Encryption Debate heats back up

[jasonr22]

Man jailed for not "decrypting" his external hard drives for the authorities.  He is suspected of Child abuse and authorities believe there is evidence on the drives that he owns.  

 

Take the attached poll!

 

http://www.techworm.net/2016/05/man-jailed-indefinitely-refusing-decrypt-hard-drives.html

[LynxThe1st]

fuck that, I'm not letting the government look at all my t'ings

[ChrisCross]

To be honest i dont think we were talking about this if the silk road didnt existed. The whole cypherpunk movement just got out of control. I mean you cant just order a hitman from the internet let alone all the drugs. All they did is drawing the attention of a government which wasnt able to react at the time. And now that they can react the war against drugs has become to a war against privacy. i dont know if its because america has such a young culture or if its just the stupity of some people who only want power and are whilling to sacrifice the human rights of the entire world for it.

[Stadin6]

doesn't he have the right to remain silent?

if he never wrote down the key, he cant be forced to say it. he must give them all the data, but the data is encrypted, useless without the key, that he has the right to not say.

[EunSoo]

31 minutes ago, LynxThe1st said:

fuck that, I'm not letting the government look at all my t'ings

I honestly don't care if the government knows everything about me. I think its nice to have nothing to hide.

[Ruhel]

US Court orders Touch ID iPhone unlock

Women is made to unlock her iphone with her fingers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36185885

[FPSwithaWacomTablet]

This is why I have a long alphanumeric passcode.. Inconvenient, but assuringly hard to decrypt

Also Google already has everyone's data, and a PRISM partner...

 

Why is this still a thing?

[vanished]

(without reading) I think I heard of this story.  It basically boils down to a conflict between two things in the constitution (?), one of which says that the government can make people cooperate with investigations (this was used in the FBI v Apple case) and the other is that people can't be made to do something that will incriminate them.

[Unhelpful]

Wow. 25 to 0. Rekt.

[kelvindeschutter]

1 minute ago, JoeyDM said:

Wow. 25 to 0. Rekt.

25 for who?

[Unhelpful]

Just now, kelvindeschutter said:

25 for who?

25 out of 25 people who voted in this answered that individuals should have privacy.

[kelvindeschutter]

Just now, JoeyDM said:

25 out of 25 people who voted in this answered that individuals should have privacy.

sorry for asking as soon as i pressed submit reply i realized it was about the poll

[Unhelpful]

Just now, kelvindeschutter said:

sorry for asking as soon as i pressed submit reply i realized it was about the poll

All good!

[vanished]

6 minutes ago, JoeyDM said:

All good!

Funny thing about the poll is it asks

Quote

Individuals have the right to not allow government officials to look at their private information without proof, or just cause.

Which of course that's true - but that's not the issue here!  They authorities in this case do have probable cause to look, and so just like a warrant or anything else, now they are subject to search, as I'm sure everyone who voted would also agree.  Now, this decryption issue is a slightly different case, but my point is that I don't think that question really hits at the core of this issue.

[jasonr22]

4 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Funny thing about the poll is it asks

Which of course that's true - but that's not the issue here!  They authorities in this case do have probable cause to look, and so just like a warrant or anything else, now they are subject to search, as I'm sure everyone who voted would also agree.  Now, this decryption issue is a slightly different case, but my point is that I don't think that question really hits at the core of this issue.

Ryan_Vickers I do agree with your point in general.  The problem is the courts and authorities have not, and have seemed unwilling, to create a law that is not ambiguous at best.  Of course you say that they do have probable cause, but that can be debated.  If he has been in jail for 7 months and has not been charged with any crime it doesn't take a great legal mind to argue that the "probable cause" in this case is merely a theory.  Now, he is probably guilty as crap, and if so should be punished mercilessly for this type of crime but that doesn't mean that as a society we get to let authorities take the easy way out and violate someones rights as a US citizen just because they can't make the case any other way.  I am all for punishing him if he did it but the more we agree to give up our rights through someone making an emotional plea the more we are going to wonder in the future how the government is getting away with shredding the constitution. 

