Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops

[Thesolcity]

Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the hard drive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21--or face the consequences including contempt of court.
"I find and conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer," Blackburn wrote in a 10-page opinion today. He said the All Writs Act, which dates back to 1789 and has been used to require telephone companies to aid in surveillance, could be invoked in forcing decryption of hard drives as well. Blackburn, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Fifth Amendment posed no barrier to his decryption order. The Fifth Amendment says that nobody may be "compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," which has become known as the right to avoid self-incrimination.

Source



Lets all hope Supreme Court fixes this, its very worrying.

 

[yuyuyup]

If you want a good Supreme Court, you better hold your nose and vote Obama. Well I guess Michelle Bachmann would pick some decent judges.

Yeah, I know she dropped out of the race a few days ago. But she WAS a front-runner till Perry announced.

 

[Foxi4]

If you want a good Supreme Court, you better hold your nose and vote Obama.

I'm sure everybody will, afterall, Americans are still waiting for the change.
Unless Obama meant that their banknotes will be exchanged with petty change - that already happened.









Vote Vermin Supreme - if you have nobody to vote for, at least make the elections funny.

 

[Jamstruth]

Not really sure what's the problem here. You can be forced to let them search your home, you can be forced to do a lot of things. Makes sense that they might require you to decrypt a hard-drive in case it contains evidence to be used against you in a criminal prosecution. I don't see what's worrying about this at all.
Its not just somebody randomly being told "You must decrypt your data so we can watch you" its somebody who's being charged with a serious crime.

 

[Foxi4]

Not really sure what's the problem here. You can be forced to let them search your home, you can be forced to do a lot of things. Makes sense that they might require you to decrypt a hard-drive in case it contains evidence to be used against you in a criminal prosecution. I don't see what's worrying about this at all.
Its not just somebody randomly being told "You must decrypt your data so we can watch you" its somebody who's being charged with a serious crime.

Very much true. Do note that you are protected from being called to court as a witness and you do not have to EXPLAIN anything. That doesn't mean that you can hold a sealed bag of Child Pornography in a bag and pretend it's not there saying "it's a bag, and you can't open it" because that's the situation here.

Let's say that the laptop was filled with content that is illegal and the police would have no way to determine what's there. How many people would swiftly dodge the law? Thousands upon thousands, because encrypting something is not a big deal.

 

[T-hug]

Everyone should have a one click .bat file to erase you HD's in an emergency, I have one pinned on my start menu that will instantly start to wipe 8TB worth of files.
I know some stuff could still be recovered with certain apps but better to have a deleted trace than actual files on your system.

 

[Foxi4]

Everyone should have a one click .bat file to erase you HD's in an emergency, I have one pinned on my start menu that will instantly start to wipe 8TB worth of files.
I know some stuff could still be recovered with certain apps but better to have a deleted trace than actual files on your system.

All that data is recoverable with one click unless you literally put your HDD in a microwave or overwrite those 8TB of space. A few times. You underestimate the police.

 

[Vigilante]

So how do you decrypt files in the first place?

 

[Foxi4]

So how do you decrypt files in the first place?

The other way around then the way you encrypted them.

 

[T-hug]

I understand it is recoverable but then they have to prove it was your data before it was removed. You could say you bought the computer second hand.
It is just another thing they would have to prove.
Surely it is better to have a trace than the actual content?

 

[Coto]

Everyone should have a one click .bat file to erase you HD's in an emergency, I have one pinned on my start menu that will instantly start to wipe 8TB worth of files.
I know some stuff could still be recovered with certain apps but better to have a deleted trace than actual files on your system.

That would be meaningless because clusters always have some "leftovers" which could be recovered using a thorough disk recovery tool, unless you reset and rewrite clusters to 0

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Just don't keep stuff on your hard drive that anyone would want, or would be incriminating.

I always tell people the only way to not get caught is just not to do it in the first place.

 

[Foxi4]

I understand it is recoverable but then they have to prove it was your data before it was removed. You could say you bought the computer second hand.
It is just another thing they would have to prove.
Surely it is better to have a trace than the actual content?

Recovered data equals recovering write date. Each file has assigned variables to it stating WHEN it was written - this is enough to prove being guilty/not guilty - the date is just cross-checked with the system date before deletion and presto.

 

[FAST6191]

Welcome to the thin end of this particular wedge- it pretty much sucks being here (UK has had a similar setup with RIPA for a while now http://www.theregist...ion_keys_power/ but it only started to get used recently and a with a nice bit of feature creep to boot). I guess US customs have been able to do it for years though and on that note maybe http://www.schneier....p_security.html is worth a read.

Edit: thought I had heard about this before http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/13/eff_piles_in_against_forced_decryption/

 

[lukands]

Or run two (or more) PC/laptops/external HDD, keep one with nice stuff and the other with stuff you wouldn`t want people to find.

 

[DarkLG]

Put a magnet over/on your hd's problem solved.

 

[Foxi4]

Put a magnet over/on your hd's problem solved.

Not really. It will only partially destroy the data and it's likely that it would be recovered. It would have to be a REALLY strong magnet and it would have to be placed on the drive for a long while.

Or run two (or more) PC/laptops/external HDD, keep one with nice stuff and the other with stuff you wouldn`t want people to find.

...how does that stop the police from confiscating the naughty laptop? That... makes no sense in the grand scheme of things.

 

[LightyKD]

EMP's anyone?

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Everyone should have a one click .bat file to erase you HD's in an emergency, I have one pinned on my start menu that will instantly start to wipe 8TB worth of files.
I know some stuff could still be recovered with certain apps but better to have a deleted trace than actual files on your system.

All that data is recoverable with one click unless you literally put your HDD in a microwave or overwrite those 8TB of space. A few times. You underestimate the police.

Or you can just take a magnet to the HDD.

 

[Foxi4]

Everyone should have a one click .bat file to erase you HD's in an emergency, I have one pinned on my start menu that will instantly start to wipe 8TB worth of files.
I know some stuff could still be recovered with certain apps but better to have a deleted trace than actual files on your system.

All that data is recoverable with one click unless you literally put your HDD in a microwave or overwrite those 8TB of space. A few times. You underestimate the police.

Or you can just take a magnet to the HDD.

Already replied to that one. It won't necessarily destroy the data unless you have REALLY strong magnets and they're attached to the disk for an extended period of tile.