Moreover, genetic screening by companies of employees has little or no chance to improve profits: as a personality test, it would undermine the cult of the job interview (as well as being scientifically bogus), and as a medical test, it violates the ADA.
The fact that it violates the ADA doesn't mean it wouldn't improve profits, you know. It certainly would be a profit center (or a cost reduction center) if a large company could negotiate with an insurance company a special rate because 98% of the employees test negative for predispositions to a large number of genetic diseases. Both the insurance company and the employer stand to increase profits from this.
The ADA is a law that says they can't do it, not a reason why being able to do it wouldn't be profitable.
No one in Washington has the guts to sneak around anti-discrimination legislation because it's too obviously an attack on core American values.
Really? Right now my insurance company demands to know things about me that it uses to determine rates for insurance, and my employer is playing along to help keep their costs down. We're well down that slippery slope. Of course, since not all diseases are disabilities, the ADA doesn't really protect anyone from this.
Frankly, I do not have enough interest or patience to play childish "who politicised it first" games.
No, you have no patience with people who point out that you played the game and lost. You did, indeed, play that game by claiming that LoyalOpposition's data was:
... a blantant attempt to make to turn this into a right-left issue.
That's your claim that LO was first at politicizing the data, a game that you now claim you aren't interested in playing. The fact that you ignored what AuMatar was "unclearly saying" was part of the game, too.
So, if you had no interest in that game, why did you try playing it to start with?
The point was that the choice of Sotomayor and Kagan over Roberts and Alito who voted together 96% of the time was a blantant attempt to make to turn this into a right-left issue.
No, I think that line was crossed by the grandparent who was trying to make a political statement about Thomas and Scalia being "in lockstep", but who ignored the other side of the political coin who do it more often.
If guns are the ultimate form of security, why are they stolen so often?
What a wonderful nonsequitor. Can I play? "If solar power is the ultimate in clean energy, why does the Sun go down at night?" Ooh, how about a car one: "If cars are the ultimate in personal transportation, why are so many of them in parking lots?"
But you did find a good way to avoid answering the point about the laws being proposed and the alleged crisis they don't actually solve. You almost got away with it.
And if the shooter didn't have a gun, it certainly would have ended differently, no?
Yeah, it would have ended in a hail of shrapnel from a pressure cooker bomb instead.
Funny how none of the laws being proposed would have stopped the Newtown shooter from stealing guns from someone and using them to go on a killing spree, yet Newtown is the current crisis being used as an excuse to strip freedoms from law abiding citizens.
Because Tasers are never the only means of defense when they are used, they're just one of the first lines, and they are not used when deadly force is required and justified. Because they are electrical in nature, they kinda also have to have a battery.
A last-line defense that is failure prone because of an unnecessary added "feature" is a danger to the bearer.
It's often years between being charged and being tried.
Yes, because often the defendant wants to draw the process out for any number of reasons. (Witnesses die, looking for an alibi or exculpatory evidence, etc.) But if the defendant wants it to proceed and the prosecutor isn't ready, the prosecutor loses. It's much easier for the prosecutor to COMPLETE THE INVESTIGATION (which in this case is still ongoing) BEFORE filing charges.
You keep ignoring the fact that the investigation is still going on. All the facts aren't in yet. The prosecutor is under no requirement to file the moment the first fact shows up, and in fact, would be a fool to do so. You want him to be a fool. I want him to make a case.
And I would much rather a prosecutor not instantly file charges against someone for "finding a CP file on their computer", and instead wait a bit for the investigation that might show "it was in a browser cache unknown to the user", or "the computer was in for repair on the date on the file and the computer tech is the one who is guilty". Better all around, don't you think, to get it right the first time instead of filing charges on a hair-trigger and trying to mitigate the damage later?
Because all the prosecutor needs is evidence of one crime to start with.
That doesn't answer WHY HE WOULD DO IT. You've just answered the irrelevant question "can he file charges".
Then he can be kept in jail or a high bail can be pushed for (easy in a CP case), which makes him much less of a flight risk.
That also starts a clock on the prosecution that the prosecutor may not want to have ticking. I've told you that already, why do you ignore it?
