Full Disk Encryption Hard For Law Enforcement To Crack

If you'd rather keep your data private, take heart: disk encryption is a lot harder to break than techno-thriller movies and TV shows make it out to be, to the chagrin of some branches of law enforcement. MrSeb writes with word of a paper titled "The growing impact of full disk encryption on digital forensics" [abstract here to paywalled article] that illustrates just how difficult it is. According to the paper, co-authored by a member of US-CERT, "[T]here are three main problems with full disk encryption (FDE): First, evidence-gathering goons can turn off the computer (for transportation) without realizing it's encrypted, and thus can't get back at the data (unless the arrestee gives up his password, which he doesn't have to do); second, if the analysis team doesn't know that the disk is encrypted, it can waste hours trying to read something that's ultimately unreadable; and finally, in the case of hardware-level disk encryption, tampering with the device can trigger self-destruction of the data. The paper does go on to suggest some ways to ameliorate these issues, but ultimately the researchers aren't hopeful: 'Research is needed to develop new techniques and technology for breaking or bypassing full disk encryption.'"

Comments

Re:I have my disk (at least partially) encrypted

[s0litaire]

RAM can hold a copy of the last data held for a good 5 seconds if warm and up to +20mins of frozen,
so it could be chilled/frozen using compressed air, removed and placed into a reader that dumps the ram memory to disk.

Re:Giving up passwords

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

(unless the arrestee gives up his password, which he doesn't have to do);

In the UK he does. And people have been punished for not handing it over.

Unfortunately for everybody, really, the potential 5-year RIPA sentence for refusing to disclose a key is crazy draconian as a threat to induce Joe Public to open every Turing-complete device in his entire life to the cops(after what is, no doubt, a impeccable judicial review); but it is substantially less scary than the sentence you might get for various serious crimes that the key might be hiding, along with any incentive provided by your criminal colleagues in favor of loyalty to the organization...

Deniable encryption only works in theory

[betterunixthanunix]

In practice, the headaches that would ensue from widespread use of deniable encryption would cause one of two outcomes:

1. Police would stop asking for secret keys, or only ask for a short period of time, because they would have no way of knowing whether or not they have the true secret.
2. The system would be outlawed.

Countries that respect and protect a right to free speech would not outlaw such a system, but unfortunately such countries are few and far between. Deniable encryption encryption works in theory, but in practice the existence of non-deniable encryption makes it hard for people to claim that they are innocent users of a deniable encryption system. While there are innocent uses of such a system (perhaps your business secrets are so valuable that being tortured for them is not beyond the realm of possibility) they are few and far between; deniable encryption is tool for protecting your data from a government, and for all their talk about China and Iran, most western governments are not interested in having citizens who can secure their communications and data from police investigations.

Re:Giving up passwords

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't the UK part of the same EU ?

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2006:0174:FIN:EN:HTML

2.4. Privilege against self-incrimination
The presumption of innocence includes the privilege against self-incrimination which is made up of the right of silence and not to be compelled to produce inculpating evidence. The maxim nemo tenetur prodere seipsum , (“no person is to be compelled to accuse himself”) applies. The accused may refuse to answer questions and to produce evidence. The ECtHR[24] held that, although not specifically mentioned in the ECHR, the privilege against self-incrimination is a generally recognised international standard which lies “at the heart of the notion of a fair procedure”. It protects the accused against improper compulsion by the authorities, thus reducing the risk of miscarriages of justice and embodying the equality of arms principle. The prosecution must prove its case without resort to evidence obtained through coercion or oppression. Security and public order cannot justify the suppression of these rights[25].They are linked rights, any compulsion to produce incriminating evidence being an infringement of the right of silence. The State infringed an accused’s right of silence when it sought to compel him to produce bank statements to customs investigators[26]. Coercion to co-operate with the authorities in the pre-trial process may infringe the privilege against self-incrimination and jeopardise the fairness of any subsequent hearing.

Re:I wish this was the case in the UK

[NotSanguine]

It takes a pretty exceptional human to actually remember a useful crypto key

Not really. How hard is to remember a paragraph from your favorite novel or lyrics from a popular song. It's even better if you *mis-remember* the quote/lyrics so that you're the only one who would come up with the result even if someone tried to brute force the key by scanning all your books and listening to all your music.

Perhaps something like:
While the music played you worked by candle light, those San Francisco nights - you were the best in town, Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl, you turned it on the world, that's when you turned the world around

Or maybe:
I was alone I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there. Another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there. ooh and I suddenly see you, ooh did I tell you I need you? Every single day of my life.

Try and brute force those keys. Using punctuation makes it even harder. And these are the first verses to well known songs. Use the third verse of an obscure song (one you don't like would be even better). The music makes it much easier to remember and just about anyone can remember songs/lyrics.

Some people just have zero imagination. Sigh!