[Prysin]

1 hour ago, SCGazelle said:

I honestly don't care if the government knows everything about me. I think its nice to have nothing to hide.

the more the gov knows, the easier it is to create fake evidence against you if you ever end up on the gov's bad side.

[Doobeedoo]

Great, 'they' can do what ever they want. Such shitstorm.

[LAwLz]

Quote

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

That's a citation from a little something called the United States Constitution.

 

 

They can't, according to the constitution, punish him for not giving the police potential evidence that could be used against him. Asking him to decrypt his hard drive would be giving the police potential evidence. He has the right to remain silent without being punished for it.

You can't accuse someone for a crime without sufficient evidence, and you most certainly can't put them in jail because they refuse to admit to committing the crime. The entire justice system is based upon "innocent until proven guilty".

[Lurick]

1 hour ago, SCGazelle said:

I honestly don't care if the government knows everything about me. I think its nice to have nothing to hide.

And without encryption everybody and their grandmother can also know everything about you including lets say the login credentials to your bank account, account numbers, social security number, etc. I mean if you don't care about encryption at all go ahead and post all that stuff here as well.

 

*Unless that was sarcasm or a joke, in which case, ignore me

[Beskamir]

2 hours ago, JoeyDM said:

Wow. 25 to 0. Rekt.

45 to 0 now. I've never seen this kind of a poll result yet.

[suicidalfranco]

better buy a luxurious pedobear suit cause everything i have is encrypted

EDIT: Only 34$??!!... now i'm seriously tempted

http://www.amazon.com/Rnmomo-Unisex-adult-Kigurumi-Onesie-Pajamas/dp/B00GWE20AG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462321300&sr=8-2&keywords=pedobear

[apm]

you dont lose basic human rights as a criminal, might be different in the US tho.

[eyecantseeover24fps]

60-0 so far, holy shit, I wasn't expecting the poll to be that big of a landslide. Not that LTT is a representation of the general population(it isn't), but its still fascinating that the entire community thinks the same way on this topic.

 

 

[ChineseChef]

I can see the argument about anything physical being able to be opened.  I even don't see a problem with being compelled to use your finger prints to open encrypted devices, as finger prints are already considered fair game. 

 

The problem to comes in with passwords/PINs, and anything that only exists in the mind of the user.  If only I know the password, and I say I forgot, what then?  If I suddenly remember, do I get punished for forgetting?  People genuinely and frequently forget things, and then remember them later on.  Will you punish someone you can't remember something under duress (the threat of punishment from the legal system)?  What if the person doesn't actually know the password?  What if I type it incorrectly too many times and it deletes all the data?  Did I just willfully destroy evidence because I couldn't remember in the moment?

 

These are not major problems at the moment, but we are fast approaching a time when the common person may be forced to unlock something, and may not remember the code.  I think this issue will have to be resolved sooner than most expect.  Mostly because we have already seen that criminal hacking has started to see a major uptick in frequency in the last year or two.  Ransomware is becoming a real threat for the masses, which means people will have to start taking precautions.  The result will be a general increase in encryption and backups.  Companies will start making encryption more common, and the companies that are found to have weaknesses will either be shunned by the consumer or destroyed by hackers.  Computer power is becoming cheaper and cheaper, and hacking is becoming more and more lucrative for the lower tier criminals.

 

TL:DR;  Remembering/forgetting passwords may become significantly more common due to an increased future need for protection measures for the masses.  And courts will have to deal with people genuinely forgetting or accidentally wiping data.

[vanished]

2 minutes ago, ChineseChef said:

*snip*

Overall I agree except for one part: I'm not sure how using encryption would protect people from ransomware... the data would just be encrypted twice - once by the virus so the user can't get it, and then that file by the user's own encryption on disk/in the filesystem/etc.