So if they haven't charged him yet, it means they don't have sufficient evidence to charge him with anything.
You're wrong. All it means is they haven't charged him yet. You're making wild ass assumptions about what a prosecutor would do, or what he is supposed to do, and you have no clue.
Yes, I understand the concept of one time pads. Are you claiming that this defendant used a one time pad encryption system, and that the FBI actually broke such a system? Amazing.
in other words, tl;dr: I can make a one-time pad to prove it's anything...
I can make scrambled eggs and ham, Sam I am, but that doesn't prove anything relevant to this discussion.
Uh, right. So, you're saying the Judge is going to personally verify a checksum of the drive AND you're suggesting that the judge already has a checksum of the drive?
No. I'm saying it would be trivial for an independent expert to come in and do those checksums and show they are the same, and then to do a bitwise comparison and show they are the same.
"Uh, the checksum matches."
"Because a bitwise comparison of the two drives shows no differences."
"...And, how do I know the checksum is of the original drive?"
"Because I have just made in your presence a bitwise duplicate of the original drive upon which my following testing was performed, and the results of that testing produce the same data that the FBI claims it does."
And the defendant isn't going to have a checksum of the drive either.
Since it is evidence, the defendant will have a verified copy of the original drive that his own experts can testify about.
You make it sound like "gosh, we just haven't gotten around to it yet".
I said nothing of the sort, and you know it. I've already said why I think they haven't filed charges yet, and "just haven't gotten around to it" is not what I said.
They don't know what's on the drives that are still encrypted. You forgot that tiny detail.
I've said nothing about what is on the still-encrypted disks. I pointed out that they have DECRYPTED a disk and that it contains CP that they know about. How does ignorance of what is on the other disks change that fact?
If there was real CP on what they did decrypt then there is no excuse for not charging him ASAP.
You're wrong, and I've already told you why they wouldn't necessarily charge him ASAP.
Everybody here is playing armchair prosecutor, judge, cop, fiddler, whatever.
That's your chosen activity. I'm simply pointing out why it is wrong to be doing that. You, and others, keep trying to make some big deal out of the fact that an ongoing investigation hasn't yet resulted in charges. I'm trying to explain to you why your assumptions are ridiculous.
Unfortunately the Bill of Rights sometimes makes the work of police and prosecutors more difficult.
Yes, it does. What's YOUR point? That a prosecutor should file charges as soon as he has any evidence of a crime? The Bill of Rights doesn't say that.
The rant about the Bill of Rights is a nice red herring. The discussion I'm having with you right now is about your claims that the prosecutor must not have any evidence since he hasn't filed charges yet, and I'm telling you that you're understanding of the legal system and what a prosecutor would do is woefully inadequate to make such assumptions. You've apparently never paid attention to ANY previous criminal prosecutions or you'd know that charging someone often happens a long time after the crime is discovered. There are simple reasons for that, but since I've told you what they are and you've ignored them thus far, I'll not waste time typing them in again.
If they have really found child porn files, and they bothered with showing numbers like "approximately 6,712 folders", don't you think they would have at least bandied about "tens of thousands of child porn image files", or more appropriately "approximately 72,532 child porn images"?
No, I don't try to do their job, and I can think of at least one very good reason not to publish a number when one is not necessary. You're speculating, based on your lack of experience as a prosecutor, what the prosecutor would do. That's a waste of time.
If all 6700 folders are hold porn, does it make sense to have each containing less than 10 files?
Now you're trying to guess how the suspect would organize his collections. Another waste of time. And a horrible failure at math, to boot. More than 700,000 files in 6712 directories comes out to an average of 100 per directory, not 10.
Even so, I can think of a trivial reason why a directory would hold, on average, only 100 files, or even ten files. Anyone who uses a flat file system as a database could easily have categorized content that is four levels deep where the leaves contain only a few files.
Wouldn't the logical conclusion be that 6700 folders are ALL the folders in the PC, and they only have a hand full of alleged child porn images?
When you're talking about EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES, no, it is pathetic to assume that those are all the directories on the PC.
"Alleged" because if those are child porn files without doubt, the FBI would have brought the case to court or reached a plea bargain with the guy already.
