Man imprisoned for not giving police password.

[steve-h]

Only if it where the Police (not some random member of the public), and I could prove my innocence, yes.. why wouldn't I?

You can't keep many personal things on your computer then.

All I am saying is, that the more you can hide from the police, the more someone committing a crime can legally hide from the police, and things will have to be changed if that crime is deemed unacceptable by society. Simple really..

Or the easier our right to freedom and privacy can be taken.

 

[The_TailGunner]

Try exercising the right to remain silent as a reason to deny a search warrant...

The right to remain silent means you can't be made to incriminate yourself, not that you can obstruct a reasonable request.

surely providing a password could be seen as incriminating yourself?

i mean, the police have his pc, so they are able to inspect it (theoretically)...forcing someone to hand over their password sounds like forcing someone to incriminate themselves to me...

 

[growse]

Giving encryption keys isn't incriminating yourself at all. That they can decrypt the volume doesn't mean they will automatically find something. The comparison with a physical search again comes into play, opening the door to let them in isn't incriminating yourself

As for remaining silent not being construed as anything, that's not been the case for a very long time in the UK justice system. Even the police warn you that remaining silent can count against you when they arrest you

The key part that is needed is reasonable cause to require the password (which the current law may or may not give, I'm not sure), but not being able to request the password at all is not a reasonable protection of civil liberties because of the impact it can have on the civil liberties of others.

If you lived in an impenetrable house (lets say, a bank vault), and you lost the key to the front door, is it ok for the police to arrest you and throw you in prison if they have a search warrant and can't get in?

 

[Richie]

They've got a warrant, gone into your home, wrecked it, confiscated your computer and god only knows what else.

You can be damned sure they'll bust you for anything they can to save looking completely stupid.

The man speaks the truth.... The police are humans and, like any human with power, they dont like looking like a fool...

 

[Dolph]

One time pads were impossible to break when implemented correctly.

But they were very hard to use for any great amount of information.

Works in the USA where in fact identical cases have come to court.

Actually, it's not been to the supreme yet (I'm specifically thinking of US vs Boucher) where it is likely to be overturned, given that the supreme court has upheld requirements to hand over keys to locked safes, submit to fingerprinting and so on in the past as being entirely constitutional provided there are reasonable grounds to request it.

I feel that it is unreasonable to be expected to assist the police in a case against yourself quite frankly.

Well, given the alternatives are to either ban encryption, or to require a central database of keys with controls on release by court order, I'm quite happy with the requirements at present.

Do you think you should be able to refuse to provide fingerprints if it would incriminate you?

That's a bit of a paradox. You have to implement totalitarian laws to prevent totalitarian laws.

There's nothing totalitarian about laws with reasonable cause. A totalitarian law would be one banning encryption or requiring all keys to be submitted for storage. One where they key is only requested when there is reasonable grounds for suspicion is not totalitarian in the slighted.

 

[Dolph]

If you lived in an impenetrable house (lets say, a bank vault), and you lost the key to the front door, is it ok for the police to arrest you and throw you in prison if they have a search warrant and can't get in?

Not if you can prove you've lost the key and any means to obtain another one.

Is it ok for the police to arrest you if they know you have the key somewhere but refuse to hand it over?

 

[sniffy]

Pedant.

One time pads are quite an interesting subject for this thread though, a form of encryption that is mathematically impossible to brute force thus providing perfect secrecy of data. The only problem is that it requires key files because the key is far to large to remember for anything other than a text message. This in itself provides a security problem of where to hide the pen drive.

Another issue is the generation of random characters in large volumes. Considering the key must be as long as the raw data itself this is far from trivial for data in high volumes.

Very interesting though. Here's a picture of a captured KGB one-time pad.

 

[The_TailGunner]

I feel that it is unreasonable to be expected to assist the police in a case against yourself quite frankly.

quite. its up to 'them' to prove that you've done something illegal imo. if you buried stolen money in a hole in the ground, and the only way they could prove you had stolen it was to find the money, then you could just make no comment and leave them to it. if they find the hole, you are boned. if they dont, they've no evidence to bring to a prosecution. they cant imprison you indefinitely because you won't draw a map for them...

 

[Dolph]

surely providing a password could be seen as incriminating yourself?

i mean, the police have his pc, so they are able to inspect it (theoretically)...forcing someone to hand over their password sounds like forcing someone to incriminate themselves to me...

Is providing fingerprints incriminating?

What about DNA (We'll ignore the stupid storage requirements for innocents that Labour created for this)?

What about the key to your safe?

All these things you are already compelled to provide if necessary under the law.

 

[Evilsod]

If you lived in an impenetrable house (lets say, a bank vault), and you lost the key to the front door, is it ok for the police to arrest you and throw you in prison if they have a search warrant and can't get in?

But such a situation can't exist... A physical lock can always be broken. Either you pick it or blow it to a million pieces or use a key or jedi mind tricks, you can always get into it and it will not take several weeks to do so. You can't just throw up any random comparison you care to think of.

 

[Energize]

Do you think you should be able to refuse to provide fingerprints if it would incriminate you?

I don't think that you should have to perform any action that might incriminate you, fingerprints don't fall under this because it's something that can be done by the police without you having to do anything.

There's nothing totalitarian about laws with reasonable cause. A totalitarian law would be one banning encryption or requiring all keys to be submitted for storage. One where they key is only requested when there is reasonable grounds for suspicion is not totalitarian in the slighted.

Reasonable cause being defined as virtually anything in this country.

