to find out that the latter came up when they did a general search for porn, rather than when they explicitly searched for it. Or if they find pirated media when searching for CP, which would be a lot harder to accidentally find by the same 'legit' search. It'll never happen, and good luck auditing the police's methods even if you had the right to do so. Just encrypt all of your crap, and don't have illegal stuff.

My 2c