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British Teen Jailed Over Encryption Password
An anonymous reader writes "Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool has been convicted of 'failing to disclose an encryption key,' which is an offense under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and as a result has been jailed for 16 weeks. Police seized his computer but could not get past the 50-character encrypted password that he refused to give up. And just to get it out of the way, obligatory XKCD."
That's the typical British response. The reason England is in the position it's in.
Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool, was arrested in May 2009 by police tackling child sexual exploitation.
Well, I guess that makes it okay, then. After all, we can't allow people accused of child sexual exploitation to be free, can we?
On a more serious note, this sucks.
Det Sgt Neil Fowler, of Lancashire police, said: "Drage was previously of good character so the immediate custodial sentence handed down by the judge in this case shows just how seriously the courts take this kind of offence.
"Computer systems are constantly advancing and the legislation used here was specifically brought in to deal with those who are using the internet to commit crime.
"It sends a robust message out to those intent on trying to mask their online criminal activities that they will be taken before the courts with the ultimate sanction, as in this case, being a custodial sentence."
I guess insisting on your privacy is taboo now. Even if you're a good kid, if you refuse to let the police into your private files just on principle, you're boned.
Actually, everyone has it everywhere. What varies from place to place is whether the government recognizes the right and refrains from violating it. This is true of all human rights.
I can see how it's easy to miss, as it is the first sentence in TFA:
They can cut the safe open, you can say you forgot the combination. Forgetting is legally great, Reagen forgot iran-contra and look how that turnout for him.
Which is why you never refuse. You simply forget it. It is not illegal to forget something 50 chars long, it could easily happen.
downloaded music? games? movies? software?
16 years
Maybe some cops see it that way... but videos such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik would have me believe that it's always a good idea to plead the 5th and refuse to say anything. It's related to the idea that refusing to consent to a search without a warrant shouldn't be allowed as evidence that a warrant is necessary ("If he has nothing to hide, then he wouldn't mind us looking around..."). What's the precedent where pleading the 5th has been considered a crime? I can see how refusing to talk would get cops to find something to charge you with and arrest you, since it's annoying for them, but when has it been used as the actual charge for an arrest?
Or, he really does care about his rights and truly believes that he should not be compelled to divulge this password. You're probably right, but it is possible.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
Of course, the UK is not unique in much of this. But what makes these examples so sad for me is how the UK was the foundation for much of what one might consider Western freedom. It fought the good fight against totalitarianism (let's not Godwin this). I don't think those who struggled back then would consider all this to be what they were struggling *for*.
Will this constant erosion of freedom ever stop?
Link up one citation to this happening in the U.S. Sure, you can be abductd off to parts unknown, tried under a military court and executed, but in a US court we still have a Constitution and the Fifth Amendment.
I sort of do - even the guilty deserve due process.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
So only rich people have privacy?
Seems like that could be improved, why not just make being poor a crime?
I think you're forgetting the commerce clause. Specifically the part that says "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!".
Anyone who enters a password to decrypt a disk they haven't already imaged belongs on a prime time cop tv show.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Even if a judge ruled that wasn't you testifying against yourself, you could still protect yourself if you simply said "I don't recall that password." You may notice that not being able to recall is used a lot when under oath. The reason is that there really isn't any way to challenge it. We forget shit all the time (hell everyone seems to forget their passwords if my job is any indication). You can't prove someone hasn't. So they say "What is the password and the 5th amendment doesn't protect you," you say "Sorry, I can't recall that password."
See this doesn't work in Britain because they made it a crime not to provide the password period. If you fail to provide it, regardless of the reason, that's illegal. It was a specific law made for passwords. So can't remember? You are boned. The US has no such similar law. Thus the only way they could get you is if you said you knew the password, but refused to give it up, and it was ruled that wasn't protected under the 5th.
However if you look in to it you discover that while there's little case law, indeed it HAS been ruled that that the 5th prevents you from having to give up a password. As such that will probably stay, in general courts abide by the rulings of other courts of competent jurisdiction.
How do you know the encrypted data is related to the case?
How do you know the encrypted data is not something that is, at least to the 19 year old suspect, even worse?
What if he's secretly gay, his entire family are raging homophobes, and he KNOWS beyond the shadow of doubt that revealing his encryption password will get him disowned?