I'm glad you have intimate personal knowledge of how this prosecutor would deal with such a case, because nobody else does. Your "without a doubt" is a ridiculous assumption, and factually flawed too.
1. Look at the Treyvon Martin shooting case for one example. The guy on trial now wasn't charged for a long time. The prosecutor wanted to, no, NEEDED to, make sure the case was correct and that the evidence was all lined up before charging anyone. Why? Because once you charge someone, the "speedy trial" provisions kick in, and if you've charged someone before all your ducks are in a row, you can wind up having the case thrown out with prejudice because you failed. If the defendant knows you're still investigating, they'll push for a trial, and when you can't proceed because you're missing evidence, the defendant wins.
In THIS case, the FBI is still investigating. It is ridiculous to expect charges to be filed before the investigation is over.
2. The FBI is the INVESTIGATION arm of the system. They don't file charges. The US Attorneys do that.
So, no, the fact that charges haven't been filed yet proves nothing about the guy's innocence or guilt.
The fact that they are bothering to get the judge to force the guy to decrypt means they don't have enough evidence,
Your track record of making assumptions is rather poor, and this is yet another example. I've already given two simple examples of why they would want the rest of the data decrypted, and neither one is "doesn't have any evidence".
P.S. so FBI agents nowadays are poorly educated they don't even know the first thing about significant figures?
So now you are making things up in your rush to paint the FBI as the guilty parties here? They're providing information in a court document, not writing an article for a scientific journal. Again, there is a trivial reason why they wouldn't write "exactly 6712", even if that is the exact number. I bet if you think about it for a minute, you might even be able to figure it out.
Because the prosecutor hasn't filed charges yet. They're still working on the case. You keep bringing this up as if it meant something. It doesn't.
The foregone conclusion they're talking about is just that the drives are his.
And that the images of child porn on them are his. You forgot that tiny detail.
That's a distinction that only a lawyer would think mattered.
It is a distinction that shows he's not being forced to provide information that the government doesn't already possess. They have the disks and proof of his crime, he's not even expected to tell them the password.
If their real interest was in using the stuff on the other drives to pursue other criminals, they cut cut him a deal
You're very good at telling a prosecutor how to do his job. They'll be in a much better position to offer a deal when the full extent of the crime is known. You never know, the stuff on the other disks may show that he's a producer and not just a consumer, and under your orders they'd be cutting him a deal that is very lenient.
Isn't it funny, though, that he's still not charged of anything? TFA:
What's funny about it? Of what significance do you imagine that might be? Why would a prosecutor rush to file charges on someone before the entire scope of the crime has been determined?
Also, if they actually found kiddie pron on the portion that they decrypted, why hasn't he been charged?
Because they're still building the case, of course. The fact that they haven't charged him based on what they already have is irrelevant. They are under no compulsion to rush. Once he's charged the right to a speedy trial kicks in.
Well look at it this way, going by the blurb for the low-info voters, everyone is now guilty of having child porn.
When you stop the quote at "6712 folders", yes, it might look that way. When you consider that the remainder of that sentence talks about images that are child porn in those folders, I think most people will recognize that the relevant criterion for being guilty of possession of child porn is not just "6712 folders".
The "it's manufactured data" angle would also be interesting, since presumably they could have obtained pictures and financial data from other sources to make it appear that way. Given that the FBI has "considerable resources" to expend on this type of thing, it's not that unreasonable to ask how those resources were expended: decrypting the drive, or manufacturing evidence which can only be disproven if the drive is decrypted with the keys he may or may not have in his possession, since if it's manufactured, it might still not be his drive.
You have a problem here. All the feds have to do is go before the judge, start with an archived copy of the original disk which can be proven to be bitwise identical, apply the correct decryption process, and when out pops all the data they claim was there you'll have to explain how they got the original encrypted bytes to decrypt directly into the alleged criminal data.
I think the chances of there being a "key" that results in enough data for a criminal prosecution when applied to innocuous encrypted data are very very very slim.
Agreed. Besides, they're making things up -->
an intricate electronic folder structure comprised of approximately 6,712...