Not if you can prove you've lost the key and any means to obtain another one.

But it's impossible to do so, absolute liability offence in effect.

 

[Dolph]

I don't think that you should have to perform any action that might incriminate you, fingerprints don't fall under this because it's something that can be done by the police without you having to do anything.

But as I've said, handing over the key to your encrypted volume isn't incriminating yourself, unless the only reason you have encrypted volume is because of illegal activity.

Reasonable cause being defined as virtually anything in this country.

There you have a point, which is why I've been careful to caveat at several points about the current law as I'm unsure of the current circumstances when the request can be made (even with Von's clarification).

But it's impossible to do so, absolute liability offence in effect.

I don't know about that. If I can see that you have accessed the volume every day for the last 3 months, the chances that you have suddenly 'forgotten' the password are pretty small.

Just so I'm clear on your position here, can you answer the following (yes or no answers):

The public should be allowed strong encryption?
The public should never under any circumstances be required to give their encryption key?
It is acceptable to use encryption to hide criminal activities?

To me, it seems you've gone for an extreme and unjustifiable position claiming civil liberties without considering the consequences for the way it could be used, when civil liberties are always limited by the infringement of the civil liberties of others... Your right to swing your fist ends when it hits my face and all that...

 

[Energize]

But as I've said, handing over the key to your encrypted volume isn't incriminating yourself, unless the only reason you have encrypted volume is because of illegal activity.

Sorry the word I meant to use was "assist".

I don't know about that. If I can see that you have accessed the volume every day for the last 3 months, the chances that you have suddenly 'forgotten' the password are pretty small.

The police have no way of telling when the volume was last accessed though. So if you forgot the password to a pen drive that you last used one year ago how can you defend yourself against the law?

Just so I'm clear on your position here, can you answer the following (yes or no answers):

The public should be allowed strong encryption?
The public should never under any circumstances be required to give their encryption key?
It is acceptable to use encryption to hide criminal activities?

To me, it seems you've gone for an extreme and unjustifiable position claiming civil liberties without considering the consequences for the way it could be used, when civil liberties are always limited by the infringement of the civil liberties of others... Your right to swing your fist ends when it hits my face and all that...

Yes.
Yes.
No. (if the crime isn't victimless)

I feel that a law that requires you to hand over encryption keys is unworkable without having unacceptable consequences for innocent people far beyond that of a guilty person getting away with something, it is always better to miss someone than to punish an innocent person.

 

[platinum87]

Act like a retard and tell them you have no idea what "encyitption" is.

 

[Tefal]

A duress password (one that would open a perfectly innocent partition) would be a much safer bet than saying you forgot. Plausible deniability, etc. Are they really going to believe you have a fully encrypted computer for which you forgot the password? "Oh, office, you've siezed my computer just as I was about to start reformatting and re-installing as I'd forgotten my extremely long password". Good luck with that.

Of course then you have the problem of never being able to prove that that was the genuine password.


As you're already guilty until you can prove your innocence in this case it seems likely that they would be able to convince a non tech savy jury that you are refusing to give them the pw.

Giving encryption keys isn't incriminating yourself at all.

The American courts decided that it was and thus came under the 5th amendment.

 

[Tefal]

They've got a warrant, gone into your home, wrecked it, confiscated your computer and god only knows what else.

You can be damned sure they'll bust you for anything they can to save looking completely stupid.

Indeed it's like searching a drug dealers house not finding anything and then charging him for possibly not telling you where any hidden drugs you didn't find are.

 

[Dolph]

Sorry the word I meant to use was "assist".

Fair enough. Much of the time, I agree with you, I think the area of dispute is that I can see times when it can be justifiable to request, and you can't.

The police have no way of telling when the volume was last accessed though. So if you forgot the password to a pen drive that you last used one year ago how can you defend yourself against the law?

I'm not saying the current law is totally correct, or that there can't be reasonable exemptions. The problem is that expecting complete blanket exemptions from criminal activity on the basis of not having to reveal a password is not reasonable either.

The current setup seems the best way (provided the reasonable cause is actually reasonable) of regulating the situation, because the other alternatives (banning encryption or allowing people to get away with criminal behaviour solely because they encrypted it) are both unacceptable.

 

[Tefal]

Fair enough. Much of the time, I agree with you, I think the area of dispute is that I can see times when it can be justifiable to request, and you can't.



I'm not saying the current law is totally correct, or that there can't be reasonable exemptions. The problem is that expecting complete blanket exemptions from criminal activity on the basis of not having to reveal a password is not reasonable either.

The current setup seems the best way (provided the reasonable cause is actually reasonable) of regulating the situation, because the other alternatives (banning encryption or allowing people to get away with criminal behaviour solely because they encrypted it) are both unacceptable.

except of course "reasonable cause" now includes "any activity not in Britons economic interests".


Tbh I'm pretty sure you can make a sound argument that you've broken that rule at least once today.

 

[gambitt]

For those comparing searching a computer with a search warrant for a premises - if it was a safe in a building that you gave a "no comment" response to when asked for the code then they could force entry. If you give "no comment" to giving your password why not the same principal? The onus is on them.

I've had my computer taken by police when I was arrested on suspicion of fraud earlier this year. It was returned to me once they decided not to charge (in worse condition I might add). They asked me for my Windows password in the interview but I gave no comment. They didn't even turn it on as far as I can tell and there are encrypted volumes on here.

 

[Dolph]

The American courts decided that it was and thus came under the 5th amendment.

Source? As I said, the main case I'm aware of hasn't been to the supreme yet...