If this was you, would YOU reveal the password?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
You know it's bad when you need to post as AC just to even speak such 'blasphemy'. The additional effect that has happened is anyone defending an accused 'pedophile', for any reason, is assumed to be a pedophile themselves and attacked accordingly. We may actually be watching the end of the age of reason.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
The reason the courts see it this way is because of the distinction the legal system places on written vs oral evidence. Oral evidence is obvious; the person giving it may or may not be telling the truth. Written evidence however has a more privileged status. Once you've written something down, you can't "take it back". It's out there as physical evidence and can be used against you. This is why even the most gung ho characters will back up if you ask them to put things in writing. The written word is powerful rope with which to hang yourself.
As far as most judges and lawyers are concerned, data on computers is simply another form of the written word, and so anything you've "written" there--encrypted or not--is legitimate evidence waiting to be used against you. In some sense they are in fact right. Personally, I view computer data by its very nature to be more abstract and far more transitory than the traditional written word, and so worthy of less... distinction as evidence in a court. But that said, it is a (quasi-)permanent record of events and that's what courts are interested in.
Bottom line, the old rules still apply. If you don't want to reveal something, never, ever write it down. Encrypting it on your computer is just not good enough. If you don't want people reading it and aren't willing to take a risk, then you either need to delete the data or better yet not write it down in the first place. All that said, encryption is preferable to just leaving your papers lying around, but don't expect encryption alone to magically make your written words disappear.
May the Maths Be with you!
Eh. The Boucher case is a special one, because the idiot was stupid enough to first show his child-porn collection to a law enforcement officer, and then - after the computer was rebooted - refused to provide the password. Initially the state ruled that he couldn't be forced to divulge the password, and in most cases this would hold; however, due to the fact that the presence of child porn on his computer had already been verified, the appeals court ruled that he isn't protected under the 5th. The problem here is that their definition of "already verified" is too loose, because it depends solely on the testimony of the arresting officer(s). Now, if the cops had had the common sense to take a few pictures of the laptop screen, then there would be no issue at all. As it is, if he appeals I'd say he has a pretty good chance of having the decision overturned.
As for the second case, you're talking about a guy who was convicted based on multiple lines of evidence, and is now bitching because the state lawyer happened to mention that "encryption programs" were present on the computer. That's asinine.
If anything, Britain has stronger protection of individual rights than we have here in the US
Thanks for the lulz :)
If you're so committed to the truth, then you should give them the password and the truth shall set you free.
Erm, maybe not so much Doc, if that collection of Bugs Bunny cartoons on your hard drive, some of which featuring Bugs in "drag", are declared to be "kiddy porn" at some point in the near future.
Th-th-th-that's all, folks!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
"Your Honor (or however they say it on that side of the pond), how can I possibly remember a 50 character long passphrase while under all this stress of unfounded charges?"
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I believe you will find it in the Magna Carta (MC.29 on http://alexpeak.com/twr/mc/) for an early variation on the concept.
"No freeman shall be taken captive or imprisoned, or deprived of his lands, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go with force against him nor send forces against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."
While this was originally intended for the nobles, since the emancipation of the masses, I believe it applies to everybody. However, there may be more recent statues that supersede it, such as European Convention on Human Rights.
Mod me down now and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
These two statements are not the same and your entire argument in this thread relies on them meaning the same thing. In a legal system with formally defined rights they would be the same (ie the US legal system). But in a system of common law there can be principles that are not formally stated.
In the case of this principle, it has been widely stated and incorporated into rulings in the British justice system. As such it forms a part of British law, regardless of whether or not we have a document that "grants" this "right" to people.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
ok sir, here is your keyboard, a copy of your hard drive and a mouse.
please 'play' your password at the prompt.
great way to generate a secure password, but I don't think it gets you around the requirement to give up your password when required to do so.
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
This makes no sense in British terms - Parliament is sovereign and cannot be bound.
That said, the centuries old common law presumption of innocence was enshrined in positive law in the Human Rights Act, 1998.
I can't figure out if you are American with a Blair fixation, or British but enamoured of the concept of a written constitution. In either case I think you are misguided:
A written constitution is not "fundamental, nonrevocable and unalienable" since it can be amended, the procedure is just a little more involved than normal legislation. And you only need to look at Prohibition in the US to see that this is no bar to stupid laws that restrict freedom. It also makes them a lot harder to get rid of. Ultimately the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance either way; a citizenry that is either complacent or uncaring of their liberties will lose them in any system, whether or not you have the speed bump of a written constitution or not.
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