You're accusing them of making up the numbers, or of using non-technical language when they described the contents of the disk? Yes, they used non-technical language, but I think it would be easy to imagine what "an intricate folder structure" would mean, and to understand that the important part of the document is the "6712 folders" and seven hundred thousand plus images they contain.
If they successfully decrypted a
single drive, and found evidence, it is strong enough to build a case.
It is.
Encryption is boolean; you either discovered the key, or you haven't. There isn't a "key" out there the will
give a "partial" decryption.
Where did you come up with the phrase "partial decryption"? They decrypted one of the disks they had, the rest remain unbroken.
So, what is happening is that they have evidence to move forward
with an indictment, but they're trying to set a legal precedented to override the 5th for future cases, IMHO.
Or they're trying to recover files that might help identify new victims or show a trail of transfers that will lead to other criminals.
This is basically the same tactic used in U.S. schools on the children now a days. You know, Billy said you did it,
No, it is more than "Billy said". They've got the files and sufficient evidence to show that the disks belong to the alleged criminal. He's already been incriminated, it's a "foregone conclusion" at this point. He's not even being forced to tell the cops his password/passphrase, he's only instructed to enter it unobserved into the system so the disks will be unencrypted. So you can't argue that they cops are learning anything new regarding putting this guy in prison. "Oooh, your passphrase is 'i hid the body under the old oak tree out back', we're going diggin..."
If it was another company I would let sleeping dogs lie but this is f'ing Google. Their web search is SOOO good and improving all the time, that makes the gmail search so ridiculously outdated in comparison.
Thank you, citizen, for your support. We will be moving your email over to the general Google search software in the near future, which I am certain you will accept as a vast improvement over the current situation.
This change will allow you to read your email anywhere you have a browser, using a simple Google search for your own email address.
Unfortunately, this means that deleting your email will require the full "remove a link" process that the current Google indexing system uses, as well.
Thanks again for your support and constructive and beneficial ideas for making the Google Experience® more rewarding.
FYI, just because you're not handing them legal tender does not automagically make it a "free service."
The fact I'm handing legal tender to my ISP, who decided with almost no notice that they were outsourcing all their email services to gmail and are thus passing some of that legal tender over to gmail, makes gmail much less than a "free service".
By your definition, we have an avalanche of accidental deaths of full persons that overshadows deaths from any other cause. With elective abortions of embryos, we are not raising that by much.
Everyone dies at some point. By herding the "insert group here" into the gas chambers, we're only making the inevitable process more efficient, and in the geological time frame not shortening their lives by that much, especially if they are old "insert group here".
I find your argument in support of abortion to be unconvincing and, frankly, sickening.
Neighbours can actually see each other and observe that the neighbour is using metric
The fact that you keep such close track of your neighbors is scary. Stalking doesn't even begin to describe it.
For the rest of us, what you say is utter nonsense. We don't know what units of measure our neighbors are using because we simply don't care. Oh, you filled your car up at a station that uses liters. How nice. You buy your undies in sizes based on cm and not inches. How nice. You bought a liter of soda instead of the 20 oz bottle. How nice.
The fact is, changing the US with nine times as many people will be more than nine times as hard as changing Canada. Not just because of the people, but the history. US: overthrew British overlords more than 200 years ago. Canada: God Save the Queen, eh?
I think you just proved my point that Christians can't understand a world or people without religion...that or you're a troll.
You can think whatever you like, but I neither said anything about Christians not understanding "world without religion" nor am I a troll, so you are wrong on both counts. What you seem not to understand is that the fact that ethics are found in religion doesn't necessarily mean all ethical beliefs are religions. The latter means that attempts to legislate ethics isn't an imposition of religion, it's an imposition of an ethical system -- which would happen any time a law is written that deals with ethics. Simple words? A law that says "Thou shall not kill" is not imposition of a King James' translator's version of one of the Ten Commandments, it is imposition of a reasonable and logical ethical standard that is found in many religions, and outside of them, too.
I resemble that remark, but support civil unions for heterosexuals as well.
I think if you read what I wrote, you'll find no limitation there on who is able to use civil unions. You don't need to say "I agree as long as you include..." when what you wanted to add was there in the first place.
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Moreover, genetic screening by companies of employees has little or no chance to improve profits: as a personality test, it would undermine the cult of the job interview (as well as being scientifically bogus), and as a medical test, it violates the ADA.
The fact that it violates the ADA doesn't mean it wouldn't improve profits, you know. It certainly would be a profit center (or a cost reduction center) if a large company could negotiate with an insurance company a special rate because 98% of the employees test negative for predispositions to a large number of genetic diseases. Both the insurance company and the employer stand to increase profits from this.
The ADA is a law that says they can't do it, not a reason why being able to do it wouldn't be profitable.
No one in Washington has the guts to sneak around anti-discrimination legislation because it's too obviously an attack on core American values.
Really? Right now my insurance company demands to know things about me that it uses to determine rates for insurance, and my employer is playing along to help keep their costs down. We're well down that slippery slope. Of course, since not all diseases are disabilities, the ADA doesn't really protect anyone from this.
Frankly, I do not have enough interest or patience to play childish "who politicised it first" games.
No, you have no patience with people who point out that you played the game and lost. You did, indeed, play that game by claiming that LoyalOpposition's data was:
... a blantant attempt to make to turn this into a right-left issue.
That's your claim that LO was first at politicizing the data, a game that you now claim you aren't interested in playing. The fact that you ignored what AuMatar was "unclearly saying" was part of the game, too. So, if you had no interest in that game, why did you try playing it to start with?
The point was that the choice of Sotomayor and Kagan over Roberts and Alito who voted together 96% of the time was a blantant attempt to make to turn this into a right-left issue.
No, I think that line was crossed by the grandparent who was trying to make a political statement about Thomas and Scalia being "in lockstep", but who ignored the other side of the political coin who do it more often.
Lego Mindstorms. Or here.
If guns are the ultimate form of security, why are they stolen so often?
What a wonderful nonsequitor. Can I play? "If solar power is the ultimate in clean energy, why does the Sun go down at night?" Ooh, how about a car one: "If cars are the ultimate in personal transportation, why are so many of them in parking lots?"
But you did find a good way to avoid answering the point about the laws being proposed and the alleged crisis they don't actually solve. You almost got away with it.
And if the shooter didn't have a gun, it certainly would have ended differently, no?
Yeah, it would have ended in a hail of shrapnel from a pressure cooker bomb instead.
Funny how none of the laws being proposed would have stopped the Newtown shooter from stealing guns from someone and using them to go on a killing spree, yet Newtown is the current crisis being used as an excuse to strip freedoms from law abiding citizens.
Because Tasers are powered by pixie dust?
Because Tasers are never the only means of defense when they are used, they're just one of the first lines, and they are not used when deadly force is required and justified. Because they are electrical in nature, they kinda also have to have a battery.
A last-line defense that is failure prone because of an unnecessary added "feature" is a danger to the bearer.
It's often years between being charged and being tried.
Yes, because often the defendant wants to draw the process out for any number of reasons. (Witnesses die, looking for an alibi or exculpatory evidence, etc.) But if the defendant wants it to proceed and the prosecutor isn't ready, the prosecutor loses. It's much easier for the prosecutor to COMPLETE THE INVESTIGATION (which in this case is still ongoing) BEFORE filing charges.
You keep ignoring the fact that the investigation is still going on. All the facts aren't in yet. The prosecutor is under no requirement to file the moment the first fact shows up, and in fact, would be a fool to do so. You want him to be a fool. I want him to make a case.
And I would much rather a prosecutor not instantly file charges against someone for "finding a CP file on their computer", and instead wait a bit for the investigation that might show "it was in a browser cache unknown to the user", or "the computer was in for repair on the date on the file and the computer tech is the one who is guilty". Better all around, don't you think, to get it right the first time instead of filing charges on a hair-trigger and trying to mitigate the damage later?
Because all the prosecutor needs is evidence of one crime to start with.
That doesn't answer WHY HE WOULD DO IT. You've just answered the irrelevant question "can he file charges".
Then he can be kept in jail or a high bail can be pushed for (easy in a CP case), which makes him much less of a flight risk.
That also starts a clock on the prosecution that the prosecutor may not want to have ticking. I've told you that already, why do you ignore it?
So if they haven't charged him yet, it means they don't have sufficient evidence to charge him with anything.
You're wrong. All it means is they haven't charged him yet. You're making wild ass assumptions about what a prosecutor would do, or what he is supposed to do, and you have no clue.
I can make you a one-time pad ...
Yes, I understand the concept of one time pads. Are you claiming that this defendant used a one time pad encryption system, and that the FBI actually broke such a system? Amazing.
in other words, tl;dr: I can make a one-time pad to prove it's anything...
I can make scrambled eggs and ham, Sam I am, but that doesn't prove anything relevant to this discussion.
Uh, right. So, you're saying the Judge is going to personally verify a checksum of the drive AND you're suggesting that the judge already has a checksum of the drive?
No. I'm saying it would be trivial for an independent expert to come in and do those checksums and show they are the same, and then to do a bitwise comparison and show they are the same.
"Uh, the checksum matches."
"Because a bitwise comparison of the two drives shows no differences."
"...And, how do I know the checksum is of the original drive?"
"Because I have just made in your presence a bitwise duplicate of the original drive upon which my following testing was performed, and the results of that testing produce the same data that the FBI claims it does."
And the defendant isn't going to have a checksum of the drive either.
Since it is evidence, the defendant will have a verified copy of the original drive that his own experts can testify about.
You make it sound like "gosh, we just haven't gotten around to it yet".
I said nothing of the sort, and you know it. I've already said why I think they haven't filed charges yet, and "just haven't gotten around to it" is not what I said.
They don't know what's on the drives that are still encrypted. You forgot that tiny detail.
I've said nothing about what is on the still-encrypted disks. I pointed out that they have DECRYPTED a disk and that it contains CP that they know about. How does ignorance of what is on the other disks change that fact?
If there was real CP on what they did decrypt then there is no excuse for not charging him ASAP.
You're wrong, and I've already told you why they wouldn't necessarily charge him ASAP.
Everybody here is playing armchair prosecutor, judge, cop, fiddler, whatever.
That's your chosen activity. I'm simply pointing out why it is wrong to be doing that. You, and others, keep trying to make some big deal out of the fact that an ongoing investigation hasn't yet resulted in charges. I'm trying to explain to you why your assumptions are ridiculous.
Unfortunately the Bill of Rights sometimes makes the work of police and prosecutors more difficult.
Yes, it does. What's YOUR point? That a prosecutor should file charges as soon as he has any evidence of a crime? The Bill of Rights doesn't say that.
The rant about the Bill of Rights is a nice red herring. The discussion I'm having with you right now is about your claims that the prosecutor must not have any evidence since he hasn't filed charges yet, and I'm telling you that you're understanding of the legal system and what a prosecutor would do is woefully inadequate to make such assumptions. You've apparently never paid attention to ANY previous criminal prosecutions or you'd know that charging someone often happens a long time after the crime is discovered. There are simple reasons for that, but since I've told you what they are and you've ignored them thus far, I'll not waste time typing them in again.
If they have really found child porn files, and they bothered with showing numbers like "approximately 6,712 folders", don't you think they would have at least bandied about "tens of thousands of child porn image files", or more appropriately "approximately 72,532 child porn images"?
No, I don't try to do their job, and I can think of at least one very good reason not to publish a number when one is not necessary. You're speculating, based on your lack of experience as a prosecutor, what the prosecutor would do. That's a waste of time.
If all 6700 folders are hold porn, does it make sense to have each containing less than 10 files?
Now you're trying to guess how the suspect would organize his collections. Another waste of time. And a horrible failure at math, to boot. More than 700,000 files in 6712 directories comes out to an average of 100 per directory, not 10.
Even so, I can think of a trivial reason why a directory would hold, on average, only 100 files, or even ten files. Anyone who uses a flat file system as a database could easily have categorized content that is four levels deep where the leaves contain only a few files.
Wouldn't the logical conclusion be that 6700 folders are ALL the folders in the PC, and they only have a hand full of alleged child porn images?
When you're talking about EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES, no, it is pathetic to assume that those are all the directories on the PC.
"Alleged" because if those are child porn files without doubt, the FBI would have brought the case to court or reached a plea bargain with the guy already.
