Encryption Saves Man From Jail Time

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krupted said:
its something ive always wondered. i understand how the hidden volume can buy time (mine is setup to where if you type in one password, it opens up the drive with a few sensitive password documents and such, type different password and you get gigs of porn) but i still wonder, what can the government really do when they want to? i just cant imagine anything less then a single-photon encryption mechanism would hold up...
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The problem that the quantum cryptography you're referring to solves isn't really related to on-disk encryption at all. It provides a verifiably secure (but slow) channel to communicate key material. It's not usable as an encryption technique on its own, just for secure communication over distance, usually of key material used to secure another channel. Think of it as something like a realtime onetime pad.

Would standard crypto hold up to government scrutiny? According to the best mathematicians and cryptographers in the world, and based on what we know of computational ability, almost certainly yes (assuming you use a strong enough key). Disk encryption uses symmetric crypto, which doesn't rely on mathematical 'difficulty' (e.g. that there's no easy solution to factoring a large number, for example) for its security like public-key crypto does. I think it's fairly unlikely that there exists a vulnerability big enough to make cracking your AES-256 disk container feasible, even by the NSA. If you're one of those tinfoil hat types, use several very different algorithms on top of one another.
 
krupted said:
yeah but the law never cares about human error. if you do a crime you will be punished and fined to the fullest extent. even if you forget to put your seatbelt on, bam $75 goodbye.
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The thing is though forgetting a password happens quite a lot, and if the jail time you get if you don't give the password is something like life in prison it hardly compares does it.

What I want to know is what laws do you break if you simply refuse to give the password over (or you forgot it). Imagine someone having one of those encrypted RAR files you get in those bad torrents that have the a "unlockvirus.exe" that "unlocks" the file so you can play a movie. You never knew the password, they will be unlikely to crack it, and you get sent to prison.

I think I have my next april fools joke lined up if this is true.
 
Yep - UK law is stupid enough to force you to hand over the encryption keys or serve jail time if you refuse. I think there has already been a case or two.

This is rather cruel in some way. All you need to do to incriminate someone would be to give them a heavily encrypted hard drive (or even one full of random data), then call the Police and tell them the hard drive contains dodgy data. The person holding the hard drive is kinda stuck as he cannot decrypt the data he is holding, and he cannot comply with the Police request for the keys.

As they say - the law is an ass.

Ah... there is it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/11/ripa_iii_figures/

Either "up to two years" or "up to five years" - depending on which agency is asking for the keys.
 
BlueMeanie said:
This is rather cruel in some way. All you need to do to incriminate someone would be to give them a heavily encrypted hard drive (or even one full of random data), then call the Police and tell them the hard drive contains dodgy data. The person holding the hard drive is kinda stuck as he cannot decrypt the data he is holding, and he cannot comply with the Police request for the keys.
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This is why I'm fairly confident that if this ever gets tested in a significant court case, it will fail quickly. There are lots of simple and easy to comprehend reasons why this is an awful idea, not the least of which being the fact that there's no way to prove that an encrypted container even exists in the first place. Any lawyer that doesn't come up with a half dozen scenarios that show this plainly, and call a few crypto/compsci experts to testify in support, is an idiot.
 
krupted said:
yeah but the law never cares about human error. if you do a crime you will be punished and fined to the fullest extent. even if you forget to put your seatbelt on, bam $75 goodbye.
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Yeah! Even when there's no evidence at all!

D:
 
jeremyshaw said:
Hopefully not the parts the North Koreans broke into...
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The North Koreans borke into a trap. It was a setup so we could gain access to thier cyber attack systems. Now we can hack China and the North Koreans will be blamed:D
 
phreakpiercer said:
I'm not sure about the UK, but wouldn't that effectively be a violation of the 5th here in the states?
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Yes, it is, and has already been ruled as so.

The recent high-profile case where that dude was forced to reveal his key went through because he had already incriminated himself by admitting to illegal stuff, so giving up the key was not self-incrimination. If he hadn't consented to a warrant-less search, and subsequently admitted to downloading the stuff, he would have gotten off scott-free.
 
It's called the 5th amendment... you cannot be compelled to incriminate yourself.

Move along.

In the modern world, strong encryption becomes a needed self protection from prying governmental eyes.
 
Just a reminder... the UK is NOT a free country.

Anytime the people of the UK wish to choose to become a free country, I'll congratulate them.
 
Ditto. anytime the people of the US decide to go back to being a free country, I will congratulate them.

But they are such a fraidy-cat bunch of pussies, that isn't likely anytime soon.

"Oooo, there might be a tewwarwist undah me bed...HELP!!!!!... scarey scarey."

Buncha pussies.
 
while the first part of your response was on point with the other guys, I found the last sentence to be tasteless and disrespectful to the people that lost their lives in that attack. How brave would you have been if you were on the 50th floor and saw an airplane coming towards you with no warning?
 
Makaveli@BETA said:
while the first part of your response was on point with the other guys, I found the last sentence to be tasteless and disrespectful to the people that lost their lives in that attack. How brave would you have been if you were on the 50th floor and saw an airplane coming towards you with no warning?
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Way to over react. While having some silence for that ~3000 that "bravely died" on 9/11 cast a thought to the countries your soldiers are currently ravaging and the million or so who have died because of it. How brave would you have been if you were in the hospital that got bombed with no warning?

That poster has a valid point and you trying to hide behind emotion is what is wrong with your country. I wonder what it must be like to run your life based on emotion, it must be like an ice truck without chains on its tires.
 
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