Comments on: Your Laptop is Not Your Mind, Says Judge

By: NA

NA — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:29:20 +0000

2 issues

1) A judge ordered the decryption. This is in effect a warrant.

2) The real issue is previously any person could take the 5th to keep from revealing anything they “know” if it could incriminate them. This covered everything from “I did it” to “The body/Key evidence is at location X” the only option to investigators was to secure immunity for the person that the information/results would/could not be used against them. As a result there would be no possibility of self incrimination as the suspect was now immune.
However, now (at least in encryption) a person can be ordered to unencrypt the device and there by give police access to the evidence with the only immunity being that “we won’t tell the jury that you unencrypted it”.

In essence there is two ways to look at the situation:
1: the encryption key is something you know (such as “I am guilty, or “the key evidence is at X” and so you do not have to reveal the information if you take the 5th
2: The encryption key is like a physical key IE property. Which you can be ordered to turn over to the police to be examined if they get a warrant, or they can simply demand if you have on you at the time of your arrest.
The judge chose to look at it like a physical key.

By: Al Irvine

Al Irvine — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:27:26 +0000

If this decision holds up, then I guess that they can order anyone to tell them where they have hidden any evidence of their guilt?

By: DS

DS — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:17:59 +0000

So what ever happened to the burdon of proof being on the prosecution? Maybe I’m reading into this incorrectly, but isn’t this saying that a prosecutor could go into my house and force me to decrypt my computer. Then if they find some incriminating evidence, they can go after me. Just because they may not be doing it now doesn’t mean they won’t. The supreme court needs to overturn this. Make the prosecutors have a case first.

If the supreme court ruled that the GPS thing wasn’t considered a “search” I would make it a point to plaster GPS’s on every single judge and police officers’ cars and set up a website where everyone could monitor them. Because after all, it’s not a search. Unfortunately it won’t matter because in the future, you won’t need the GPS, you could just set up some other non intrusive way to keep track.

By: nowuccas

nowuccas — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:58:09 +0000

I am hypothesising that there is a way of encrypting information such that there are 2 solutions to the decoding process, according to the password used, 1 being innocuous, the other not.

By: Hershele Ostropoler

Hershele Ostropoler — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:15:47 +0000

It makes sense to me that the fact that something is encrypted does not automatically place it under the aegis of the Fifth Amendment. Something like a diary, on the other hand, is whether it’s on the computer or not, encrypted or not.

By: Veronique Greenwood

Veronique Greenwood — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:50:09 +0000

@John, correct. Thanks for the correction!

By: Gregg

Gregg — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:53:26 +0000

The movie ‘the listening’ describes a procedure for listening from a hardwire phone. This is old school.
Even though the handset is on the cradle the important part is not that the microphone is disconnected… but the earpiece, is a speaker, is connected and can function as a microphone. They just listen to the other side of the duplex connection to the phone. Simplex is single sided conversation with the command ‘over’ allowing you to switch from transmit to receive. Duplex means both transmitting and receiving can be done at the same time.

All they did was turn the earpiece into a microphone because it is not switched off when placed in the cradle. Vibrations in the room are picked up by the earpiece speaker and transmitted like a microphone to whoever is listening.
This was known in the 40′s and 50′s and many spies were able to listen to what was going on in a room with a hard wire phone.

By: Cody

Cody — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:38:01 +0000

mike, I just watched the trailer for “The Listening” and wow, looks very interesting.

microblogger, I imagine after that they slap some sort of ‘interfering with an investigation’, ‘tampering with’ or ‘destruction of evidence’, or similar charge against her—though I would hope such charges would require them to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she has such incriminating documents in the first place, which doesn’t seem to leave much room for actually needing those documents.

It reminds me of the weird limbo we’ve put a bunch of ‘suspected terrorists’ in, with claims of not enough evidence for conviction, but too much to let them go. I think probably the patients have taken over the asylum at this point—illogic abounds.

By: John

John — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:07:09 +0000

This is not correct. It wasn’t a supreme court ruling, it was just a federal judge in Colorado. Hopefully it’ll win its appeal and make it to the SCOTUS, though. It’s fascinating in that it would force them to effectively make a decision on what has been called the “extended mind hypothesis.”

By: Veda

Veda — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:23:31 +0000

Even if a person’s innermost feelings or thoughts were to be ‘accessed’ through his/her computer/laptop– it still amounts t both to ‘wrongful means of obtaining personal information’ and as also ‘hearsay’… It is more in the mode of evesdropping – I suppose. Hence no legal court should take note of it as any rightful or right information.

By: joab

joab — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:13:37 +0000

then they will be required to waterboard her , burn her with cigarettes, shock her with electricity, and force her to listen to candidates speeches and debates

By: microblogger

microblogger — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:24:02 +0000

What with all the stress of what’s going on she forgets her password, then what?

By: mike

mike — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:25:26 +0000

Normally I don’t throw hollywood into these types of comments, especially as we’ve all seen “enemy of the state” by now. Yet they also gave us a much less promoted, still creepier (given the science behind it, and government’s nebulous (or nefarious) dealings with the constitution), but this article reminded me of one worth watching to get your heart rate up and paranoia boiling: The Listening.

By: Sandra Wherley

Sandra Wherley — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:28:46 +0000

I use a password grab the rubber hose! They would have to get a warrant. Oh my Constitution where are you abused. I am not pro crime, I sometimes think the ones who are supposed to set the “good” example are more criminal than the criminal.

By: Iain

Iain — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:24:04 +0000

Wouldn’t any encryption program using randomly generated 128 character prime numbers do the trick?
There was a program available a few years ago that had a public encryption key and a private decryption key that the US Gov was against because they couldn’t crack it this side of doomsday, I forget what it was called though.

By: Zack

Zack — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:21:35 +0000

One presumes this means the crypto she was using is pretty good if even the DoJ couldn’t break it (presumably they tried before going to court to try to force the woman to decrypt it). So what was she using?

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:06:57 +0000

I was expecting that they would rule that she had to decrypt her laptop, otherwise anyone could get away with almost anything just by encrypting their files. However, the part about the government not needing a warrant to track your location by your phone’s GPS is creepy. Big Brother is watching you.