I'm glad you have intimate personal knowledge of how this prosecutor would deal with such a case, because nobody else does. Your "without a doubt" is a ridiculous assumption, and factually flawed too.
1. Look at the Treyvon Martin shooting case for one example. The guy on trial now wasn't charged for a long time. The prosecutor wanted to, no, NEEDED to, make sure the case was correct and that the evidence was all lined up before charging anyone. Why? Because once you charge someone, the "speedy trial" provisions kick in, and if you've charged someone before all your ducks are in a row, you can wind up having the case thrown out with prejudice because you failed. If the defendant knows you're still investigating, they'll push for a trial, and when you can't proceed because you're missing evidence, the defendant wins.
In THIS case, the FBI is still investigating. It is ridiculous to expect charges to be filed before the investigation is over.
2. The FBI is the INVESTIGATION arm of the system. They don't file charges. The US Attorneys do that.
So, no, the fact that charges haven't been filed yet proves nothing about the guy's innocence or guilt.
The fact that they are bothering to get the judge to force the guy to decrypt means they don't have enough evidence,
Your track record of making assumptions is rather poor, and this is yet another example. I've already given two simple examples of why they would want the rest of the data decrypted, and neither one is "doesn't have any evidence".
P.S. so FBI agents nowadays are poorly educated they don't even know the first thing about significant figures?
So now you are making things up in your rush to paint the FBI as the guilty parties here? They're providing information in a court document, not writing an article for a scientific journal. Again, there is a trivial reason why they wouldn't write "exactly 6712", even if that is the exact number. I bet if you think about it for a minute, you might even be able to figure it out.
So why hasn't he been charged?
Because the prosecutor hasn't filed charges yet. They're still working on the case. You keep bringing this up as if it meant something. It doesn't.
The foregone conclusion they're talking about is just that the drives are his.
And that the images of child porn on them are his. You forgot that tiny detail.
That's a distinction that only a lawyer would think mattered.
It is a distinction that shows he's not being forced to provide information that the government doesn't already possess. They have the disks and proof of his crime, he's not even expected to tell them the password.
If their real interest was in using the stuff on the other drives to pursue other criminals, they cut cut him a deal
You're very good at telling a prosecutor how to do his job. They'll be in a much better position to offer a deal when the full extent of the crime is known. You never know, the stuff on the other disks may show that he's a producer and not just a consumer, and under your orders they'd be cutting him a deal that is very lenient.
Isn't it funny, though, that he's still not charged of anything? TFA:
What's funny about it? Of what significance do you imagine that might be? Why would a prosecutor rush to file charges on someone before the entire scope of the crime has been determined?
Also, if they actually found kiddie pron on the portion that they decrypted, why hasn't he been charged?
Because they're still building the case, of course. The fact that they haven't charged him based on what they already have is irrelevant. They are under no compulsion to rush. Once he's charged the right to a speedy trial kicks in.
Well look at it this way, going by the blurb for the low-info voters, everyone is now guilty of having child porn.
When you stop the quote at "6712 folders", yes, it might look that way. When you consider that the remainder of that sentence talks about images that are child porn in those folders, I think most people will recognize that the relevant criterion for being guilty of possession of child porn is not just "6712 folders".
The "it's manufactured data" angle would also be interesting, since presumably they could have obtained pictures and financial data from other sources to make it appear that way. Given that the FBI has "considerable resources" to expend on this type of thing, it's not that unreasonable to ask how those resources were expended: decrypting the drive, or manufacturing evidence which can only be disproven if the drive is decrypted with the keys he may or may not have in his possession, since if it's manufactured, it might still not be his drive.
You have a problem here. All the feds have to do is go before the judge, start with an archived copy of the original disk which can be proven to be bitwise identical, apply the correct decryption process, and when out pops all the data they claim was there you'll have to explain how they got the original encrypted bytes to decrypt directly into the alleged criminal data.
I think the chances of there being a "key" that results in enough data for a criminal prosecution when applied to innocuous encrypted data are very very very slim.
Agreed. Besides, they're making things up --> an intricate electronic folder structure comprised of approximately 6,712...
