Slashdot Mirror
Judge Orders Child Porn Suspect To Decrypt His Hard Drives
An anonymous reader writes "After having first decided against forcing a suspect to decrypt a number of hard drives that were believed to be his and to contain child pornography, a U.S. judge has changed his mind and has now ordered the suspect to provide law enforcement agents heading the investigation with a decrypted version of the contents of his encrypted data storage system, or the passwords needed to decrypt forensic copies of those storage devices. Jeffrey Feldman, a software developer at Rockwell Automation, has still not been charged with any crime, and the prosecution initially couldn't prove conclusively that the encrypted hard drives contained child pornography or were actually Feldman's, which led U.S. Magistrate Judge William Callahan to decide that forcing him to decrypt them would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. But new evidence has made the judge reverse his first decision (PDF): the FBI has continued to try to crack the encryption on the discs, and has recently managed to decrypt and access one of the suspect's hard drives... The storage device was found to contain 'an intricate electronic folder structure comprised of approximately 6,712 folders and subfolders,' approximately 707,307 files (among them numerous files which constitute child pornography), detailed personal financial records and documents belonging to the suspect, as well as dozens of his personal photographs."
Reading that made me ask three questions:
1) What kind of encryption did the FBI break?
2) Can they do it again, for any arbitrary encrypted data?
3) If 2), what kind of decryption should we use instead of 1) ?
Weasel-wording it like that makes me think it's probably random manga pictures from his browser cache and not real child pornography.
The Judge never said the FBI couldn't have a go at it, just that the suspect couldn't be compelled to hand over the decryption information because of lack of evidence.
Once the FBI had some success of their own and found evidence, then the judge changed his mind.
You don't have to provide the police a key to your house, unless they can convince a judge there is definitely something illegal hidden behind your front door.
This is the crucial issue, which you are glossing over. You DON'T have to provide the police a key to your house, even if they can convince a judge that there is definitely something illegal hidden behind your front door. If the cops show up to your house with a warrant, there's no requirement that you unlock the door for them. If you don't, they'll just break the door down.
What's happening here is quite different. The judge is compelling this man to assist the police who are trying to incriminate him. This is like issuing a search warrant where you are compelled to tell the police where your hiding places are.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Pedophiles are animals, and don't deserve rights.
You are an idiot, and I doubt if you even understand what pedophilia is. Most pedophiles are not child molesters. Most child molesters are not pedophiles. Pedophilia is a psychological condition that causes someone to be sexually attracted to prepubescent children. But most people that feel this attraction do not act on it (since to do so is a serious crime). Most people charged as child molesters, on the other hand, are not pedophiles. They are not attracted to prepubescent children. Instead they are attracted to teenagers that are legally children, but biologically most certainly are not.
But the defendant in this case has not been accused of either pedophilia (which is not a crime) nor child molestation. He has been accused of possessing child pornography, which is a crime even if no actual children are involved. Computer generated animation, or even a pencil sketch can get you arrested. You want to castrate people for drawing pictures?
I'm one hour away from full decryption and sellout of the entire USA economy, and you can't stop me.
No, but your mom can. She just called down the stairs that your Hot Pockets are done.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I'm guessing it's this part of it that protected him:
"nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself"
There's no clause in the fifth amendment that says "...but if we have good evidence you're guilty, then you have to tell us what we need to know in order to get more evidence."
The police put you in a room and say "CONFESS", and you refuse. Judge says "that's right--you don't have to confess to anything. In fact, you don't have to say anything at all. You can remain silent."
Later, the police find some evidence that suggests you really did something illegal. And really socially repulsive.
Judge thinks for 2 seconds and realizes "Who's going to defend a kiddy diddler? I can rule however I want against this guy and get almost no political backlash. But if I "defend the constitution", I'm a liberal judge letting a monster get away on a technicality." Not a difficult decision for a pragmatic public servant. "Let the beatings begin.".
First they came for the child rapists and I said nothing because everyone would think I was one, too.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick