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."

Comments

Only 16 weeks?

[Freddybear]

He's getting off easy. In the USA, the cops would get a court order and the judge could order him jailed for contempt of court until he gives up the password.

Re:Only 16 weeks?

[TheGratefulNet]

just a random idea: suppose you need some salt (maybe that's not the right word) to add to the key to make it really secure. and that salt comes from something that must be accessed regularly or the time skews (or something like that) and you'll never (...) be able to get your data back. as a precaution; a dead-man's switch of sorts.

so you go to court and they ask for the key. you tell them YOUR part of the key but one aspect is outside their control; while they had you locked up, time marched on. you were not 'at your desk' to refresh the clock or keygen and so the machine detected an abonormality. at that point, given this theoretical situation, you are now UNABLE to unlock the disk. you may WANT to, but its beyond your control. the machine that gives you the 2nd part is now out of sync and you 'cant fix it' since it may not be your own coding (again, lets say for agument sake).

has that been thought of or tried? a dead-man switch that needs to be kept alive or it won't give up ITS part of the password? its no longer YOU denying the cops, but some other system.

maybe a loophole? maybe someone can use this concept?

Re:What is he hiding?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool, was arrested in May 2009 by police tackling child sexual exploitation"

He was probably suspected of having pictures of his 17-year old naked self on his computer. Quite frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about child porn accusations anymore. If somebody tells me to think of the children, I say "fuck the children" (well, not literally). It's an empty argument, a way of saying "I don't want to discuss this, it's going to happen so shut up." I instinctively assume that anyone who brings up child porn accusations is lying. This is just another instance: They want to read his hard disk, so they accuse him of something unspeakable. The punishment for not remembering a 50 character password after 6 months of not using it is atrocious. These people deserve our deepest disdain. THEY have done wrong and parade their deeds in front of us, while Oliver Drage, for all I know, has not been convicted of anything I would consider a wrong-doing.

Re:Different in the USA?

[zill]

The Fifth Amendment would beg to differ:

No person (...) shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself

Re:But it's hard to remember...

[Tobenisstinky]

But is it only 16 weeks, and that's it, or at the end of the 16 weeks do they ask again? If he refuses again do they just put him back for another 16 weeks (or more)?

Re:What is he hiding?

[Blue Stone]

Theoretically it could be something as innoccuous as a photo of his 16 year old girfriend's boobs (not to mention all sorts of other stuff, like diaries, etc)

The Labour party when it was in power and creating laws out its wazoo (including the RIP Act deployed here) made it an offence to have photos of persons under the age of 18 engaged in sexual acts. To put that in context, you can have a gangbang with a 16 year old (assuming that's her thing) and it's perfectly legal. But if you have a photo of the same girl with her boobs out, taken while you weren't there (!) or if you aren't in a government-sanctioned relationship, ie, long-term or stable (I shit you not) you're a dirty sex criminal.

And that means your life could be destroyed: sex offender's register (probably just for 5 years for a photo of the boobs of a legal to fuck, but not photograph girl) and a bar on any career you might want or develop in all sorts of areas to do with children and 'vulnerable adults'. And maybe any chance of decent employment.

Compared to any of that, even 16 months in prison, after which you at least get to rebuild your life, is probably a price well worth paying. Even for something as trivial as legal-to-touch teen boobs. Or a bit of manga. Or a sexualized stick-figure srawing that some prosecutor might say was 15.

Maybe they think that bikini shot of that cute girl is over-sexualized, and she was only 17 when it was taken...

Maybe it's just regular porn. Or you think so. But get this: you own one picture from a series, which you've never seen. That series of photos contains 'extreme pornography'. Even though your photo doesn't, you still may be guilty of an offence! And stuck on the sex offender's register.

You'd have to be an idiot, assuming the most, er, innocent of porn collections to want to take that risk, hand over your password and place your entire life in the hands of the Criminal Prosecution Service.