You're accusing them of making up the numbers, or of using non-technical language when they described the contents of the disk? Yes, they used non-technical language, but I think it would be easy to imagine what "an intricate folder structure" would mean, and to understand that the important part of the document is the "6712 folders" and seven hundred thousand plus images they contain.
If they successfully decrypted a single drive, and found evidence, it is strong enough to build a case.
It is.
Encryption is boolean; you either discovered the key, or you haven't. There isn't a "key" out there the will give a "partial" decryption.
Where did you come up with the phrase "partial decryption"? They decrypted one of the disks they had, the rest remain unbroken.
So, what is happening is that they have evidence to move forward with an indictment, but they're trying to set a legal precedented to override the 5th for future cases, IMHO.
Or they're trying to recover files that might help identify new victims or show a trail of transfers that will lead to other criminals.
This is basically the same tactic used in U.S. schools on the children now a days. You know, Billy said you did it,
No, it is more than "Billy said". They've got the files and sufficient evidence to show that the disks belong to the alleged criminal. He's already been incriminated, it's a "foregone conclusion" at this point. He's not even being forced to tell the cops his password/passphrase, he's only instructed to enter it unobserved into the system so the disks will be unencrypted. So you can't argue that they cops are learning anything new regarding putting this guy in prison. "Oooh, your passphrase is 'i hid the body under the old oak tree out back', we're going diggin..."
If it was another company I would let sleeping dogs lie but this is f'ing Google. Their web search is SOOO good and improving all the time, that makes the gmail search so ridiculously outdated in comparison.
Thank you, citizen, for your support. We will be moving your email over to the general Google search software in the near future, which I am certain you will accept as a vast improvement over the current situation. This change will allow you to read your email anywhere you have a browser, using a simple Google search for your own email address.
Unfortunately, this means that deleting your email will require the full "remove a link" process that the current Google indexing system uses, as well.
Thanks again for your support and constructive and beneficial ideas for making the Google Experience® more rewarding.
Signed: The Google Staff
FYI, just because you're not handing them legal tender does not automagically make it a "free service."
The fact I'm handing legal tender to my ISP, who decided with almost no notice that they were outsourcing all their email services to gmail and are thus passing some of that legal tender over to gmail, makes gmail much less than a "free service".
By your definition, we have an avalanche of accidental deaths of full persons that overshadows deaths from any other cause. With elective abortions of embryos, we are not raising that by much.
Everyone dies at some point. By herding the "insert group here" into the gas chambers, we're only making the inevitable process more efficient, and in the geological time frame not shortening their lives by that much, especially if they are old "insert group here".
I find your argument in support of abortion to be unconvincing and, frankly, sickening.
Neighbours can actually see each other and observe that the neighbour is using metric
The fact that you keep such close track of your neighbors is scary. Stalking doesn't even begin to describe it.
For the rest of us, what you say is utter nonsense. We don't know what units of measure our neighbors are using because we simply don't care. Oh, you filled your car up at a station that uses liters. How nice. You buy your undies in sizes based on cm and not inches. How nice. You bought a liter of soda instead of the 20 oz bottle. How nice.
The fact is, changing the US with nine times as many people will be more than nine times as hard as changing Canada. Not just because of the people, but the history. US: overthrew British overlords more than 200 years ago. Canada: God Save the Queen, eh?
I think you just proved my point that Christians can't understand a world or people without religion...that or you're a troll.
You can think whatever you like, but I neither said anything about Christians not understanding "world without religion" nor am I a troll, so you are wrong on both counts. What you seem not to understand is that the fact that ethics are found in religion doesn't necessarily mean all ethical beliefs are religions. The latter means that attempts to legislate ethics isn't an imposition of religion, it's an imposition of an ethical system -- which would happen any time a law is written that deals with ethics. Simple words? A law that says "Thou shall not kill" is not imposition of a King James' translator's version of one of the Ten Commandments, it is imposition of a reasonable and logical ethical standard that is found in many religions, and outside of them, too.
I resemble that remark, but support civil unions for heterosexuals as well.
I think if you read what I wrote, you'll find no limitation there on who is able to use civil unions. You don't need to say "I agree as long as you include..." when what you wanted to add was there in the first place.